Draculas F Paul Wilson

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Clay and Shanna get to the parking lot. Clay leaves Shanna with the media--they do arrive because they were called--but Clay is honor bound to go back in to help Randall. But first, he proposes to her.

Clay, on his way to Jenny and Randall, encounters Adam and Stacie. He helps to kill Oasis, and they join Randall to save Jenny.

They do save Jenny, but Randall gets bitten. Jenny refuses to let Clay kill him, and Clay agrees, but will be ready when Randall turns. They decide the way to survive is to get onto the roof and flag down the TV helicopter circling the hospital.

They're chased to the roof. Clay is down to his last few rounds. Randall becomes a dracula. But his love for Jenny is so strong he doesn't attack her--he attacks all the draculas coming after them. He wipes out a bunch in a killing frenzy, but is mortally wounded.

Clay can either die heroically, or else get off the roof and wind up with Shanna for a happy ending.

Adam dies heroically, but gets his wife and child into the TV helicopter, which lands on the helipad on the roof.

The army arrives. Jenny stays with a dying Randall on the roof. Just as they're surrounded by draculas, the army blows up the hospital.

A young, bloody man survives. He's Mortimer, who changed back into something resembling a human--the real Count Dracula who is now going to turn the world. This is a reverse Night of the Living Dead ending. Rather than the rescuers killing the hero, the rescuers save the villain.

I want the media and the army to come. There's no need to keep them at bay. The secluded area, and the local cops dead, mean it will take some time for the army to show up.

We've only got about 3000 words each to write with our characters, then the slam bang ending where we can divvy up the final scenes.

How does that sound?

Joe

* * *

I'm okay with this, and I do like the finale happening on the hospital roof...Paul does this address your concerns with the isolation, which I also had from the beginning? I'm up for a conference call if we need to flesh this out some more.

Blake

* * *

Here's what Blake and I have been thinking:

Jenny is trapped in a storage closet. Randall is going to fight his way back to her. I'd like him to confront Clay, and for them to have a physical tussle. (I think they should stop fighting when Randall quotes a line from the movie ALIENS, as I mentioned in a previous email.) Clay could agree to help Randall get Jenny, but first he needs to get Shanna safe.

Okay, I'll have to rewrite the stairwell scene. I can have C & S forced upstairs by the draculas and bump into Randall and the kid. (Speaking of the kid, it would be cool to have her transform into a dracula while she's on Randall's back. He notices these little teeth dropping on his shoulder...)

Randall deals with Benny and his chainsaw. Jenny deals with Lanz. Adam and Stacie deal with Oasis.

Okay. I'll have him pull out his MM-1 semi-auto grenade launcher (a la Dogs of War) loaded with 40mm buckshot rounds instead of grenades, and go back in.

Clay, on his way to Jenny and Randall, encounters Adam and Stacie. He helps to kill Oasis, and they join Randall to save Jenny.

Okay.

They're chased to the roof. (Can we put this off?)

Clay is down to his last few rounds. Randall becomes a dracula. But his love for Jenny is so strong he doesn't attack her--he attacks all the draculas coming after them. He wipes out a bunch in a killing frenzy, but is mortally wounded. (Have this happen in the hospital?)

Clay can either die heroically, or else get off the roof and wind up with Shanna

for a happy ending.

We don't need no stinking happy ending. A wounded Clay will die creating an explosive diversion for Jenny's escape to the roof.

Adam dies heroically, but gets his wife and child into the TV helicopter, which lands on the helipad on the roof.

The army arrives. Jenny stays with a dying Randall on the roof. Just as they're surrounded by draculas, the army blows up the hospital.

I want the media and the army to come. There's no need to keep them at bay. The secluded area, and the local cops dead, mean it will take some time for the army to show up.

Paul

* * *

The media, etc. showing up is what I'd expect, so that alleviates my believability concerns.

Looks like Shanna is the only survivor. She can lead the charge into the next book. I'm already visualizing her visiting Clay's father, him teaching her to shoot...

Paul

* * *

Nice! I love it...just a thought, What if both Stacie and Adam die, but a young man offers to save their baby at the end, and they let him. We of course, are interested and instantly sympathetic with this guy, and only in the last sentence/paragraph of the book, do we realize the young man is Mort, walking out of the hospital with a baby in his arms, a protege who will help him conquer the world.

Blake

* * *

If you need to kill Clay, I understand. But he's probably the most fun character in the book. I wouldn't be adverse to having him live. Or maybe doing the classic: He's probably dead, Shanna cries, then she sees him tangled up in the fire escape when he jumped off the roof.

Jeff and I have already discussed Jenny and Randall dying. Stacie should survive, with her baby, but Blake and I discussed killing Adam.

I love the idea of the kid becoming a dracula on Randall's back.

Joe

* * *

I'm not adverse to Clay living, but I had such a neat death idea: He's got 2 high explosive 40mm grenades. They're designed not to explode within 90 feet of the launcher. He can modify that. I see him wounded, bleeding, luring a whole bunch of draculas into some sort of enclosed area and detonating both, turning himself and them into meat confetti.

Paul

* * *

First of all, "Meat Confetti" needs to be the name of a thrash metal band.

If Adam is mortally wounded, Clay could teach Adam how to set them off. Being a man of God, Adam would rather die than become an unholy abomination like Randall had become. And let's say his wife also died. So Clay could give him a lesson, then do a dramatic escape with the baby.

Then when Clay makes it to safety, he (inadvertently) hands the baby off to Mortimer, who is now a young man (and flirting with Shanna, as he'd wanted to in the beginning.)

Joe

* * *

I LIKE IT!

Paul

* * *

For Jeff: I put up a first draft of the Clay and Randall scene. Hit that sucker and do what you want with Randall's dialogue or whatever.

Oddly, I couldn't get them to fight. Maybe you can. They just trashed talked for me. Might've got to fighting if the Aliens references hadn't come up. (I found a couple of colorful ones.)

Paul

* * *

I won't be able to read it until this evening, but Randall is in such lousy physical shape by that point that it would completely make sense that he'd resort to trash talk over violence when dealing with Clay. Especially since Clay has guns.

Jeff

* * *

Loved the Clay and Randall scene, Paul.

Jeff, to get Randall to that point, he's gotta ditch the wheelchair dracula, and get the circuit breaker back up.

Joe

* * *

Did I miss the "Jenny on the intercom" scene? I'm going to use that during the Randall vs. Wheelchair Dracula scene.

Jeff

* * *

I'm doing the "Jenny uses the intercom scene" right now. Her message is:

"Randall, I'm still in pediatrics with the children. I need you to...oh my God!"

This will be while the lights are still out.

Joe

September 10, 2010

Since Jenny is using the Intercom with the electricity still off, I see no reason for Randall to put the lights back on. We can finish the novel in the dark. Scarier, more suspenseful.

Get your flashlights, lighters, and torches...

Joe

* * *

I've added Clay and Randall 3.3 to Paul's folder.

Jeff

* * *

A new file up -- Just shy of 3k in length. Clay gets Shanna to safety, meets a TV crew there, offs the dead staties as they become draculas, gives Shanna the ring, hauls out his MM-1, and heads back inside.

Paul

* * *

Sorry, that was just shy of 2.3k

Paul

* * *

Fuckin' A Paul Wilson. Awesome scene.

I've got a Jenny/Lanz back and forth going on that will probably be the grossest scene in the book, then she'll be all ready to be rescued. She also has four kids with her, who should also be rescued.

Clay's gonna have his hands full.

Joe

* * *

Jeff 5.0...is done.

I'm going to do another short Randall chapter where he's stumbling through the hospital, really out of it (which lets us "cheat" the timeframe a bit because it's not specific about how long he's wandering around) and then I'll link it up to the Randall Meets Clay scene.

Jeff

* * *

All - can't wait to read the new pages...I've been quiet this week b/c I've been trying to wrap up edits on AMERICAN GENOCIDE but I should be back into DRACULAS Saturday or Sunday.

Blake

* * *

Awesome scene, Jeff.

I'm guessing Randall will get stuck at the stairs because of his injury, and have to crawl, and the legless dracula will be right behind him in a death race. Won't be so funny anymore when the dracula is closing the gap.

You also need to do a Benny scene where he finds gas. I did some research, and a two cycle engine like a chainsaw should be able to run on isopropyl alcohol. In other words, rubbing alcohol, which is everywhere.

Benny would know this because his chainsaw juggling buddy used to also spit fire, and used rubbing alcohol to both blow flames and power his saws.

Blake - No worries about being behind. Take as long as you need with American Genocide. Because we've replaced you with Brian Keene.

Joe

* * *

Joe, you're a treasure.

Blake

* * *

So let's bury him!

Jeff

* * *

Free sample is live...

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Chapters-Upcoming-Release-ebook/dp/B0042ANZBU

Joe

* * *

Sweet!

When I tried to download the sampler, my Kindle went dead. 100% blank screen, flipping the power switch did nothing--dead.

Fortunately, a manual reset worked, but clearly DRACULAS is a book of evil.

Jeff

* * *

Honestly, no shit, it crashed my Kindle PC too. WTF?

Blake

* * *

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B0042AMD2M

Go ahead and tell the world. We're going into full-on promo mode.

Joe

September 11, 2010

My Jenny/Lanz scene is almost finished, then I'll be caught up to Paul. Jeff has one more scene to get him up to the point where he can meet with Clay.

Blake--you've got some catching up to do. If you haven't started it yet, let me do the Wolkenstein explanation, and you concentrate on Stacie and Adam and Oasis.

Or if you're really gung-ho about Wolkenstein, go for it. We can work around you until you're ready.

I'm thinking this whole thing will max out around 70k words. Then we'll each have a shot at editing it.

My wife has read what we have so far, and she couldn't tell who wrote what section. Which is pretty impressive, since she's read all of us. This reads seamlessly.

She loved it, BTW. But the one thing she says is lacking is suspense. She thinks it's a lot of fun, but could be scarier.

We're all in a dark hospital right now, so we might want to use this setting to stretch out the tension a bit. I also anticipate going back into the manuscript and adding a bit more atmosphere and creepiness.

That said, this is obviously a lot more like ALIENS than ALIEN, and I'm fine with that. I think readers will dig it.

Joe

* * *

I've lost track of time. What time of day is it?

Paul

* * *

In the book, or in your personal life?

In the book, I believe it's around 9pm.

In your life, it's 11:18, right about time for your first nap of the day. Your name is Dr. Wilson, and you also write books.

Joe

* * *

I made way more progress last night than I thought I would, and will be finished with my edits by tonight, which means I'm back on Draculas tomorrow and should catch up pretty quickly. I'm happy to do the Shanna scene, and I'll do it first, but if it's slowing anything down, feel free.

Blake

* * *

I left the end of Clay 3.0 open for that. It can then be connected to Clay & Randall.

Paul

* * *

A non-gory scene with our lovable clown.

Jeff

* * *

Nice, Jeff. Though, in total candor, I'm not sure if we want to step away from the story for a full-fledged flashback. What do you guys think?

I just wrote a scene with Lanz that actually made me a bit nauseous. I tried to keep it clinical, because he is a doctor, but it ranks up there with the grossest things I've ever written...

Joe

* * *

I thought about that, but I think we have to embrace the sheer absurdity of the "clown gasses up chainsaw with rubbing alcohol" concept. It's a quick enough scene that it doesn't really disrupt the pacing, and it provides a "quiet" moment in a book that has few, and Benny-in-flashback gets to speak for the reader who is saying "C'mon, gimme a break!"

Jeff

* * *

I revised this to a night scene.

If Maria wants suspense, I'll try to give her some. I'm sending Clay back up to the 4th floor (that's where Randall and pediatrics are, right?) Any problem if the emergency lights in this hall are knocked out so it's DARK -- I mean, pitch black?

Paul

* * *

I might be wrong--I think pediatrics is on the third floor. I went off the idea that Clay found Benny on the third floor. So now Randall is going up to the fourth floor to find a different route back to pediatrics, where he'll meet Clay and link to your chapter, and then he'll continue back down to the third floor to reunite with Jenny.

Jeff

* * *

@ Jeff - I like the Benny flashback, and see your point. We'll pop it into the manuscript and see how it reads when everything is put together. A brief respite is fine. But if it throws off the pace, it may have to be done as interior monologue. What do you other guys think?

@ Paul - Pitch black is cool. The draculas could have knocked out lights. Clay would have a Maglite, no doubt. He'd probably have those spot lights that mount on gun barrels. Laser sights too. Though Clay might think laser sights are cheating...

Joe

* * *

Okay, I'll have Clay go to the 4th floor, do some suspense in the dark, then realize peds is on the 3rd and go down.

Where's Obstetrics? Eventually Clay has to meet up with the minister so he can show him how to off himself and take a load of draculas with him.

Paul

* * *

Okay, this one's done, and links directly to Paul's chapter where Randall and Clay meet.

Jeff

* * *

Great chapter, Jeff. Love the political correctness Randall grapples with.

Here's what I'm thinking as historical context:

Oswald von Wolkenstein was a member of the Order of the Dragon in the early 1400s. The Order was supposedly formed to fight the Turks and the Ottoman Empire.

But what if it was formed to fight draculas? Members of the order were called Draconists.

The black death raged throughout the 1400s, Today, historians and scholars believe it was the bubonic and pneumonic plague that caused it, but there has been no absolute evidence to support this hypothesis, only educated guesses.

So what if the black death caused dracula-like symptoms in some of its hosts?

Black death ravages the world, but when people with certain genetic precursors are exposed to it (like certain royal bloodlines) it mutates its victims into draculas. The Draconists had family members affected in this way, including Oswald.

The Draconists, out of self-preservation, manage to kill all of the mutations and keep it under wraps, even though it became the source for vampire and werewolf legends. But Oswald, rather than kill his diseased son, kept him chained up in the cellar.

The son escapes, goes on a killing spree, ending up in Transylvania and causing a dracula epidemic.

Vlad III of Wallachia (Vlad the Imapaler), to save his country in the 1450s, realizes the easiest, fastest, and safest hands-off way to kill draculas is to impale them on large stakes, where they'll eventually starve to death, unable to climb off.

Oswald's son is caught by Vlad, who beheaded him. It was Oswald's son's head found in the field by the farmer in present day.

Mortimer is a direct line from Wolkenstein. He's got the bloodline, and the genetic precursor. At the beginning, we can put a draconis ouroborus on his robe as a lapel insignia.

This ties in Stoker's Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, the Draconist order, the black death, and the source of monster legends, and wraps it all up in a neat little historically possible package.

Joe

* * *

BTW- the Draconis ouroboros symbol is a dragon creature eating its own tail. Much like our draculas eat themselves.

Joe

* * *

Verrrrrrrrry cool.

Where does it work into the story? Are we going to weave in bits and pieces throughout?

Jeff

* * *

Blake is putting it in, when Shanna is explaining to Clay what possibly caused this.

Joe

* * *

To make the timeframe work, I think Clay needs to reunite with Randall =after= Randall has saved Jenny. Randall has had enough solo adventures, so I'm going to take him straight to pediatrics, and his final battle with Benny should be when Jenny (and the kids!) are there. She has a grudge against the clown, too, so they can fight him together. They kill Benny, but right before that, Randall gets bitten, so Clay reaches pediatrics just as they're dealing with that unfortunate fact.

Joe, are you working on any new Jenny stuff? I can pick up where you left off, but I don't want to step on your toes (since everybody knows you type with your toes--the pictures Blake sent me are frickin' disgusting!).

Jeff

* * *

Cool. If a point comes up where it makes sense to do this, I'll have somebody try to explain the backstory to Randall, who has trouble following the details and says "You know what, this late in the game I really don't give a shit where these things came from!"

Jeff

* * *

Right now, Jenny is killing Lanz. When she's done, Benny can show up and Randall can burst in and save her.

Joe

* * *

Okay, how about this:

Jenny is fighting Lanz. Kills him. Benny shows up and chainsaws through the door.

Randall rescues her. Tearful reunion. Then they're surrounded by draculas. Randall fights off a bunch with his saw, but he's outnumbered. Gets bitten.

Clay comes in with the boom boom, clears the path. Threatens to kill Randall. Jenny won't let him. They go, with the kids, to the roof because Clay thinks he can flag down the tv helicopter.

Along the way they meet up with Adam, Stacie, and the baby.

Army shows up. Begins to massacre draculas, causing all of them to flee--running up the stairs. Everyone on the roof.

Randall begins to change. He and Jenny express love. Randall becomes a dracula and starts kicking ass.

Clay gets the kids on the helicopter, the baby, and then Stacie is killed and Adam wounded.

Randall is wounded and dying. Jenny stays with him.

Clay gives Adam the grenades, leaps onto the skids as the helicopter takes off (Yippe ki-yaa, mother fucker), and loses his grip and falls off the building.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she's surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion. Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn't on it. She weeps. Meets another survivor. Young guy. He's calm and a bit flirtatious.

Clay climbs out of a tree, his arm and several ribs broken. "Jumping onto a helicopter is a fuckall lot harder than it is in the movies." Reunites with Jenny.

Survivor gets baby. It's Mort.

What say you all?

Joe

* * *

Also, my Jenny/Lanz section topped 5000 words. Which means that we've written about 50k words so far. I'm figuring it'll go 15k more, maybe 20k when we go back and add a bit more setting and atmosphere. 70k is a respectable word count for a book like this.

Joe

* * *

Who is this guy on your blog saying that hospitals don't use cell phone jammers? He isn't right is he?

Blake

* * *

Upon further study, he may be right. But that's a quick fix. We used that device because we didn't want people calling for help, but now it doesn't matter because help is coming anyway.

I'll kill it in the sample and reupload the file.

Joe

* * *

Just changed the jammer in the sample and the main manuscript, and uploaded it to Kindle. At the beginning of the sample I had a disclaimer saying it was uncorrected proofs, so it won't matter. We owe that guy a beer.

Joe

* * *

Apparently I was misinformed, and hospitals don't use cell phone jammers. I changed it in the sample and the final manuscript.

This is actually a good development. Now Shanna can call Clay when he goes back into the hospital to help Randall, so they can have a tense goodbye scene on the phone. Randall can also call the TV station and tell them to bring the helicopter to the roof.

The point of not wanting cell phones is because we didn't want the cops to come early. But they came early anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Joe

* * *

I researched cell jammers for Cherry Bomb and could swear they were used on airplanes. But apparently I was wrong, because if they were used it would crash the plane. My bad.

The measure of a man is not only being able to admit when he's wrong, but being grateful to those who point it out.

BTW, I think all of you are consistently wrong about everything.

Joe

* * *

You spelled "Killborn" wrong on all of your books.

Jeff

* * *

You smell like cheese.

Joe

* * *

The Jenny/Lanz section is done. Now Randall needs to save her, and quick.

Joe

* * *

American Genocide is off to my agent...it's draculas time!

Blake

September 12, 2010

I think I'm all right with this...question tho...need to iron out the whole helicopter helping out thing. If the Army is going to blow the place, would they even allow a helicopter to go near a contaminated site. Not saying it can't happen, we just need to establish how it does.

Blake

* * *

Joe and I have been thinking that the only thing Draculas is missing are Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew-style illustrations. 5 of them, and the scenes we want to do are:

Benny the Clown being attack in the ER over the caption: "Oh no, I'm getting bitten...again!"

Oh God. Is that a...flamingo?

the wheelchair dracula chasing Randall

Oasis getting ready to munch on Grammy Ann and asking for her red candy

Clayton Theel and Shanna, heavily armed, kicking ass and taking names.

The artist, Carl (who did the killer cover) would do these for $XXXX apparently. Any objections, suggestions?

This would be the style:

http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8345169e469e20120a7544a31970b-pi

Blake

* * *

Dunno how I missed the birth scene, Blake. Beautifully done.

Joe

* * *

Thanks. Just finished reading Jenny v. Lanz...truly vile, brother. I must have grimaced at least a dozen times. Self amputation...eeewwww. Great scene. I'm not sure if it should be cut up or presented as one long sequence.

Jeff and Paul - read your new stuff too. bravo. Excellent work. We're hitting a really nice balance of horror and laughs. I think if we can tease out a little more suspense in the final polish this thing will be firing on all cylinders. Something truly horrific, truly scary, and truly funny. A tall order, but we're getting there.

Blake

* * *

I like the scene. I think it's necessary to establish how Benny knows to use alcohol (also rounds out his backstory a little bit). It is jarring tho. I think we'll have to see how it hangs with the other scenes on a final review.

Blake

* * *

It's almost 6k words, plus it's really intense, so I think we should divide the scene up. There's so much going on at once, readers will want to check in with other characters.

* * *

Still up? I'm almost done with a 1st pass at Shanna's explanation.

Blake

* * *

Shanna dracula backstory Paul 4.0 is up...still needs a little polishing but it's getting there. I love how all these draculas myths are rolled into one package that kind of makes sense if you don't stare at it too hard. Paul, I renamed your new files just to make it clear what's what in advance of putting everything into the big manuscript documents at the end of the week.

Blake

* * *

Jeff 6.1 -- great scene -- absurd and terrifying -- and smooth segue into Clay vs Randall. I added that Randall spots Clay with a frightened looking woman, since Shanna's in the next scene. Hope I didn't throw you a curve by giving Randall a gun. It's got only 4 shots, but if it messes your plans, I can go back and have him refuse it.

Jenny 1.0 this is one intense piece. In a way it's already broken up by shifts in POV.

brain defibrillation -- resetting Lanz's thought processes like ECT -- very clever.

A couple of quibbles:

Randall was a rock. He was also one of the most reassuring, nurturing people she'd ever known -- this doesn't jibe with his history of drunken rampages -- doesn't sound like a guy she'd divorce. Maybe now that he's stopped drinking, she realizes he's once again the guy she fell in love with.

and the Tea Party was populated by morons. -- gratuitous and political, no? Definitely has its share of morons, but I've got some loyal readers involved in the movement (my Ron Paul contingent) and they're anything but.

Stacie 4.0 -- very moving; the turn at the end is unsettling. (I changed vernex to vernix)

Paul

* * *

Nice. A painless, concise explanation, but is it done?

"He carries the virus that makes the vaccine."

I hear Clay saying. "Vaccine? You mean like a shot?"

Paul

* * *

Re: draculas illustrations: No objections whatsoever. That sounds like a fantastic idea.

Jeff

* * *

You're right, Paul, it was political and gratuitous. I thought it spoke to her character. But I'll cut it. What's another group of people I can call stupid that won't annoy fans that Jenny would dislike?

As for the Randall drinking thing, good catch. I think we can compromise. I want Jenny to leave him because he's not the brightest bulb, and she wants more. That could include him hitting the bars and getting arrested for fighting and drunk and disorderly. But I don't see him as the type who would ever be violent toward her, even if he has a violent streak.

So we can have Clay arrest him at various bars around town, and have him know Jenny because she kept bailing his dumb ass out. That means I'll add his drinking problem to Jenny's list of things she can't stand about him, and Clay can feel sorry for her that she has had to put up with such a loser.

Joe

* * *

Nice job on the infodump scene, Blake. I agree it needs to be smoothed out--it's too on the nose.

Can I take a crack at it?

Joe

* * *

The Klan? The Taliban?

As for the Randall drinking thing, good catch. I think we can compromise. I want Jenny to leave him because he's not the brightest bulb, and she wants more.

Shanna's problem with Clay is she wants more too. Too similar?

That could include him hitting the bars and getting arrested for fighting and drunk and disorderly. But I don't see him as the type who would ever be violent toward her, even if he has a violent streak.

Well, I never saw him being violent to her, just breaking stuff.

How about he was a sweet guy when they married; the drink got control and brought out his dark side. She couldn't take it anymore and dumped him. It's a nice arc for her to go from thinking he's still the jerk she divorced when they meet in the ER, to slowly realize that he's been serious about sobering up and that he's back to the sweet guy she married. (Yeah, I split an infinitive - sue me.)

Paul

* * *

Yeah, that's stronger. Jeff and I can tweak his drinking problem in the rewrite, make it more of a main issue between them.

Then the fact that he cut the back of his leg could be Jenny believing he was drinking on the job, when it really was just stupidity.

And the reason he could have begun drinking is because he felt inferior to his smarter wife.

Jeff? Work for you?

Joe

* * *

Yep, that completely works.

Are we going to add a disclaimer to the book saying that people who read the free sample are required to start over from the beginning? :)

Jeff

* * *

Please, take a crack at sanding out the rough edges. What I really love (and maybe you work on) is the idea that because Mort is from this bloodline, and because he essentially infected himself with the same strand that hit Oswald, the virus can manifest differently in him. He contains the cure within himself, only it's a cure that makes him a functioning (and infinitely more terrifying dracula). This is getting above my medical expertise pay grade, so hopefully Paul can make sure I haven't completely fucked up my basic understanding of virus and antibody. And yes, Paul, I think the scene definitely goes on with Clay saying "You mean a shot?" Please feel free to tweak any of the dialogue I assigned to him.

Blake

* * *

I uploaded a couple of pages of Clay 5.0 -- a scene done purely for visual impact -- but I don't know where to go from there. Does Clay reconnect with Randall next or does he blunder into the Adam-Stacie story? Eventually he has to help Adam end it all.

Maybe I'll write him setting up Adam's farewell scene and work on the timing and connections later. I'm on a roll here and don't want to lose momentum.

Paul

* * *

Paul - I'm writing my Adam scene right now. Not sure if he connects with Randall first (I'm thinking not), but Clayton does blunder into my story. He can be on the third floor, near the birthplace, (trying to find a way to the roof?) and hear screams coming from the maternity ward. He busts in and sees my minister out in the hallway fighting with Oasis (and losing). saves the day. Stacie by this point will be in bed, hooked up to a blood transfusion, and he can help them get out of there. Nurse Herrick will be turning into a draculas by this point too (Oasis bit her) so maybe he can put her down as well. There's also a single mother on the wing who just gave birth to a baby dracula (oasis has been on a tear). If you want to work that scene up, I'll work on Adam going to get blood for his wife, and lay the groundwork of Oasis running rampant through the birthplace while he's away. Sound good?

Blake

* * *

Let me see what you do and I'll jump in. But you do plan to have Adam bitten, right?

Paul

* * *

For sure.

And here's my outline plan...

Adam 4.0 (almost done) will end with him leaving the mat ward to go get blood.

Herrick 1.0 will be her beginning to treat Stacie, and then oasis shows up and wreaks havoc, she gets bitten but scares O off.

Adam 5.0 - will be Adam goes down to the blood bank with only a scalpel to retrieve blood bags for Stacie, is chased, almost killed, but makes it back to the ER.

Oasis 4.0 - short, Oasis pissed, trying to figure out how to kill an adult.

Adam 6.0 - Adam returns to the ward with the blood and Herrick gets Stacie hooked up, but she starts to feel bad and leaves (they haven't seen these things turn so they don't know what the symptoms mean. Adam starts to comfort his wife and take care of his newborn daughter when Oasis shows up. Minister vs. 8-year-old dracula girl...can't wait to write this scene. Just as O is getting ready to overpower him, Clay arrives. (but Adam is bitten). I think Herrick can show back up after this at some point after clay arrives for a big scare.

Blake

* * *

Very cool. Is Stacy going to make it? If not, I have uses for that blood.

Paul

* * *

Not sure yet...my thought is she's touch-and-go as Clay and Adam roll her and the baby out of the maternity ward and they go in search of a way to get on the roof. But Adam is bringing back tons of blood bags. He's going to use them like grenades.

Blake

* * *

Sounds awesome. But don't have Adam bitten until he's on the roof.

Joe

* * *

Are elevators working?

Blake

* * *

No elevators. Are you thinking Adam has a cart for the blood?

Joe

* * *

How about this for Randall, since the outlines thus far don't really address what's going to happen with the kids in pediatrics.

He reaches pediatrics just as Benny is attacking. Randall is absolutely pissed beyond belief that the clown has his chainsaw. Benny loses the fight, and Randall gets his beloved chainsaw back.

They need to get the kids out. With Randall in the front, carving up every dracula that comes at them, and Jenny in the back, they move through the hospital as a group. The noise attracts more draculas, but that's fine, because Randall is ready to saw up as many of those things as will come at him. He's feeling alive.

They make it outside the hospital. There's a news van out there. Randall gets the kids into the back of the van...but Jenny isn't with them anymore. A dracula grabbed her. The van drives off with the kids, but Randall has to go back into the hospital. He saves Jenny again, but his chainsaw dies, and now there are too many creatures in the lobby, feasting on the dismembered corpses of their fellow draculas. They need another way out. Which connects us back to the idea of going to the roof...

Jeff

* * *

No, just wanted to know what options he's got. Nurse Herrick just gave him the most convoluted directions to the blood bank in history. Of course, it's in the basement. I'm actually afraid for him.

Blake

* * *

@ Jeff - That works for me. Or they can meet with Clay and Adam in the hall and all go up together. If Jenny dies get separated, I need a lead dracula to terrorize her.

@ Blake - Is Adam going to kill Oasis? Or will he balk at killing a child? Also, Adam will have an overnight bag for the hospital stay. He can fill a wheeled suitcase with blood packs.

Joe

* * *

Adam 4.0 up...may need to do an accuracy polish later on what's happening with Stacie medically.

Blake

* * *

You can give Adam an iPad, which he reads the bible on. That could be his light. Or just a regular book light, for late night gospel reading. He'll need something in the basement.

Joe

* * *

Joe, cool. Jenny doesn't need to be separated for long--basically, she's not there when Randall gets outside with the kids, but he finds her again fairly quickly after he gets back inside. She's had her big showdown with Lanz, so I think it's fine to keep it all in Randall's POV until they're back together, heading upstairs.

Jeff

* * *

Herrick 1.0 is up...on to Adam's journey into the basement.

Blake

* * *

I did a quick draft of this to get it out of my system.

When Adam pulls the trigger, it would be nice to have a POV character see the windows blow out from the parking lot.

Paul

* * *

I'll read it right now. Oasis 4.0 is up...short scene in the maternity ward.

Blake

* * *

Paul, that's beautiful. I can see this all coming together now. There will be a touching scene between Adam and Stacie right before Randall takes Stacie and the baby up to the roof. She'll be back into consciousness, holding their daughter, blood flowing into her, and Adam is leaving them, infected, to go with Randall to kill these monsters. I fucking LOVE this.

Blake

* * *

I head Adam on the roof: "I can't turn into one of these abominations. I won't!"

Clay: "That can be arranged."

Paul

* * *

That was I hear Adam...

Sheesh

Paul

* * *

I think this is the first time I'm really catching a glimpse of how this thing is going to wrap up, of seeing the sum of the parts, and it's truly exciting. Gonna be a helluva book.

Blake

* * *

Adam 5.0 is up...which is halfway through his journey into hell.

Blake

* * *

Jeff 7.0 is up...wherein the lumberjack and the clown and set up for their final confrontation.

Jeff

* * *

Going way back to the beginning of the process, I was very happy to see Blake's glorious "intestines stuck in the drawer" sequence. I thought "Sweet! We get to have FUN with this thing!"

Jeff

* * *

I'm reading this and laughing while I'm worrying about Randall. Together the 4 of us have created, I think, the paradigm of balancing horror and humor. I armed Randall with the ultimate hand weapon, and you, Jeff (you should add, btw, something about its awesome recoil) have used incidents from previous chapters to render it useless against Benny.

Paul

September 13, 2010

Paul, I'm redoing the infodump scene, trying to make it less on the nose. It begins with Clay and Shanna in the stairwell, and Shanna isn't packing heat.

Did I miss something, or in the previous scene was Shanna gung-ho about carrying a weapon, and refused to give it back?

Joe

* * *

It didn't ring true, so I'm going to change it when we go back for fix-ups.

Paul

* * *

It's possible there's so much info to dump that you should spread it over several Shanna/Clay scenes.

Blake

* * *

There's a scene with Shanna alone in the chapel where she's trying to reconcile some of what she knows with what she's seen (ie, the monster wearing Mort's pants/belt). You could start the exposition there, maybe have her interrupted by Clay's calling her name through the intercom. Then finish the exposition on the stairwell.

Paul

* * *

Jeff 8.0 is up...The heartfelt reunion of a man and his chainsaw.

Jeff

September 14, 2010

I caught up on everyone's new chapters last night. Good shit, guys. I also added a little something to the info dump scene. Still think it needs to be broken out into the chapel scene. Maybe I'll look at that today if Joe can't get to it.

I just have to write the Adam v. Oasis scene which will end with Clayton Theel killing some draculas on the verge of breaking into the maternity ward, saving Adam et al., and I think we'll be ready to put the finale together.

My plan is to add all the new stuff to the existing manuscript once I write this last scene and have my folks meet up with Clayton. Then we can dive into the finale.

One more scene before we hit the finale, will have Randall, Jeff, Jenny and the kids meet up and decide to head for the roof because Clay can flag down a television helicopter. On the way, Clay can hear human screams in the maternity ward, and he can go and get Adam, Stacie, and their baby. Then all our characters are together heading for the roof, draculas chasing them because the army is storming the place, etc.

Who's writing the next Jenny/Randall/Clayton scene?

Also, should we talk start talking about who writes what for the final scenes?

Blake

* * *

So can we get the pediatrics kids into a helicopter and off to safety? I'm all in favor of killing young children in my fiction ("With that scene in Pressure, you've just lost 35% of your audience." -- Joseph Konrath) but I think Randall needs to save these kids and a camera crew needs to see him doing it.

The plan was for him to get them out through the main entrance, but Randall has to go back because Jenny was grabbed by a dracula, and their own escape is cut off, forcing the roof plan. But if we can get the kids out with a helicopter on the roof (which then has no room for the others), I can still have Randall chainsawing draculas left and right as he leads the kids to safety, but get us closer to the finale quicker.

Jeff

* * *

Do it, and hells yes, save the kids. Have Randall put them on a helicopter...(so they can be sick and die in peace...love that line)...

Here's the part of Joe's outline that I agree with...

"Randall rescues her. Tearful reunion. Then they're surrounded by draculas. Randall fights off a bunch with his saw, but he's outnumbered. Gets bitten. Clay comes in with the boom boom, clears the path. Threatens to kill Randall. Jenny won't let him. They go, with the kids, to the roof because Clay thinks he can flag down the TV helicopter. Along the way they meet up with Adam, Stacie, and the baby. Army shows up. Begins to massacre draculas, causing all of them to flee--running up the stairs. Everyone on the roof. Randall begins to change. He and Jenny express love. Randall becomes a dracula and starts kicking ass."

After this, I think it changes a little. Let's have Randall getting the kids on the chopper, along with Stacie's baby, after she's killed and Adam wounded (another heartbreaking, scene...Adam saying goodbye to his daughter).

While Randall gets the kids onto the chopper, Clay and Adam go down to the room with the grenades, and we have Adam's death scene as he takes out a tons of draculas.

Back on the roof, Randall is wounded and dying. Jenny stays with him.

WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I'M NOT SURE IF HE'S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she's surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion. Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn't on it. She weeps. Meets another survivor. Young guy. He's calm and a bit flirtatious.

DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?

Survivor gets baby. It's Mort.

Thoughts?

Blake

* * *

Sounds fantastic. And Randall's chainsaw and screams of "Die, draculas, die!!!" could attract the other survivors, helping to bring our group together.

Jeff

* * *

Real suspense there, Blake -- even though I knew he'd survive.

I'm gonna dive back in 1st thing tomorrow.

Paul

* * *

Thanks, Paul, glad it clicked for you...let's shoot to have the finale set up by say Thursday, and I can then get working on assembling everything we've got so far into the manuscript. I think I know what I need to do...Jeff, Paul, can you guys have your characters (and Jenny) poised for the finale by then? I think I've got the biggest part to write, so we're pretty close already.

Blake

* * *

Clay and Randall/Jenny need to hook up relatively quickly, since otherwise my characters would think to go down to the lobby, not up to the roof. (An intercom message might work, but Randall is holding a loud chainsaw, and Clay wouldn't know that the draculas can't understand his message.)

If Paul sets up the idea that Clay is going to the roof, and ends his bit with Clay on the third floor, seeing Randall put his chainsaw through a random dracula, I can take it to wherever Blake wants me to leave off.

As for POV after that, the actual "children in the helicopter" rescue needs to be Randall's POV, since it's his big moment of redemption. That scene will end with Clay pointing out that Randall has been bitten.

I think the scene with Clay threatening to shoot him should be Jenny's POV.

Jeff

* * *

I think we need to bring in some of the characters perhaps seeing lights from the helicopter sweeping across the building, maybe the roadblock out in the parking lot a little earlier...I may try to work that in when I assemble everything.

Blake

* * *

Cell phones work. Clay could call the TV station, have them land the copter.

Joe

September 15, 2010

Sayonara, Adam.

I added a scene with Shanna in the parking lot with the army and a mysterious Dr. Driscoll. You may or may not like the implication I'm making toward the end of her scene. If not, we'll cut it. It's only a few lines.

Paul

* * *

I went in and changed Shanna's sudden embrace of gunnydom to a refusal to carry one. She was too upset with killing Marge.

I carried some of that over to Adam's final moments. He realizes none of the people these creatures came from chose to be this way, and so he forgives them before he blows them all to smithereens.

Paul

* * *

Can't wait to catch up on this, guys. Working on another deadline. Sorry I've been out of the loop for a bit.

Blake is going to put this section together, then I'll go in and add Jenny scenes when needed, including the "say goodbye to Randall" scene and the "don't shoot Randall" scene, along with her death scene when the army drops the bomb on the hospital, assuming we're still going that route.

Joe

* * *

nice, can't wait to read...Paul, I think you can probably dive into your last scene before I merge all the most recent stuff...I'll set it for you. Clayton and Randall are running up to the roof with Jenny and the kids, and as they pass one long corridor, they hear human screams. Clay says you go on ahead, I'll meet you up there. Clay runs down the corridor, finds 4 draculas have just about broken through the barricade into the maternity ward (enough so he'll be able to get in). He smokes them. Runs inside himself. this is what he sees...(where I'll end the section I'm currently writing):

Adam on the floor of the corridor near the nurses' station on the verge of being devoured by Oasis, another teen dracula is watching them. she just gave birth to a baby dracula, a huge hole in her stomach where the baby-dracula ate its way out.

Clayton kills those three draculas, saves Adam. Quick down beat, then Nurse Herrick dracula (nice out-of-nowhere scare) attacks and Clay wastes her. Then Clay leads and Adam wheels Stacie (still unconscious and mid-transfusion) out of the maternity ward, with his child (who was in the nursery) in his arm. sound good?

Blake

* * *

Which floor is pediatrics?

Which floor is OB?

Paul

* * *

I kind of like it, especially the idea the army has seen this before...what are you thinking? that this is the last we'll see of Shanna?

Blake

* * *

OB - 3

Pediatrics - 2

Blake

* * *

Not necessarily. I'm thinking some government agency knows about this virus, and has either been tracking it down or working with their own strain of the thing. They know they can't let it loose. That's why they're so quick to firebomb the building.

I don't think we have to explain more. If we decide on a sequel, it's a plot point we can expand or leave in the background. But it hints that this is bigger than we thought. Even Moorecook, who thinks he's in charge, might be a minor player on this stage.

Paul

* * *

perfect.

I'll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I'll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up.

Paul

* * *

I'm all for it.

Blake

* * *

"perfect. I'll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I'll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up."

So Jeff, just get Randall and Jenny and the kids heading up out of pediatrics, and they can run into Clayton.

Blake

* * *

Will do!

Jeff

* * *

Do you guys have scans of your signatures? I think it'd be a nice touch for the title page. If not, no worries.

Blake

* * *

No, but how much trouble can it be to scan one?

Paul

* * *

You're right. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Jeff

* * *

I'm voting against signature scans.

While in Florida I saw a technology that allowed authors to actually sign ebooks. I expect it to be commonplace in a year or two. To have fake signatures is like those Nora Roberts autopen signed books--it doesn't add value, plus it ruins the potential for a real signature when the technology arrives.

Joe

* * *

Joe, I'm enrolling you in OA -- overthinkers anonymous.

Paul

* * *

I can't accept that enrollment until I think about it for a while.

Paul

* * *

Okay so it's 2 in favor of signature scans, 2 opposed.

Now each side submits one representative, and those two fight to death.

The victor will get to make the call.

Blake

* * *

Btw, Paul will be representing the pro-signature side in the death match.

Blake

* * *

I'm starting to add everything into Draculas 2.4 tonight, with the exception of Paul's Clay and Adam 7.2 and Jeff's 9.0. Jeff, you've got a tiny scene to write to meet up your crew with Clayton, and Paul is just about done as well with having Clayton bust into the maternity ward. I'll add those final scenes when you guys finish. It's looking great.

Blake

September 16, 2010

DRACULAS 2.4 is up...We're over 63,000 words. I moved our old files into the old folder, and still kept Jeff's 9.0 and Paul's Clay, Adam, and Shanna 7.2. It took a little work to put everything together since certain characters cross each others' paths, but I'm shocked at how well it came together. The rhythm of it seems right on to me. Please go into 2.4 and make sure I haven't messed up any timelines or anything and that everyone digs the order of scenes.

Joe, maybe Maria wants to read the new stuff?

Here's how I think it all plays out:

1. Jeff links Randall up with Clay (and Paul's already written the scene when they meet up en route to the roof)...Jeff just extend from the last scene with Randall in 2.4...it's like a couple paragraphs at most I think.

2. Joe needs to look at the Randall/Jenny reunion final scene in 2.4 and decide if he wants to add a scene from Jenny's POV where she says she loves him, etc.

3. Clay goes into maternity ward per earlier email, kills everything, and leaves with my couple and their baby.

(I've made bolded notes in 2.4 where these scenes need to go...just use the search function and search for the asterisks in the manuscript*)

Let's brainstorm in the next day or so about the order of scenes and from whose POV they're written to wrap up the big finale.

Blake

* * *

It's now 2.5. I gave it a quick read and corrected a few typos and corrected one of my movie quotes.

Blake -- I fear you've done too much damage to Adam for him to be good for anything. A fractured humerus makes that arm good for nothing, and we need him helping get Stacie upstairs and stacking chairs and spilling blood later on.

Jeff -- can we draw out Benny's death just a tad more? He's been such a great nemesis, I feel he needs little more drama - I'm talking maybe a dozen words or so. And maybe a drawn-out fart before he goes...I mean, making a clown a human whoopee cushion is kind of appropriate, yes?

BTW, how DO we get Stacie up to the roof?

WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I'M NOT SURE IF HE'S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she's surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion.

We cut away after that.

Back to Shanna later: Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn't on it. She weeps.

Meets another survivor. Young guy. He's calm and a bit flirtatious.

How about he's dressed in scrubs? Looks vaguely familiar. (We need to set up that Mort's changing back to human. He goes to doctors lounge for clean clothes - we don't need to see him putting on scrubs)

Shanna's in isolation in the trailer. She watches copter rescue and the hospital's fiery demolition through the 1-inch glass window. The 4 kids are brought in. Dr. Driscoll hands her the baby ("I don't do babies.") Then a young guy shows up in scrubs. Says he's Dr. Michaels, a pediatrician. He'll take care of the squalling baby. When Driscoll returns, Shanna learns there is no Dr. Michaels.

DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?

I see Clay leaving Adam, rushing up to the roof and finding the stairwell clogged with draculas. Okay, he'll find another way out. But as he's passing the pediatrics floor, he's compelled to detour and find his beloved Taurus Raging Bull (which Randall told him he left behind). He finds it, and as he's cradling it, the hospital explodes around him. I like the contrast of him saving the human love of his life but dying while attempting to rescue a non-human love.

Paul

* * *

Nice job, everyone.

I did a global search-and-replace to unify all the punctuation, and saved it as 2.6. I'll write the Jenny/Randall Reunion, then stick it in there.

I'll also throw it on my wife's Kindle and see if she digs it so far. So everyone please stay out of 2.6 for the time being while I work on it this morning. When I'm done I'll save it as 2.7.

If Blake and Jeff want to add to their scenes as Paul suggested, you guys need to do it one at a time and coordinate so you don't save different versions.

@Paul - I used the "my middle name is" joke with Clay during the infodump scene. I figure Clay's daddy gave him the middle name "Rambo", as a survivalist very well might. We could save that punch line until Clay does the "Careful" line at the end of your section, or we could kill it if you don't like it.

Joe

* * *

Randall bit Benny...so he's already infected.

Paul

* * *

Paul, Adam's injury concerned me as well, and started to really get on my nerves because I had to mention it constantly...I'll go back into 2.whatever it is later tonight, and dial that back to a bruise or something so he can be ready to help Clay...and re: getting Stacie up to the roof...it's just one flight, so I think maybe they'll have to struggle to carry her stretcher and the (blood-transfusion stand thingy - what do they call those?)

I like your thoughts on Clay's journey to the end. I'm for it.

Re: Moorecook...here's where we need some magic...I love what Joe did earlier, implying he was undergoing some change, but I don't want to telegraph that he's truly changing back to human...maybe we need an ambiguous Mort section, (Joe?) hinting that he's undergoing a reverse metamorphoses, but nothing anyone would suspect might lead him back to full on external humanity.

So after this young pediatric doctor has taken the baby, perhaps we have a scene in his POV (I know exactly how to do it), and only in the last paragraph do we realize this is Mort, heading back out into the world.

Blake

* * *

works for me

Paul

* * *

I was planning on doing the exact Mort/change scene you describe, Blake, right after the Jenny scene I'm working on.

Will be done in a bit, and add it to the manuscript.

Joe

* * *

You could dunk a cross in a pool of urine while environmentalists burned the American flag and Randall would not have been more outraged than he was at the sight of Benny the Clown holding his precious chainsaw.

Awesome line, Jeff.

Joe

* * *

Funny how Jeff and I both have adult male characters in love with their toys.

Paul

* * *

And they're also able to provide their women with the best sex they've ever had in their lives!

Jeff

* * *

In the dropbox. Added the Jenny scene and the Moorecook scene, extended the Randall saves Jenny scene for a bit more emotional impact, and made a few minor fixes.

Randall doesn't get bitten. He's going to change because he swallowed some of Benny. That'll start to happen once they're on the roof.

As for getting Shanna up the stairs, I'm thinking a piggy-back, which would be rough enough that she'd lose more blood than she's getting from the IV. Pretty extreme stuff, having a woman on your back who is sluicing blood down her legs. That could be how she dies...

Joe

* * *

We know you mean Stacie -- I'll get them all to the roof (via Clay) and maybe Blake can take the switch to Adam's POV when he realizes she's gone.

Paul

* * *

Exactly, but don't kill her quite yet...make her almost dead, but conscious. I want Stacie and Adam to have a nice last moment. I can't believe we're putting this nice couple through this.

Blake

* * *

LOL. Yeah, Stacie.

This is funny, because in your new section you just called Shanna "Jenny."

I say we just call every character by the sexually ambiguous name "Chris" and let the readers sort it out...

Joe

* * *

Draculas 2.8 is up wherein Adam's arm is no longer broken.

Blake

* * *

Just put up Clay 5.2 (cont) which picks up where Clay 5.2 cut off.

It ends with Clay, Stacie, Adam, and Daniella on the stairs, heading for the roof. I'm handing off to Blake to pick up as they emerge onto the roof.

Paul

* * *

Nice scenes, Paul.

Okay, here's where we're all at:

Jeff, you next scene is Randall going up the stairs, protecting the kids. They're walking up four flights with Clay, Stacie, et all. Randall will take the rear, keeping the draculas back. When he gets to the roof, he and Clay barricade the door. Then Randall loses one of his teeth.

Blake, your next scene is Stacie dying of blood loss once she gets to the roof. Adam says goodbye to her.

My scene is Jenny seeing Randall's missing tooth, and watching him lose another. As the draculas are breaking in, Clay wants to shoot Randall. Jenny won't let him. Randall insists he'll fight it.

Jeff, your scene is Randall's transformation. As a full blooded dracula, with a chainsaw, he kills a few dozen.

While that's happening, Paul, Clay is loading on the four boys onto the chopper. During the evac, Adam gets bitten.

Blake, Adam knows what being bitten means. He says goodbye to his daughter, gives them to the TV people. Asks Clay for his gun, wanting to kill as many of them as possible. Clay says, "I've got a better idea--why not kill them all?"

My scene: Randall is mortally wounded. Clay and Adam walk by, tell Jenny the chopper is ready. Jen says she's staying. Chopper takes off.

Clay and Adam setting the bombs is already written. Paul, need a quick scene of Clay running like hell for a window just as the explosion happens.

My last scene with Jenny. Randall dies. Jenny looks up at the Army, which has arrived. Big old bomb drops on the hospital.

Wrap up.

Joe

* * *

Nicely done, Joe, this is super helpful...don't forget Clay's death scene...I think you have your work cut out for you convincing me Jenny stays on the roof to die with Randall, tho. There's no way he's going to let her do that.

So only Shanna, Mort, and baby Murray survive?

That's kind of cool...I want to really hint strongly in the final scene that, even though Shanna is grieving for Clay, there's this connection with this new doctor. She's crying, he embraces her. Something familiar about him. How cool would it be if Mort gets the girl in the end, and she doesn't know it's him?

Blake

* * *

Paul's dispatching of Oasis...I think we have a winner in the most disgusting disturbing, carve-your-eyes-out-with a grapefruit spoon moment in a book chockfull of them. Well done, sir. This scene kicked major ass.

Blake

* * *

Sounds good. I'll be able to upload much chainsaw mayhem tomorrow.

Jeff

* * *

Don't ask me where that came from...I don't want to know. Really.

Paul

* * *

Here's an expansion, plus some tweaks that take into account timelines, etc. of what Joe passed around earlier today. I also put this in the dropbox. Thoughts? We okay with this?

GUIDE TO WRITING THE END -- a lot of these are short short scenes, and I've broken it out like this to help me assemble it all in the end.

PAUL: Kickass scene where Clay saves Adam, Stacie and baby and gets them heading up toward the roof -- already written.

JEFF: Randall going up the stairs, protecting the kids. They're walking up four flights. Randall will take the rear, keeping the draculas back. They approach the roof, but don't get there yet in this scene...Randall loses one of his teeth.

BLAKE: Stacie, Adam, baby and Clay arrive on the roof. Randall and Jenny are already there. Clay goes off to help Randall bar the door, and then help Jenny with the kids and the copter. Stacie's death scene. Adam says goodbye.

JOE: Jenny seeing Randall's missing tooth, and watching him lose another. As the draculas are finally arriving at the barricaded door, beginning to beat on it, Clay wants to shoot Randall. Jenny won't let him. Randall insists he'll fight it.

JEFF: Randall's transformation. Draculas break through, and as a full blooded dracula, with a chainsaw, he kills a few dozen.

BLAKE: Adam is attacked in the chaos while he's mourning over Stacie, Adam gets bitten trying to protect her body, Randall chainsaws another dracula and saves Adam from being torn apart.

PAUL: While that's happening, Clay is helping to load the four boys onto the chopper, still holding Adam's daughter, Daniella. The first wave of Draculas have been killed, a moment of quiet on the roof.

BLAKE: Adam knows what being bitten means. He goes to Clay, takes his daughter, says goodbye, then gives them to the TV people. Asks Clay for his gun, wanting to kill as many of the draculas as possible, and then kill himself before he turns. Clay says, "Actually, that can be arranged."

JOE: Randall is mortally wounded. Clay and Adam walk over, tell Jenny the chopper is ready. Jen says she's staying until he's gone (important: she isn't saying I'm going to stay up here and die with you, she expects to be picked up when the chopper comes back and Randall's gone). Chopper takes off. Set up that she expects to see the friendly TV chopper again...hahahha.

PAUL: Clay and Adam setting the bombs as already written and Adam's death scene as it all goes up (from his detonation)

JOE: Last scene with Jenny. Randall dies. Draculas are running up the stairs again. Hears Adam's explosion. Jenny thinks the TV helicopter has returns, looks up, but it's an Army helicopter. BUT DON'T EXPLAIN WHAT THE CHOPPER IS DOING. Maybe she just sees the soldiers lug something out of the chopper, and it lands with a big thud on the helipad and cracks the cement and then the chopper pulls quickly away. - but no explosion yet.

PAUL: Scene with Shanna in the parking lot seeing the 1st (Adam) explosion and talking with creepy Dr. Driscoll. I'd like it to end with her seeing the helicopter going up to the hospital (as she's being dragged toward quarantine -- but are we sure about this because how will Mort reach her in quarantine? What if Driscoll gives her a choice: Quarantine for 24 hours or a painful test (I'll let you figure out the details, Paul) which will tell instantly if she's infected. I like the idea that this infection is already very much on the Army's radar) and asking are they rescuing more people? One of the soldiers, or maybe Driscoll smirks and says, "Not exactly."

JOE: Super short, like two or three sentence scene where Jenny approaches the big gray sphere of metal that has landed on the helipad.

PAUL: Clayton fuckin' Theel's death. Goes back down for his Tauras, instead of running out to safety when he could've made it) and big, big boom.

PAUL: We see the hospital blow from Shanna's POV, and then...

six hours later - dawn

SHANNA: the hospital a smoking pile of rubble...Shanna still in shock. Clayton hasn't come out. She knows. The army is done with her but she can't make herself leave. Place is still crawling with media and army and law enforcement. She sees a young, attractive man (younger than she is) in scrubs, his face blackened, holding a little baby. This pulls her out of her heartbreak, briefly. She approaches him...I think we know where this is going...

Blake

* * *

Nice work, Blake.

I like everything, but I'm still not sure why Clay has to die. I still like a final scene where he crawls out of the rubble, his Taurus in his hand.

Or at least make it ambiguous if he died or not, so we could use him again if needed.

Everything else I'm 100% with.

Joe

* * *

I think you've got a point...Clayton might be my favorite character of the bunch. A helluvalotta fun. Paul, how strongly do you feel about killing him?

Blake

September 17, 2010

I like the symmetry of him dying with his beloved Taurus. But we can sort of have that cake and eat it too with a coda showing one of those search dogs sniffing out a survivor in the rubble who manages to say he's deputy Clayton R. Theel.

Paul

* * *

As they start to pull the rubble off him, he hands them the Taurus. "Here. Take her first."

Paul

* * *

That's a problem we need to address. Even though we came at them independently, the couple dynamics of both relationships are too similar. We need to change that. The couple scenes strike me as repetitious.

Shanna and Clay have known each other only 6 weeks. It makes more sense for the physical part of their relationship to take a front seat. Clay is no dummy, but he has a very narrow range of interests. Shanna cares for Clay but doesn't love him enough to marry him.

Randall and Jenny, OTOH, were married for years, and presumably had a courtship before the nuptials. They had a deeper relationship than sex before things went sour. Her cracks about his intelligence are a defense mechanism, a way to vent her anger at him for letting her down.

Jenny should be more focused on (and attracted/intrigued by) Randall's return to the sweet guy she married. She loved him, he broke her heart by becoming a drunk, but now he's pulled himself up by his bootstraps. At first she's afraid to give into it, but she's learning to love him even more. They had good sex, but that's not what they were about, not what she misses -- she misses the emotional attachment. She LOVES this guy.

So in other words, Randall and Jenny have a history and an arc. Clay and Shanna have neither.

Won't take much - a little shading of the dialogue, a few extra lines of internal monologue here and there. I'm willing to go in and make the two couples more distinct.

Paul

* * *

Clay: "I might have a way to make it really count."

Paul

* * *

I noticed that too, Paul. The funny thing was, we were writing similar dynamics independent of one another.

My original "fix" was to at once point have Jenny meet up with Shanna and explain that "Love means you gotta put up with them acting like cretins. All men are cretins. But if you can find one you love, you have to stick with it. I should have."

That would've turned the Jenny/Randall relationship into an example/object lesson for Shanna. But Shanna and Jenny were separated too early and never reached that point.

If you want to go in and tweak it to make them more distinct, I'm all for it. But we should keep in mind that all relationships deal with issues like these.

As for Clay being found by rescue dogs, I really like that idea. Maria just read what we have so far, and expressed some strong opinions about who she wants to survive, which is pretty much "everybody." Considering we're killing off the majority of our main characters, having a few live might make this more palatable to the reading majority...

Joe

* * *

I think if you carry the Jenny/Randall dynamic I outlined into their final scene -- she got the guy she loved back and now she's losing him for good -- it could tug at the heart strings.

While this is in my head, I'll go into DRACULAS 2.8 now and turn it into 2.9

As for survivors, this is a horror novel - we've gotta have casualties. Lots of them.

Paul

* * *

Explain that to my wife when she cuts off the nookie. She's a petty, vindictive reader who holds grudges against the artist.

I'm all for killing everybody, but I also want to have sex again.

Blake and I discussed your Dr. Driscoll, and we're for it. It certainly sets up the sequel. But would Driscoll want the dracula bodies disposed of, or quickly packed in ice and whisked away to some undisclosed laboratory location?

I'm also fine with them putting Shanna into quarantine. Drag her off and experiment on her. Then, if Clay lives (perhaps now with an artificial leg where he stores ordnance) he can track her down and rescue her.

Joe

* * *

Driscoll would need only one body...and there's the dead state cops right there in the parking lot.

Paul

* * *

If we're talking full conspiracy theory here, they wouldn't risk burning bodies and leaving either potential evidence or the chance for a foreign power to obtain DNA samples.

I'd think a team in full P4 containment suits, loading all biological matter into a refrigerated semi, a quick and dirty media blackout, a full sterilization of the area, and a quarantine of any survivors, and an instant cover story. Driscoll could even tell Shanna that she needs to be vaccinated against measles, as this was simply a measles outbreak and nothing more, against Shanna's protestations.

If Driscoll knows about draculas, she'd know the danger of even leaving a cell of infected tissue on the scene, and flamethrowers don't destroy teeth or bones.

Or not. Knowing our government, they might do a half-assed job cleaning this up. Then we could have some coyotes picking through the scraps, eating some infected flesh, and going werewolf Cujo on Durango...

Joe

* * *

This afternoon I added DRACULAS 2.10, which adds a few Randall paragraphs, and JEFF 9.0, the first "JEFF" scene described below.

Jeff

* * *

Fixed some typos. New version is 3.0.

I'm also doing an intervention for Jeff, to teach him how to count. Jeff is turning thirty-ten this month.

Joe

* * *

I didn't think my changes warranted moving on to a new whole number, even though I added Paul's requested fart joke.

And you got my birthday wrong, punk!

Jeff

* * *

You're turning thirty-eleven?

Joe

* * *

Don't feel bad. Blake is still in his mid teens.

Joe

* * *

Hey, I bought beer tonight and didn't even get carded!

Blake

* * *

My birthday isn't until December. So you're all welcome to send me "It's for your birthday AND Christmas!" presents.

Jeff

* * *

How about just some good wishes?

Blake

* * *

Just FYI, I have Adam emerging onto the pad and seeing Randall, Jenny, and the kids at the other end, standing at the edge and waving down toward a sea of flashing lights, yelling and trying to get someone's attention. Since we're all writing scenes that occur in the same place and time, we should probably keep apprised of what everyone else is doing.

Blake

* * *

How do we barricade the door to the helipad...any ideas? Big metal dumpster by the door? Some large piece of equipment they can use to briefly block the door?

Blake

September 18, 2010

With some swift kicks, the chainsaw, and some pushing and pulling, they could detach a few of the air conditioning units on the roof and stack those against the doors.

Joe

* * *

I'm adding to the end of this Clay section to make it consistent with the opening of Blake's Adam 8.0 (to which I added one word from Clay: "Incoming!")

Paul

September 19, 2010

Here's how I see Clay's roof scene. He's got the kids and the baby. The TV copter is landing. The pilot sees a couple of draculas (attacking Adam maybe?) and suddenly decides landing is not such a good idea but Clay is there with the MM-1 and makes it very clear that the copter either lands or it flies off with a dead pilot at the stick. He puts the kids on board and Adam comes up to say good-bye to his daughter. We can switch to Adam's POV here.

As for destroying the hospital, the army could drop a huge shaped charge onto the roof that will blast a plasma jet down through the floors (just like an antitank missile goes through layers of steel), frying everything within. Obviously, Clay won't survive that.

Paul

* * *

Paul, this sounds great, and as always, your knowledge of ordnance, firearms, etc. is terrifying. Check out my Adam and Stacie scene first though, just to get a sense of what's happening on the roof. The way it's worked out, Adam will have his daughter in his arms when the draculas break through, get bitten, but then Randall saves him. At that point, Adam will walk over to Clayton and hand his baby over, knowing he's been infected. It made sense for Adam, Stacie (and baby) to be together when she dies.

Blake

* * *

Adam and Stacie final scenes are up...Please check them out before you write your final scenes...I think it'll make it easier to keep the timeline straight.

Blake

* * *

I'm putting Draculas 4.0 together...Joe thought it would help with figuring out where new scenes go, so I'm putting my new ones in, along with Paul's and Jeff's setting up what happens on the roof. We are super close, guys.

Blake

* * *

Hey, I see that you've got "The Sound of Blunder" listed as a bonus DRACULAS story. Make sure you double-check your contract--I think you're a year away from being able to reprint it!

Jeff

* * *

Reprint? It's an ebook. We're not printing anything.

Joe

* * *

You're gonna get in troooooooouble...

Jeff

* * *

Also, as one of the bonus extras, we're including forty-six Harlan Ellison stories.

Joe

September 20, 2010

Thanks, Blake! You are owed an infinite number of chocolate chip cookies.

Jeff

* * *

Nice work, Blake!

I talked to the other guys. You did such a terrific job, we're letting you finish all of our scenes too.

Hurry up. I'd like this done by Thursday.

Joe

* * *

Stacie's death scene - very moving, Blake. I got a little verklempt.

Paul

September 21, 2010

Blake--I wound up with Adam's last words. He's your guy, so if there's anything you want to change there, please feel free. If you think quoting Dickens is out of character, really, change whatever you want.

Paul

* * *

Finished the two big Jenny scenes. Get your hankies out.

They're in the JOE folder. Blake, you can splice them into 4.2 when we're sure no one else is editing it.

Joe

* * *

I thought you did a great job with him, and I liked that he wasn't thinking bible-verses but rather Dickens at the end. He's a minister, sure, but he's not a tee-totaler, not a holier than thou type of guy, and I think that showed that. It was a very nice scene, Paul, so I'm happy to let that be the end of him.

Blake

* * *

but he's not a tee-totaler, not a holier than thou type of guy

I'd gathered that from earlier passages and so I went with it. I think it's refreshing (even for this devout agnostic) to see a Christian minister portrayed as a straight arrow rather than a hypocrite. I'm really sick of books with lech preachers.

Paul

* * *

Me too, I wound up liking the guy quite a bit...brave as hell in the face of fear despite nothing for the entire book (until the end) with which to defend himself.

Blake

* * *

Clay on the roof...is loaded. Very short, very Clay.

Paul

* * *

Just to keep you guys looped in on what's happening marketing-wise, I emailed a big list of bloggers/media people I know and who Joe knows, forwarding the press release and a letter. Response has been solid so far, with about 25% requesting the manuscript to review. We also put out the word on Joe's blog and offered people the chance to have a free review copy of Draculas on Oct. 1, if they promised to review it on their blogs, Facebook, Amazon, and tweet it. Joe also has a lot of Goodreads friends, like 1200 of them. I've given a friend of mine access and she's emailing them one by one (it's the only way) to solicit additional reviews and coverage since many of them have blogs.

Already, we have over 120 people promising reviews, all to launch on 10/18, the day before it releases, and then all those review go up on Amazon on the release date. We're also adding an annex to my website which will be a dedicated draculas web page. I'll shoot you all the link when that goes live. Plus, we've got some interview requests which I'll share shortly, we're doing Diabolical Radio 10/6, and hopefully Joe's going to write a column in the HuffPo around the release date. If you're interested, the email that's been going out to the "troops" is at the end of this email. Jeff, Paul, if either of you have any big ideas, please share. Otherwise, I think we're in excellent shape.

from J.A. Konrath: DRACULAS -- Advance Reading Copies!

Dear_____:

If you haven't been on my blog for the last few days, I've got a new ebook experiment going on.

Earlier this year, I asked three fellow writers if they wanted to collaborate on a horror novel. I've worked with each of them before (F. Paul Wilson, Jeff Strand, and Blake Crouch) and they're all consummate professionals.

The result of our efforts, DRACULAS - A Novel of Terror, will be released on Kindle, October 19.

Now we're attempting to generate some buzz prior to the launch, by treating this like a traditional release rather than an indie release. That means we're looking for a few good reviewers.

Do you want a free advance reading copy of DRACULAS?

Here's what you do...

Send an email to draculasthebook@gmail.com and confirm that:

1. You will post a review of DRACULAS by October 18 on Good Reads, your blog or website (if you have one), along with a link to Amazon's pre-order page (which will be provided to you along with the book and press release.)

2. You will post that same review to Amazon's DRACULAS page when the book is officially launched on October 19.

3. Make sure to include your name and the web-address of your website or blog (if any), which may be linked to from my blog when the book goes live in the Kindle store.

Your email address will of course be kept confidential, and anyone who writes a review, good or bad, will be thanked in the acknowledgments of a future edition of DRACULAS.

We anticipate having a final manuscript of the book ready to email on or before October 1.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A BLOG OR WEBSITE...

No problem. We're going to have a dedicated DRACULAS website page. Write a review, email it to draculasthebook@gmail.com, and we'll post it there. Then you can link to your review via Twitter and Facebook, if you use them.

Thanks in advance for helping us spread the word! And please make sure to email draculasthebook@gmail.com, under the heading GOOD READS REQUEST. DO NOT EMAIL ME DIRECTLY - we want to make sure your email is read, not lost in my huge stack of unanswered emails.

Thanks in advance for helping us to spread the word!"

Blake

* * *

Great scenes. Paul, Joe, I've incorporated yours into Draculas 4.1. Joe, I tweaked yours just to sync up the helicopter leaving (it's already flying away by the time Jenny reaches Randall). Here's what's left before we write the last two scenes (Shanna and Moorecook). I'm waiting to start those until I see what Paul does with Clayton, and I'd like us all to have input into the end.

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