DannoE
06-01-2006, 01:30 PM
I don't know how many of you will remember this or will have read enough to where this will make any sense at all, but here is the start to Issue 3 of Green Mountain Gunslinger.
This week, I've worked on this a bunch, trying to figure out how to set the stage quickly without having it seem like it's going quickly. C&C is welcome, encouraged, and definitely needed. I struggle with setting in my prose. I'd like to see if you think that's an issue here.
Thanks.
PROSE INTRO – PAGE 1
“How’s your friend?”
I looked over to see Captain Taylor Montgomery standing there looking as collected and as dapper as ever. We’d been his “guests” for more than two weeks at that point, so you’d think I’d have gotten used to it, but I hadn’t. Possessed of an easy self-assurance that I might have found attractive under other circumstances, after two days of close quarters on an old-time steam train, Montgomery seemed the like the most arrogant prick on face of the Earth.
“He’s hurting, and your medic won’t release any more pain meds,” I said, “but it looks like he’ll live. Next time, tell your trigger-happy side-kick to fire longer bursts if you’d rather not deal with prisoners.”
“You’re not--”
“Save it,” I said, not wanting to be corrected again by my erstwhile “host.” “If I’m not a prisoner, then why am I still in handcuffs?” I held up the cuffs to emphasize my point. I could see immediately that I’d finally gotten a rise out of him.
“You shot my XO!” he bellowed. “Then you tried to kill me! And now you won’t answer any of my questions or tell me anything about yourself… What do you want from me?
“Honestly Ms. Blackstone,” he said, falling back into his professional voice, “You’re lucky I didn’t have you gagged and shackled. Or maybe that’s what you’d prefer?”
“Hmph,” I said, “I think it’s what you’d prefer. But I’m not here to indulge your sick fantasies, no matter what you may think.” With that, I spun around, flipping my hair so that it slapped the good captain square in the face. I was glad he couldn’t see me smile as I walked away.
[The image here is of Carrie walking away from Taylor. She’s got a sly smile on her face. He’s standing in dumb shock, trying to figure out whether he loves her or wants to kill her.]
PAGES 2-3 – X PANELS
Note: I haven't planned the page-break here yet.
LTC Flaherty is standing at an easy position of parade rest. He’s in General Norton’s office back in Nashville. Norton is seated behind his desk. He’s reading a file. If we can see it, Taylor’s picture is paper clipped to the outside of the file.
GN: Montgomery’s record is impressive. Silver Star at the Battle of Dothan, Purple Heart in the Florida Campaign… Hell, he was even in the Long March. He must’a been what? Twelve years old back then?
LTC F: He was fifteen, sir. His father was stationed in Taipei with the Foreign Service when the 18th Airborne Corps landed. Taylor enlisted in 2015 when President Moorehouse started accepting local recruits.
GN: Oh yeah… I remember that. What a cluster! Still, it was probably the only good way we had to get the ex-pats home.
GN looks up.
GN: So tell me… When do you think Taylor lost his objectivity?
LTC F: Sir?
GN taps the report.
GN: He’s gone native, colonel. His reports start out cautious, but as he’s gotten close to the Green Mountain people, he’s quit seeing them as a threat. He makes that pretty clear in his report.
LTC F: I don’t think that’s fair, sir. Captain Montgomery is—
GN: I’m not criticizing him, Hal. He’s done his duty. He scouted the area, and he got his prisoners back to Nashville, safe and sound. What more can you ask from a cavalryman?
(link)
GN: If anything, his personal relationships are an asset here.
LTC F: I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir.
GN stands and gestures with one hand.
GN: Look… if these people really were after nuclear technology, then we can be damn sure that they aren’t going to tell us about it, at least not voluntarily. But I’d rather not torture them if we don’t have to. So all I’m sayin’ is, let’s let nature take its course.
(link)
GN: Keep Taylor with these people. Give him a few days leave and tell him to show these fine folk around our fair city. God knows he’s earned some time off. It should be fun.
(link)
GN: We’ll let him earn their trust and then see what he learns.
PAGES 4-5 AND MAYBE 6 – X PANELS
This is a new scene, tentatively planned for 3 pages. I HAVE planned the page breaks. Using the above format is my signal to myself that this is where the scene-change occurs. That tells me that I need to actually think through the page-breaks and transitions here when I do the layouts.
This next scene takes place on the train coming back into Nashville. I want to make the point that Nashville still LOOKS like America. It is therefore a site that Eric hasn’t seen in two decades and that Jack and Carrie have effectively NEVER seen.
Taylor: Welcome to Nashville, the new capital of the Republic!
Eric (small): Wow. I don’t believe it.
Carrie: It’s so…
Jack: Yeah.
E: It actually looks like America.
Eric gets a little misty and choked up.
E: I’m sorry Captain, it’s just… I never thought I’d see this again in my lifetime.
Eric is now openly crying. Taylor puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder.
E: We thought this was gone.
T: It’s okay, Eric. Happens to everyone who’s old enough to remember the way things were.
J: Captain, can you… tell us what happened? I mean, I think it’s clear now that you’re the enemy here. You gotta understand, we had no idea this was even—
This next line is gonna make Carrie frown.
T: It’s okay, Jack. You’re not the first long lost civilians I’ve ever rescued.
PAGE 5 – SPLASH PAGE
Same scene, here's the page break. And again, here is a spot where I was tempted to transition back to prose (so far I've had one of these per issue, at this point by design). So I've tentatively planned this speech for its own page with the idea that we'll use a collage of images to embellish a story that I am essentially "telling" here rather than "showing." To "show" this part would add A LOT of sequential pages that aren't in the budget here.
Long story by Taylor. We may have to break this out a little differently, or possibly give it a splash page montage with the events of the war surrounding his talking head.
T: There was a war with China. I won’t bore you with the details, but the long and the short of it is that Taiwan declared independence, and we backed their claim. The PRC launched nukes when one of our carrier groups breached their territorial waters. It started as a small, tactical strike but escalated and… well, I imagine you know the rest as well as I do.
T: General Moorehouse – now President Moorehouse - was in command of our forces over there. It took him three years to negotiate a ceasefire after the fighting stopped, and then it took another two years for us to get home. Meanwhile things back here were falling apart.
T: We’re only now just starting to get it back together again. We’d have come for you sooner, but honestly, we didn’t know that anyone in New England survived.
PAGE 6 – X PANELS
Same scene. Here's the page break. Here we transition back to normal sequential storytelling. Also, there is a page-turner from Page 5 to 6. That's by design.
Two-shot of Taylor and Carrie. Carrie is still frowning. Of the group, she’s the only one not immediately in love with the idea of America.
T: Putting this country back together hasn’t been as easy as we might have hoped it would be.
C: Maybe that’s because you shoot first and ask question later.
Eric is disappointed. Taylor is actually hurt and really starting to lose his patience.
E: Carrie…
T: Gimma a ****ing break! You were surrounded by RADCANs!
Now we can see that Taylor’s feelings were hurt.
T: Between the RADCANs and the cultists and the gang bangers and all the rest, we’ve had to learn to be careful. Is that really so hard to understand?
And here's the new pin-up:
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b209/DannoE/Pinup3.jpg
I hope the EDITS help.
This week, I've worked on this a bunch, trying to figure out how to set the stage quickly without having it seem like it's going quickly. C&C is welcome, encouraged, and definitely needed. I struggle with setting in my prose. I'd like to see if you think that's an issue here.
Thanks.
PROSE INTRO – PAGE 1
“How’s your friend?”
I looked over to see Captain Taylor Montgomery standing there looking as collected and as dapper as ever. We’d been his “guests” for more than two weeks at that point, so you’d think I’d have gotten used to it, but I hadn’t. Possessed of an easy self-assurance that I might have found attractive under other circumstances, after two days of close quarters on an old-time steam train, Montgomery seemed the like the most arrogant prick on face of the Earth.
“He’s hurting, and your medic won’t release any more pain meds,” I said, “but it looks like he’ll live. Next time, tell your trigger-happy side-kick to fire longer bursts if you’d rather not deal with prisoners.”
“You’re not--”
“Save it,” I said, not wanting to be corrected again by my erstwhile “host.” “If I’m not a prisoner, then why am I still in handcuffs?” I held up the cuffs to emphasize my point. I could see immediately that I’d finally gotten a rise out of him.
“You shot my XO!” he bellowed. “Then you tried to kill me! And now you won’t answer any of my questions or tell me anything about yourself… What do you want from me?
“Honestly Ms. Blackstone,” he said, falling back into his professional voice, “You’re lucky I didn’t have you gagged and shackled. Or maybe that’s what you’d prefer?”
“Hmph,” I said, “I think it’s what you’d prefer. But I’m not here to indulge your sick fantasies, no matter what you may think.” With that, I spun around, flipping my hair so that it slapped the good captain square in the face. I was glad he couldn’t see me smile as I walked away.
[The image here is of Carrie walking away from Taylor. She’s got a sly smile on her face. He’s standing in dumb shock, trying to figure out whether he loves her or wants to kill her.]
PAGES 2-3 – X PANELS
Note: I haven't planned the page-break here yet.
LTC Flaherty is standing at an easy position of parade rest. He’s in General Norton’s office back in Nashville. Norton is seated behind his desk. He’s reading a file. If we can see it, Taylor’s picture is paper clipped to the outside of the file.
GN: Montgomery’s record is impressive. Silver Star at the Battle of Dothan, Purple Heart in the Florida Campaign… Hell, he was even in the Long March. He must’a been what? Twelve years old back then?
LTC F: He was fifteen, sir. His father was stationed in Taipei with the Foreign Service when the 18th Airborne Corps landed. Taylor enlisted in 2015 when President Moorehouse started accepting local recruits.
GN: Oh yeah… I remember that. What a cluster! Still, it was probably the only good way we had to get the ex-pats home.
GN looks up.
GN: So tell me… When do you think Taylor lost his objectivity?
LTC F: Sir?
GN taps the report.
GN: He’s gone native, colonel. His reports start out cautious, but as he’s gotten close to the Green Mountain people, he’s quit seeing them as a threat. He makes that pretty clear in his report.
LTC F: I don’t think that’s fair, sir. Captain Montgomery is—
GN: I’m not criticizing him, Hal. He’s done his duty. He scouted the area, and he got his prisoners back to Nashville, safe and sound. What more can you ask from a cavalryman?
(link)
GN: If anything, his personal relationships are an asset here.
LTC F: I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir.
GN stands and gestures with one hand.
GN: Look… if these people really were after nuclear technology, then we can be damn sure that they aren’t going to tell us about it, at least not voluntarily. But I’d rather not torture them if we don’t have to. So all I’m sayin’ is, let’s let nature take its course.
(link)
GN: Keep Taylor with these people. Give him a few days leave and tell him to show these fine folk around our fair city. God knows he’s earned some time off. It should be fun.
(link)
GN: We’ll let him earn their trust and then see what he learns.
PAGES 4-5 AND MAYBE 6 – X PANELS
This is a new scene, tentatively planned for 3 pages. I HAVE planned the page breaks. Using the above format is my signal to myself that this is where the scene-change occurs. That tells me that I need to actually think through the page-breaks and transitions here when I do the layouts.
This next scene takes place on the train coming back into Nashville. I want to make the point that Nashville still LOOKS like America. It is therefore a site that Eric hasn’t seen in two decades and that Jack and Carrie have effectively NEVER seen.
Taylor: Welcome to Nashville, the new capital of the Republic!
Eric (small): Wow. I don’t believe it.
Carrie: It’s so…
Jack: Yeah.
E: It actually looks like America.
Eric gets a little misty and choked up.
E: I’m sorry Captain, it’s just… I never thought I’d see this again in my lifetime.
Eric is now openly crying. Taylor puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder.
E: We thought this was gone.
T: It’s okay, Eric. Happens to everyone who’s old enough to remember the way things were.
J: Captain, can you… tell us what happened? I mean, I think it’s clear now that you’re the enemy here. You gotta understand, we had no idea this was even—
This next line is gonna make Carrie frown.
T: It’s okay, Jack. You’re not the first long lost civilians I’ve ever rescued.
PAGE 5 – SPLASH PAGE
Same scene, here's the page break. And again, here is a spot where I was tempted to transition back to prose (so far I've had one of these per issue, at this point by design). So I've tentatively planned this speech for its own page with the idea that we'll use a collage of images to embellish a story that I am essentially "telling" here rather than "showing." To "show" this part would add A LOT of sequential pages that aren't in the budget here.
Long story by Taylor. We may have to break this out a little differently, or possibly give it a splash page montage with the events of the war surrounding his talking head.
T: There was a war with China. I won’t bore you with the details, but the long and the short of it is that Taiwan declared independence, and we backed their claim. The PRC launched nukes when one of our carrier groups breached their territorial waters. It started as a small, tactical strike but escalated and… well, I imagine you know the rest as well as I do.
T: General Moorehouse – now President Moorehouse - was in command of our forces over there. It took him three years to negotiate a ceasefire after the fighting stopped, and then it took another two years for us to get home. Meanwhile things back here were falling apart.
T: We’re only now just starting to get it back together again. We’d have come for you sooner, but honestly, we didn’t know that anyone in New England survived.
PAGE 6 – X PANELS
Same scene. Here's the page break. Here we transition back to normal sequential storytelling. Also, there is a page-turner from Page 5 to 6. That's by design.
Two-shot of Taylor and Carrie. Carrie is still frowning. Of the group, she’s the only one not immediately in love with the idea of America.
T: Putting this country back together hasn’t been as easy as we might have hoped it would be.
C: Maybe that’s because you shoot first and ask question later.
Eric is disappointed. Taylor is actually hurt and really starting to lose his patience.
E: Carrie…
T: Gimma a ****ing break! You were surrounded by RADCANs!
Now we can see that Taylor’s feelings were hurt.
T: Between the RADCANs and the cultists and the gang bangers and all the rest, we’ve had to learn to be careful. Is that really so hard to understand?
And here's the new pin-up:
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b209/DannoE/Pinup3.jpg
I hope the EDITS help.