Stephen Drivick's Blog - Posts Tagged "john"
Almost Time to Lift the Curtain.
I just sent Sometimes We Ran 2: Community off to the editor. I've done all I can. It's up to the professionals to make it into a book.:)
It's about 68,000 words, and it continues John and Claire's story as they try to survive in a shattered world. It feels a lot like the first book, so I hope zombie fans will enjoy it.
Now on to new business. How about Sometimes We Ran 3? :)
It's about 68,000 words, and it continues John and Claire's story as they try to survive in a shattered world. It feels a lot like the first book, so I hope zombie fans will enjoy it.
Now on to new business. How about Sometimes We Ran 3? :)
Claire
This is my third entry for the Blogging from A to Z April 2014 challenge. Today we look at the letter C-Claire.
In the morning light, I got a good look at my new fellow survivor. Claire really was a little thing, only standing about five feet tall or so. I bet she barely weighed a hundred pounds. I wondered how she survived the initial outbreak. She looked pretty weak. She must have survived by going from one group of survivors to another. I wondered if she had any real skills at all. I hoped she wasn't completely useless, because I really didn't want to be a babysitter.
Claire walked with a purposeful stride. She held her head up high, constantly scanning the road ahead. Once in a while, she shot a nervous glance in my direction. I guess she didn't trust me either.
Claire brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, and put it behind her ear. I thought the pink color was a little weird, but she was kind of attractive. She had a nice build; not much up top, but her back porch wasn't too bad. I suddenly wished I were twenty years younger.
This is how John first describes Claire in Sometimes We Ran. From the beginning, I had a picture of Claire in my mind. I wanted her to be an opposite of the other main character, John. He was tall and armed, while Claire would be small and have no weapons except for a sharpened piece of rebar.
I knew I wanted her to be strong. One of the problems in many zombie apocalypse novels is how female characters are treated. Often they are simply leather-clad, background dwellers that whine and moan through the end of the world.
I wanted Claire to be different. Initially, she would appear weak but would prove herself to be valuable and brave. She would kill zombies and make pancakes. Just the useful skills you needed during the apocalypse.:)
In some of the prehistoric drafts of SWR Vol. 1, Claire was younger - like early high school young. I wrote a few passages of interaction between her and John, and she came off as whiny and useless. After some soul searching, I scrapped it all and made her older. I wrote some dialog with these changes, and it worked. I put a bat in her hand and Claire was born.
In the end, I like writing for Claire. She's brave, funny, and a good sidekick. Claire is the kind of person where a friendship could span decades. She's a great character with a lot of heart. A little spitfire trying to light the darkness. Very human in a inhuman world.
But don't take her size as a sign of weakness ...she's a killer with her bat.:)
In the morning light, I got a good look at my new fellow survivor. Claire really was a little thing, only standing about five feet tall or so. I bet she barely weighed a hundred pounds. I wondered how she survived the initial outbreak. She looked pretty weak. She must have survived by going from one group of survivors to another. I wondered if she had any real skills at all. I hoped she wasn't completely useless, because I really didn't want to be a babysitter.
Claire walked with a purposeful stride. She held her head up high, constantly scanning the road ahead. Once in a while, she shot a nervous glance in my direction. I guess she didn't trust me either.
Claire brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, and put it behind her ear. I thought the pink color was a little weird, but she was kind of attractive. She had a nice build; not much up top, but her back porch wasn't too bad. I suddenly wished I were twenty years younger.
This is how John first describes Claire in Sometimes We Ran. From the beginning, I had a picture of Claire in my mind. I wanted her to be an opposite of the other main character, John. He was tall and armed, while Claire would be small and have no weapons except for a sharpened piece of rebar.
I knew I wanted her to be strong. One of the problems in many zombie apocalypse novels is how female characters are treated. Often they are simply leather-clad, background dwellers that whine and moan through the end of the world.
I wanted Claire to be different. Initially, she would appear weak but would prove herself to be valuable and brave. She would kill zombies and make pancakes. Just the useful skills you needed during the apocalypse.:)
In some of the prehistoric drafts of SWR Vol. 1, Claire was younger - like early high school young. I wrote a few passages of interaction between her and John, and she came off as whiny and useless. After some soul searching, I scrapped it all and made her older. I wrote some dialog with these changes, and it worked. I put a bat in her hand and Claire was born.
In the end, I like writing for Claire. She's brave, funny, and a good sidekick. Claire is the kind of person where a friendship could span decades. She's a great character with a lot of heart. A little spitfire trying to light the darkness. Very human in a inhuman world.
But don't take her size as a sign of weakness ...she's a killer with her bat.:)
John
This is my tenth entry in the A-Z Blogging Challenge for April. Today we look at the letter J-John.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I stopped them cold. You can't get too sentimental about the old days when things were normal. You get sentimental, you go soft, and then you give up. Then little girl zombies come in the night and eat your guts out.
These are the thoughts of my other main character, John, from Sometimes We Ran. At this point in his life, it is eight months after a zombie apocalypse has nearly wiped out humanity.
Like Claire, I had a clear picture of John in my mind as well. He was going to be middle-aged, strong, armed, and crafty. Running from the living and the dead had turned him into a survival machine with a good shooting hand. He has kept his wits about him as the world around him has fallen apart.
John would have a past. He would be a regular guy (engineer) who married late in life to a beautiful woman. He would lose his wife to the apocalypse, and carry the guilt of losing her on the road. When we meet him in Sometimes We Ran, he is at the end of his rope. John's travels on the road are becoming a death march. Meeting Claire helps him go on. They strike up a friendship.
A few people have asked me if there is some of me in John. We're both middle-aged and regular guys. I would like to think so. I think writers always put a little of themselves in their characters. In an emergency situation, I hope I could be as focused as John.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I stopped them cold. You can't get too sentimental about the old days when things were normal. You get sentimental, you go soft, and then you give up. Then little girl zombies come in the night and eat your guts out.
These are the thoughts of my other main character, John, from Sometimes We Ran. At this point in his life, it is eight months after a zombie apocalypse has nearly wiped out humanity.
Like Claire, I had a clear picture of John in my mind as well. He was going to be middle-aged, strong, armed, and crafty. Running from the living and the dead had turned him into a survival machine with a good shooting hand. He has kept his wits about him as the world around him has fallen apart.
John would have a past. He would be a regular guy (engineer) who married late in life to a beautiful woman. He would lose his wife to the apocalypse, and carry the guilt of losing her on the road. When we meet him in Sometimes We Ran, he is at the end of his rope. John's travels on the road are becoming a death march. Meeting Claire helps him go on. They strike up a friendship.
A few people have asked me if there is some of me in John. We're both middle-aged and regular guys. I would like to think so. I think writers always put a little of themselves in their characters. In an emergency situation, I hope I could be as focused as John.
