Draculas (53 page)

Could I get a best guess of when you guys could get Joe and I these 1st round of chapters? Sorry for the delay in getting this going, but I think we're ready to roll now. Should be a blast.

Peace!

Blake

* * *

Okay, I just did a fer-real LOL. Mortimer crouched, then leapt after them, soaring five meters into the breezeway. As the doors slid closed, Jenny heard the most God-awful screaming and Benny the Clown shouting, "No! I'm getting bitten! Again!"

Paul

* * *

I just turned the gist of this into a Word file ("Timeline") for the drop box so it will be easier to access.

Haven't read it yet.

This comes at a pretty good time for me. Looking forward to digging in.

Paul

August 16, 2010

Thanks, Blake! Looks like you've been working your ass off on this!

I'm having dinner with Mr. Konrath on Wednesday, and we're going to work out the relationship between our dating characters. So I'll probably have my chapter done shortly after that, probably on Friday.

Jeff

August 17, 2010

This is a really great opening.

By my count, here's who's contaminated by the end of what's written:

Mortimer

EMT (bitten)

Oasis (bitten)

Oasis's mom (dead)

Benny (dead)

Dr. Lanz (tasted bloody foam)

Softball #1 (assumed wounded?)

Softball #2 (assumed wounded?)

(I added a line to the bottom of pg 16 to cover Lanz tasting some of Mort's bloody foam.)

I'll have Winslow do triage and Lanz start treating who he can. The softballers will die which will mean 4 in the morgue. I can bring a few more victims in from the floors to raise the total contaminated to 10. Since Lanz's inoculum will be the smallest, I'll make him the last to turn at the end of the chapter.

Any additions, suggestions, corrections?

Paul

* * *

Paul this sounds great...

Re: dead v. wounded...what about having the softballers massively wounded. For some reason, overweight vampires in softball uniforms strike me as pretty terrifying. But if Mortimer could have killed four others elsewhere and they're brought to the ER, that would raise the dead count to 6 and make for an appropriately loud number of dead in the morgue lockers.

Additionally, I would hit these points in your chapter for setup purposes...Mortimer is missing now in the hospital. You might mention Lanz seeing Randall limping off into the hospital carrying a chainsaw (love this image). Joe's Jenny chapter and Jeff's Randall chapter, which directly follow this one, can deal with Jenny trying to stop Randall but by God he's gonna take care of this. An important moment b/c they'll be separated and trying to get back together I would think. I would end this chapter with Lanz turning and maybe noticing others turning. One character we should keep track of is Shanna. Perhaps Lanz, still fighting the change in himself, scares her and she takes off. And if you could have Lanz send Winslow off to the morgue to make sure the dead were properly stowed away, that will set up my next chapter. Can't wait to read this!

I'll start outlining the outbreak chapter to send around.

Blake

August 18, 2010

Spitballing here:

Is Mort going to be the alpha dracula, with some influence over the others? If so, Lanz, with his ego, might want to challenge that after things get rolling. (After all, it's
my
hospital.) Might be a good plot complication - everything's going the draculas' way when there's an attempted coup.

Paul

* * *

I like Lanz trying to become alpha dracula, but let's remember these things are feral with only rudimentary thought processes--think Matheson's
Born of Man and Woman
, but not as smart.

I just did a minor polish on what we have so far, tweaking and fixing some repetitive words. I'm meeting with Jeff tonight to talk about our characters' interactions.

I don't think this will take as much coordination as Blake does. As long as the major beats are down (when the cops come, when the electricity goes out, etc.) we should be able to write four relatively self-contained stories.

Mine will be Jenny the nurse searching for her ex-husband, Randy, and trying to save as many survivors as possible. She'll start with the pediatric wing. Her nemesis is Oasis, the girl.

Paul is writing for Clayton, Shanna, and Lanz. Clayton's goals will be to find Shanna, and kill as many draculas as possible. This is the end-of-the-world scenario he's been preparing for since his dad built a bomb shelter and taught him about survival.

Blake is doing the pregnant couple, in the maternity ward. It would make sense that Moorecook wants to make a dracula army, but babies wouldn't really play a part in that. So he and his brood would use infants for food. I'd guess that Blake's heroes would try to prevent that.

Jeff's lumberjack, Randall, will be searching for Jenny. Perhaps a side quest will have him trying to turn the electricity back on--he's a handyman-type. He'll eventually have a confrontation with Clayton, which should be an important scene because if either of them spill any blood during their tussle, the draculas will sniff them out.

I'm thinking 15k words each. We could conceivably finish our sections by the end of the month, then string it together. Remember to write in your own named files, not in the DRACULAS 1.3 file.

This is going to be fun. And let's pile on the Gran Guignol. This is the anti-Twilight, and a chance to really let loose our inner gorehounds.

Joe

* * *

Paul -- I was going to say pretty much what Joe said--let's try it but make sure we keep these draculas on a single-minded, low-functioning level. Mort is the head dracula, since he was bitten by the original skull and as a result will undergo some interesting changes the more yummy blood he gulps down. But let's see where the power struggle takes us. I'll keep an eye on Lanz' progression through the hospital as you write him and we'll have our draculas collide.

Blake

* * *

As I said, just spitballing - if it don't stick to the wall, we leave in on the floor.

Paul

* * *

All - I just dropped the morgue scene in chapter 7 into the box. I was thinking that chapter could handle Winslow's pov, along with all our draculas on the loose, so feel free to add Oasis, Lanz, and Benny the Clown pov's into that word doc.

Blake

August 19, 2010

As I'm writing I find I need basic info -- like where we are and last names. (unless I missed something.)

Where IS Blessed Crucifixion?

I gave Jenny "Bolton" as a placeholder surname. I'd guess Randall's is the same.

Kurt Lanz

Clay Theel

Mortimer Moorecook

Nurse Winslow

what about Shanna?

Paul

* * *

Sorry...that went out prematurely. I spotted Durango in chapter 1 (long time since I read it). But people often refer to each other by last names, so...

Paul

* * *

Paul, effin' loved your scene. Black humor, great characters, A few quick suggestions.

1. Can the paramedic also say, "I need a tetnus shot. And rabies. And antiserum. You see that goddamn guy? Fucking give me every shot you've got."

2. Jenny tells him "I'm waiting for my ex-husband." Randall is coming back with a chainsaw, to escort Jenny to the pediatrics ward to protect the kids. That is going to be Randy and Jen's story arc--barricading themselves in the children's wing--and I think Jen should think of it almost immediately. Maybe she should insist to Lanz to evacuate the hospital, and he says something like, "Evacuate where? We're in the middle of Bumblefuck, Hickville. I'm supposed to march 234 patients out into the woods?"

That gives us a patient number, reinforces that they can't get away, and tells Lanz where Jenny will be when he becomes a dracula and decided to eject her himself.

Joe

* * *

And just to clarify:

No one writes or edits or corrects anyone else's section without specific permission from the writer. We'll all do a final edit when we put this together. But for the first few drafts, let's all make suggestions, but no rewriting.

And when you do a second draft, save it numerically. Paul 1.0, Paul 1.1, Paul 1.2, etc. Get used to doing a new draft every time you make a change or an addition. We'll all be reading each other, and may need to go back to earlier drafts and lift stuff from them. Keeping the drafts separate will make it easier.

Joe

* * *

I should be able to fling my first chapter into the dropbox sometime tomorrow, with another one by Sunday. Thus far, I've had a lot of fun justifying the preposterous idea that Randall is actually going to limp out of the hospital to get a chainsaw from his truck. He acts impulsively, realizes quickly that he's acting impulsively, but refuses to back down from a task once he's started, even as he thinks "Y'know, the hospital security probably isn't going to want to let me back inside with a chainsaw in my hands." This is a large part of why he and Jenny are no longer married.

Jeff

* * *

Nice! Looking forward.

Blake

* * *

Chap 4 is pretty much done. It ends with Oasis and the EMT becoming draculas and killing the LPN while Lanz runs and hides in the supply room. Where those two go from there I don't know.

I don't have a sense for what Shanna is doing in all this.

As requested, I added some Lanz to Blake's Chap. 7. He's still in the supply room. Here is where he thinks he can beat it but fails miserably -- he breaks out and starts chomping. I think Randall has to come through the ER while Lanz has locked himself away.

Paul

* * *

Paul - can't wait to read your new stuff. Love that Lanz runs and hides again.

Re: Shanna, I would say it's totally up to you since Clayton Theel is going to come into the hospital looking for her, which I suppose is his first motivation - find Shanna. Perhaps she needs a short chapter where she has lingered in the ambulance, trying to pull herself together, then walks into the ER when all hell has broken loose. Maybe Moorecook chases her out into another part of the hospital? I guess it really depends on what you're going to do with Shanna and Clayton for the core of your story. Do they have a phone conversation in the ambulance while he's on his way where she pretty much breaks up with him? Pushing him to search for her even harder?

Joe and Jeff have figured out how their characters are going to interact, mine are probably going to be in a vacuum until the very end, a pregnant couple fighting for their life in the maternity ward. What are you thinking of for Clayton's journey through hell? Maybe we can find a way to have him intersect with my characters?

Blake

* * *

I think we need a scene where the draculas tell everybody in the hospital that they've won the lottery, and as the people walk one-by-one into a private room to collect their winnings, the draculas kill them!

Jeff

* * *

BRILLIANT!

Paul

* * *

I think Shanna outside the hospital doors (cell reception is better there) calling Clay is a good start. She can call off the trip to the gun show. Their relationship is not working...etc. Besides she's too upset about Mortimer's collapse.

I think we should have all sorts of character meet-ups. Randall and Lanz have certainly got issues.

I see Clay as like the Terminator when it comes to killing draculas...until his ammo runs out.

Paul

August 20, 2010

Agreed, with the caveat that we can fix typos without consultation. I read Paul's chapter 4 last night and added a period to one sentence and closed out a quote that needed to be.

Blake

* * *

Joe thinks I'm just crazy and anal (which I'm not refuting) but I don't think it's a terrible idea to have a working hospital map that we can refer to to track character movement.

http://www.iredellmemorial.org/guide.aspx?id=922

This is the hospital from the town where I grew up in North Carolina . Services the same community size as Durango (45 thousand in the surrounding counties) but I like the floor plan much better (more stories). I'm not saying we have to stick to this religiously, but I think it may be good to consult. I have to have an idea of the space my characters inhabit, it also prods my creativity, and when I'm not familiar with an environment like this (thank God) I need a little help. Obviously, my characters will be based in the maternity ward. Joe's will be in pediatrics. Jeff's is trying to get the power going or something so he can communicate with Jenny. Not sure what Clayton and Shanna are doing yet but my sense is Clayton's like a kid in a candy shop, a real-life video game where he gets to play with all his toys and he's going to be fucking blasting through the place until the ammo runs out.

If everyone likes this, I'll throw it in the dropbox.

Blake

* * *

That hospital is too big, methinks. I was thinking two hundred patients, tops.

Almost done with the morgue scene, then I'll work on Jenny's scene.

Joe

* * *

It's only a 247-bed hospital, so if there are 100-150 patients during the outbreak, doesn't that seem about right?

Blake

* * *

We can always lop off the 5th floor, too. I think four stories is about right.

Blake

* * *

Also, to make putting this together easier, we need to break up our own individual sections and chapters.