Rough cuts
Introductions are the most difficult to write. They have the most important job in the story. It’s a greeting. A welcome. A sales pitch. It has to impress and intrigue. It has to set up the story. It has to set the tone. Sometimes it's good—and far easier—to plunge right into the action. I did not want to do that with this yet to be titled science fiction western. Inspired by Sergio Leone's classics, I wanted something more cinematic.
My vision was to open on a bleak landscape, a hybrid of Mars and Peru, under a bright cold sun. I saw the camera panning across this place with only the sound of the wind, eventually falling to the metal orb. Then we hear the sounds of another machine and see the mechanical horse and its rider descending the rocky slope.
It works great for movies and graphic novels, but for a written story, the reader should be removed from the narrator to get the full impression of being there. The reader should be parked behind a set of eyeballs and be in the character's perception.
I continuously edit, so unfortunately I do not have the very first rough draft of the opening sequence. However, I did save the other passes. I spent hours on three short paragraphs, and could spend more. But when I get to the end of the story, I might have a better idea of the beginning, and I'll tinker some more until it does its job.
Here are those prior passes, in order of production:
At zenith, a bleaching white sun glared out from a shield of pale blue. Boulders, gravel, sand, and dust stretched away to an uneven horizon of faint mountain peaks ripping into a silver unforgiving empty sky. Wind whistled and moaned around thrust up ledges of dark jagged rock. Across the open plain streamers of grit flowed around a large spherical obstruction sunk in a shallow, damp depression.
The canister sat cracked and split like a burst pressure vessel where it had come to rest, the violence of its passage strewn with the detritus of bright alloys and dark composites: torn sheets with sharp twisted edges, or small clumps of fragmented machinery. The otherwise wind-smoothed surface of gravel and sand had been gouged and channeled where the metal ball had rolled and bounced, pointing back several hundred meters to the impact crater, a gash splashed into the dust and sand scorched black and glassy.
Another sound met the pained moans of wind . . .
Above an infinite stretch of boulders, sand, and dust, a bleaching white sun glared from a shield of pale blue. Across the horizon faint mountain peaks ripped into the unforgiving empty silver sky. Bleak. Desolate. The wind seemed the only living thing as it whistled and moaned around thrust up ledges of dark jagged rock. Across an open plain streamers of grit flowed around a large spherical obstruction sunk in a shallow, damp depression. . . .
The wind seemed the only living thing as it whistled and moaned around thrust up ledges of dark jagged rock, islands in an ocean of boulders, sand, and dust. Across the horizon faint mountain peaks ripped into the unforgiving empty sky bleached silver by a white sun glaring out from a dome of pale blue. Bleak. Desolate. Near a cap of bedrock streamers of grit flowed around a large spherical obstruction sunk in a depression of shallow, damp sand. . . .
Serpents of sand and dust rippled here and there across the wasteland like hunters on the prowl. Grains rasped against scattered boulders and wind moaned around up-thrust ledges of dark jagged rock, sighing a haunted lament across desolation, the voice of the world. Faint mountain peaks in the deep west ripped into the unforgiving silver sky. The noon white sun glared from a smear of pale blue. Near a cap of bedrock, the streamers of dust flowed around a large spherical obstruction sunk in a depression of shallow, damp sand. . . .
All horrible, horrible, horrible. Not too far removed from a tongue twister.
After having written much of the first scene, I had a moment of doubt whereby I realized I could increase the action and tempo by not having the gunman come across the cargo orb, but by having the damn thing coming down upon him as he crossed the desert. Man would that be awesome!
I was seriously thinking of a rewrite but I talked myself out of this action scene because I felt it was a little too much, more comic-bookish than what I had envisioned. I strive for a little more realism, a lot more science in the fiction. I mean seriously, what are the odds of a jettisoned cargo globe actually coming down on a lone rider in a world sparsely populated? I feel this requires the reader to suspend disbelief to a greater magnitude than what I'm aiming for, and thus you the reader will expect more improbable acts to follow. It also sets a tone vastly different than what I have planned. This is a story of discovery: We discover the orb in the desert, we discover the pod and the lockbox, we discover the villain is looking for the lockbox and the "key" inside, we will discover what that key "opens". This is more of a hunt than a chase. No need to gallop out from under certain death, no matter how great it might look on an anamorphic screen with thundering surround sound.
Originally, the gunman fills his water bins first then has the showdown with the harriers, poor bastards that show us the desperation for water the people of Ureys have, and what a bad-ass the gunman is. In this order, the harriers are merely an obstacle to his leaving alive and unrobbed. That's not much fun. Conflict is added and enhanced by having the water the trophy to defeating these greedy men. Oh, yeah. On the very first pass, as soon as they draw guns, he drops 'em without so much as a word. But it's not supposed to be that easy. If your characters are having an easy time, you're doing it wrong.
Then I wanted to slow things up before we get to the escape pod with this bit of business:
By evening the gunman had reached the impact site of another water globe. This one had smashed into rock. There was nothing but small flotsam of debris and fresh broken rock. The wind had begun drifting toward the south, long streamers of dust pointing the way. The rambler snorted and whined nervously; oxygen levels were falling.
The rider slipped his hat back and pulled a breather mask up from the console between the control levers. He secured it over his mouth and twirled the flow valve at his right knee open. Oxygen sighed.
In the distance, the sea of sand crept up onto bedrock. He unhooked goggles from the console and slipped them on, tapped into the sensor feeds from the rambler. After adjusting his hat back on his head, the rider shifted a lever to set the machine from walk to drive mode. The rambler crouched, tucking its legs and extending its tracks into place
The weirdness with the oxygen will be explained, so hold your ramblers, but here I get into dealing with the oxygen problem too soon where it can't be used as a . . . (sigh) plot device. I just wanted to get to the rambler's drive mode so bad. It walks, it rolls, it’s like a small truck sized ATV with legs and tank treads! I was also going to have him camp out for the night, setting up a tent, and cooking a meal, all to show how things are done on the trail without wood. Maybe time for that later in scenes that actually move the story along.
Originally, this is what happened in the pod:
The arm fell and swung, the hand like a claw. The pilot moved no more. The gunman’s breath plumed and dispersed.
Three.
The gunman looked around at the cargo boxes. They were numbered in serious stencils. He moved to the one appropriately marked and unlatched it from the wall. He wrestled the cargo bin to the hatch and let it fall out. He climbed down and tugged the box out from under the craft. The rambler snorted and whinnied. He would need his oxygen mask soon.
The cargo bin was not locked and he undid the latches that circled its lid. He pulled the lid up and set it aside. A small trunk lay in wait, a box within a box. The gunman lifted it up seeing all he needed to see. The lockplate had the distinct characteristics of a biolock. This personal trunk would not open unless the owner was physically touching it . . . and alive.
“Hmm.” The gunman frowned.
Seriously, that was it, then on to Cavan Brovorchi's despicable self. Well, gosh that was easy, just get the cargo bin and look into it. Frank, when I said I needed to add conflict to a scene, that was the one. So instead of needing the breather mask soon, I decided it would be best if he needed the breather now. Yeah, he could have gone outside, got his oxygen supply, and went back for the bin, but I did some quick internet research on oxygen deprivation and decided that when it becomes difficult to think, you're liable to make poor decisions. Plus it’s a great way to show how dangerous Ureys is. The planet will freaking kill you, even if you are careful.
Scene Two: The Brovorchi Situation did not go through a lot of changes. It pretty much stands as original material.
On the other hand, The Weslock scene had the most changes.
In the first pass, ol' Sarko was giving the business to Clovovac while Gorro held Dusana. The idea was that the Good Captain Weslock had a crew and had hired Sarko and Gorro to intercept Clovo and Dusana at the escape pod.
“Where is it!”
The man holding Clovovac was a filthy straggler, a man who reeked of sweat-soaked coats and an unwashed mouth of food bits gone to spoil in the gaps of his teeth—what he had left. Wild, large eyes rolled beneath a knit cap of dust speckled dark green. Sunlight gleamed off his greasy face, at odds with the coating of grime and grit.
Again, he clouted Clovo against the side of his head in a hand wrapped in a dirty make-shift glove of swatches. “You spoke with him,” the man shouted and pointed at the escape pod leaning on its side in the bright morning sun with Clovo’s jumper parked behind it. Cloth around the man’s hand hung like a loose bandage. “Tell me where it is!” Clouds of his breath hung on the air.
Clovo shivered. His coat had been stripped off. “Dead, when we arrived. I told you.”
“You tell me lies,” the tramp said and back-handed Clovo, letting him fall sideways into the rough sand. A heavy boot toe slammed into his ribs, emptying his lungs in a torrent of molten pain. That dirty swathed hand grabbed his hair, pulled his face up from the sand. Clovo’s eyes and mouth scrunched in pain and fear. He choked to get his lungs restarted.
“But maybe she won’t, no?”
Clovo focused across the sand to the blurry figure of Dusana. She screamed and tried to buck away from the captor that held both her upper arms. She too had been stripped of her coat. Bastards. He coughed and drew a ragged breath. “Don’t hurt her.”
The vagabond laughed. Clovo heard the whine of a power pack charging. No! He pulled trembling arms underneath him and struggled to get to his feet. Laughter assailed him and a boot heel pushed him over. Sand splashed into his mouth. Clovo rolled onto his back, his heels and palms digging into the sand as he attempted to get away.
Dusana watched in horror as the desert harrier pulled his pistol from its place inside his ragged coat and leveled it at Clovovac’s face. A hot pulse of plasma left a smoking ruin in its path. She screamed until her throat became a hoarse wreck and sparkles danced in gray vision.
Dusana sagged in her captor’s arms, her long hair flowing like a tattered flag in the cold wind.
Sarko opened his coat and tucked his pistol into the net of wide strips sewn into the lining. With the toe of his boot he turned the body over. The back of the head was a burnt funnel large enough for his fist. “Your lies are gone like your life, preeta.” He chuckled and walked away to cross the several meters where Gorro stood near their truck holding the fainted woman . . . the screamer. How he could make her scream. And would.
And thus with the Captain knowing Sarko, their exchange went like this:
“My good Sarko,” the Captain said with a hint of a smile under his drooping mustache. “What you lack in sagacity, you make up in lassitude.”
The meaning was lost to Sarko, but the tone sounded friendly. “Thank you Captain Weslock.” He beamed, thinking of the hectoliters he would receive for this bit of work.
Weslock stepped nearer and slapped a naked hand on Sarko’s shoulder, sending up puffs of dust. “Seems like you have gotten a head start.”
Sarko turned halfway, putting his back to the wind, and opened a palm to the dead man. “You said you was gonna question ‘em, so I figured, why wait.” Sarko shrugged. “He didn’t want to talk. But the girl. I think she will, no?” His muddy eyes gleamed in hopes of appraisal.
Weslock left Sarko’s side and walked to the corpse. He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a white elastic glove. He heard the moans of the waking woman and knew without looking his men were tending to her. Dusana and Clovovac. Sand had begun to pile up around the corpse. He kneeled at the body and tugged his right hand into the glove. He probed the devastating wound with the gloved fingers. Sarko came to stand near him.
Weslock motioned the man to squat. Sarko did, grinning and nodding like a fool. Proud of his kill. “What I actually said,” the captain intoned, “was that I was going to ‘extract their knowledge’”. Sarko continued to grin and nod. Weslock grinned back. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I don’t have time to waste with questions and torture.”
Sarko waited expectantly.
Weslock rolled his gloved hand around the gaping hole in Clovo’s head. “What I had planned to do, my vacuous dear Sarko, was to pull information directly from the visual cortex. To see what they saw.”
“Ah,” Sarko nodded. “Is a good plan.”
“Yes,” Weslock rejoined. “From this area here that you have so expertly eliminated.”
Sarko’s ears heard only praise. He chucked like a man over a cold pint. “I am a good shot. No time for lies, eh? No time wasted with more questions, like you said, no?”
“Ah, my good Sarko, my time has been wasted in profligacy.” Weslock’s naked hand crept toward Sarko’s neck . . .
And the glove/knife scene is pretty much the same. Then I had a bit of business between Weslock and his first officer over the hiring of such idiots that are doing more harm than good.
Standing, he noticed his first officer standing meters away, back to the wind, worry on his face. “Who hired these men? Was it you Tofuld?”
Tofuld seemed to stand a little taller, more rigid. “Yes captain.”
“Apparently, competent men to too much to ask for.”
Tofuld swallowed. “Ureys doesn’t exactly have the best pool to pull from.”
Captain Weslock shrugged as he began to advance on his officer. “Buy cheap, get cheap, eh? This moon does seem to have a problem with ubiquitous idiocy.”
“That it does,” Tofuld breathed. The fog of his exhalation blew away as Weslock stopped before him. Their eyes locked, but Tofuld lost against the impulse to look away.
“Your sidearm, mister Tofuld, if you please.”
Tofuld knew better than to question the order. With a nervous hand he pulled aside his long coat from the lower button at his groin and unsnapped the strap that secured his pulser in its holster. To die in this frigid desert. He would be a man and not snivel for his life. He withdrew the gun and handed it over.
“Thank you mister Tofuld.” Weslock threw the charging switch. The gun began to hum. He looked around at his waiting men.
“Is there anyone amongst you who thinks himself deserving of promotion?” They returned blank stares, refusing to acknowledge the first officer. “No one,” Weslock queried. He waited several breaths gauging the men before throwing his hard gaze back to Tofuld. “Seems no one is ready for the challenges of command.”
“No sir,” Tofuld forced out of his mouth.
“Extend your hand,” Weslock ordered.
Confusion washed over the officer’s face. “Sir?”
“Extend your hand.” Slow. Deliberate.
The officer stammered, “Sir, this isn’t necessary. I’ve—”
Weslock raised the pulser to the man’s forehead. “Your hand or your life mister Tofuld!”
Tofuld started to raise his right hand but thought better of it and stripped the glove from his left. No need to ruin a good glove. He held the hand out like a benediction and tried to clamp his scream behind gnashing teeth as light and plasma scored a coin sized hole through his flesh. He drew his arm to his body, his right hand clutching the wrist in a death grip. His injured hand was a useless claw at the end of his arm.
“You’ve a debilitating wound, mister Tofuld. Go tend to it.”
The first officer staggered back to the lighter.
Nothing wrong with this, other than the fact that it does not move the story along. So I replaced it with this bit:
The captain pulled a flask from inside his coat and mouthed the cap free leaving it to dangle on a lanyard. He poured water over the gory blade, washing the blood into the sand and gravel. The blade flowed back into a glove and Weslock wriggled his fingers. He stood, noticing his men standing in a spaced arc, one holding Dusana up on her feet, her coat caped around her shoulders. Gorro stood away from them like a statue, as if there was no one inside that thick coat or behind those goggles. Weslock took a swallow of water, capped the spout, and tossed the canteen to Gorro.
The bundled man snatched the flask out of the air with casual dexterity. Instead of drinking, he tucked the canteen into a cargo pocket on the thigh of his pants. Weslock smiled thinly. Not a desperate and greedy man, this Gorro.
“Pay him his water,” Weslock enjoined, “Sarko’s included.” One of the men stepped over to Gorro to make arrangements. To the men with Dusana: “Take her aboard. Start the process. We’ll see what’s in that pulchritudinous head of hers.” His men escorted the submissive girl to the back of the lighter where the aft cargo door had been raised and the ramp deployed and extended. . . .
Weslock goes into the escape pod, looks around, cuts of Laanid's head (who was initially Waanid) and returns.
As he walked back to the Filthy Tramp’s lighter, Gorro stood over the dead Sarko, flask in hand, scarf looped loose around his neck exposing his mouth. Weslock grew wary over this man having thoughts over his dead partner. “Are we going to have a problem,” he asked as he neared with his grisly cargo.
Gorro never moved to look at him. “Ufeth clup sovek.” He was a stupid man.
Weslock clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “Don’t forget it, preeta.”
His first officer, Tofuld, waited at the bottom of the ramp when Weslock rounded the port engine’s thruster channels. He stood rigid as a regimental officer, his dark blue duster clasped tight against his form. “I’ve ran a comprehensive scan. She doesn’t know anything more than we already know.”
Captain Weslock shrugged. He hadn’t expected much from Dusana, but there could be surprises. He lifted the head. “Maybe you can get something out of this.”
Tofuld frowned and extended a leather gloved hand to receive the postmortem decapitation. “The synapses might not have deteriorated too bad. Triggering memory might be a problem though.”
“I’m sure you can coax something out of it.” Weslock moved up the ramp into the cargo bay of the lighter. . . .
Then he and Tofuld are in the hold looking at Laanid's memory scan. Again, it's a pretty solid piece of work, but should Wessy have a crew? I began to think not. He's after something very powerful and the less people that know about, the better for him. He wouldn't put himself into a position where an underling could betray him. While that would certainly add entertaining conflict, the story is about three characters on this search. Too many clutter the story.
So I got rid of the crew and had these scenes:
The bundled man snatched the flask out of the air with casual dexterity. Instead of drinking, he tucked the canteen into a cargo pocket on the thigh of his pants. Weslock smiled thinly. Not a desperate and greedy man, this Gorro.
“I owe you water,” Weslock adjured, “Sarko’s included.”
Gorro’s aim never wavered. Weslock could blade the glove and wrist-flick it through the air before Gorro could register the motion as an attack. “Are we going to have a problem?”
The hired gun stood motionless, his eyes hidden behind the dark goggles. His voice came muffled under the scarf, “Ufeth clup sovek.” He was a stupid man. He tucked his gun away.
“Don’t forget it, preeta.” Weslock reached into trouser pocket and clasped fingers around a small remote transmitter. He thumbed a button. “You’re water is in the back,” he said as the lighter’s rear cargo door began to lift.
Gorro hesitated and pointed at Dusana. Weslock shrugged. “Where is she going to go,” he called. Gorro turned away and went to the truck to pull it around to the back of the lighter. . . .
He gets the head out of the pod . . .
As he walked back to the Filthy Tramp’s lighter, Dusana paled upon seeing his grisly cargo. “Let’s go,” he said as he neared her. He passed and she got to her feet, thrusting her arms into the sleeves of her jacket.
Gorro waited at the bottom of the ramp when Weslock rounded the port engine’s thruster channels. His wide truck idled nearby, the stowage bay loaded with cases of water bins. He had lowered his scarf so that it exposed his mouth and chin and hung in loose coils around his throat. “Where’s the rest?” He did nothing to hide the threat in his tone.
Weslock passed him with Dusana in submissive tow, his boots clanging on the metal ramp plates. “You’ll get that when I find what I’m looking for.” Weslock turned his head to his shoulder. “And maybe more.”
“More,” Gorro pondered watching the captain step onto the deck of the cargo bay. “More work?”
Weslock stopped and turned halfway around, eying the smoky lenses of Gorro’s goggles. “More if I get a good look inside that head of yours.” He waved his gloved hand around the back of his head.
But would he hire Sarko and Gorro? I don't see that either, but I needed Sarko to disrupt his plans. And while none of this is bad, it leaves too many loose threads. I left myself with two people wronged: Gorro and Dusana, who could likely find an alliance and seek revenge against Weslock. I didn’t want that notion floating around in the reader's mind, that these people might resurface. I honestly didn't know quite what to do with them, except get rid of them, leaving me with Sarko using Dusana to force Clovo to talk. And while it is a cold act, it makes sense for Sarko to kill both of them, he doesn't want them hampering his efforts. He's removing obstacles and as an obstacle himself, gets removed by Weslock.
“Ah, my good Sarko, my time has been wasted in profligacy.”
I enjoyed this line so much as it really nailed the Weslock personality, but each time the scene changed, the line didn't quite work. It works if Sarko is a hired hand. It doesn't if Weslock is meeting Sarko for the first time. So I tried to force it in by having Sarko say something that warranted such a response. This is called: The author reaching into the story. It's a no-no. As much as I liked that phrase, it needed to go so that something more fluid and natural take its place.
A note of the foreign language: its derived from Eastern Europe languages thanks to the internet translator sites. Most of it is a phonetic interpretation while some are direct current spelling.
