Sunday, July 7, 2013

A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: Sleepwalkers, Chapter 3

Yes, Paul is really awake - just like he was in that old fantasy I blogged about during my Peek on Chapter 2. Now you see why I brought it up. ;-) Just don't expect Paul to rescue Shara like he did in the old fantasy. Remember, he doesn't even know where she is right now; and anyway the Shara of Sleepwalkers is a completely different person from the one I first dreamed up.

I won't tell you how Paul woke up yet, but I welcome speculations...and of course, you can have an early look at Chapter 4 on this blog next Thursday. That will explain everything - and, of course, lead to further complications. The story goes off in a completely different direction from here, and Chapter 4 is a real nail-biter.

A couple other notes:

LeFebvre is an essential part of the story. His name came to me almost out of nowhere, and for some reason, once I had it in my head, I couldn't get rid of it. I have to tell you how much that annoyed my second beta reader, the "friendly neighborhood orc." He quickly started calling LeFebvre "General Unpronounceable." ;-) Now, this next bit doesn't affect the story in any way, but I'll tell you just for the record that LeFebvre is Canadian. I figure even that famously nice country has its share of bastards.

As you know by now, Wizard's disability is muscular dystrophy. I won't pretend to be an expert on the condition, and I apologize if I got any facts about it wrong. I did some research in preparation for writing the story and decided that Wizard was most likely to have limb-girdle MD because most other classes primarily affect males. Limb-girdle causes progressive, symmetrical muscle weakness and can begin in childhood, in which cases it's more severe. I hope that any of my readers who have MD, or who know someone who does, will approve of how I've handled Wizard's character.

11 comments:

fembotheather said...

What if Shara tries to [i]rescue[/i] Paul? ;)

She is still almost as loyal to him as she is to the General, and wouldn't want to see him lose the gift... and she certainly wouldn't want to let him try to thwart Hawthorne's evil plans.

thrall said...

Hah, I really have no way to answer that one!

fembotheather said...

I'm just into spaghetti westerns and Italian crime dramas, and that's how most of those go. :)

fembotheather said...

The scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers that completely does it for me is the cave scene... when she opens her eyes, the coldness in them, and the "He's in here!" moment... ooooh!

That's kinda where I come from in any mc situation :)

Shaith said...

Having read and enjoyed that first quarter of the story thus far, I have to ask, have you given any consideration to e-publishing?

thrall said...

Hi, Shaith,

Yes, I've thought about e-publishing (and fantasized about book publishing), but I haven't given it any serious consideration yet because I assume there's a fee involved for signing on with an e-publising house. But if I'm wrong and you know more about how to do it, please share. ;-)

fembotheather said...

There are a couple of threads on the mcforum where people are sharing their epublishing experiences.

http://www.mcforum.net/yabbse/index.php?board=36.0

If anybody is considering that route, a look at those could be helpful. :)

Shaith said...

@thrall, yeah, I know diddly about actually publishing. That said, I'd throw a couple bucks to get this story in one off-line chunk :p.

As an aside, the scene between Shara and her CO over the desk was A) the hottest thing I've read in a while (just can't get it out of my head) and B) inspired a short story of my own. Coming soon (tm).

@fembotheather, glad one of was has some google-fu for thrall :p.

thrall said...

Thanks, folks. I'll check into that later. :-)

K said...

Thrall you could always talk to Jukebox I mean he's published a few anthologies of his stories (I think I own all of them) so he might be helpful in creating at least an ebook copy of your work.

On to the story, I've only read up to part three and what I've read so far is intriguing. I'm curious for how things will go and I really do want to see the next few chapters. You're doing excellent work with this story good work.

I'm just wondering after you finish this story is there a chance we'll get to see more from this setting? Or at the least something I'm curious about and would love to see would be a scene played out with the various levels of sleepwalkers I'm curious how each level would view the same scene and all.

thrall said...

Thanks for the compliments! I know Jukebox is self-publishing paperbacks, but I think e-publishing might be a better option for me. I'll have to check into it once I finish polishing "Sleepwalkers." I still need to do a little more work to Chapters 10 and 11.

I've already planned out Angela and Reynaldo's backstory in my head, so I'll probably write that up at some point. It'll be shorter than "Sleepwalkers" but have more explosions. ;-P

Your idea about showing one scene from the point of view of different levels is intriguing, and something I hadn't thought of. I did, however, write a couple of scenes from a Level Two's point of view. You'll get to those soon, and they'll give you a good idea of how the world looks to a lower-level sleepwalker.