After significant delay, I'm finalizing my new novel, Sunset Hill. In the past I've published my eBooks first, then the paperback. Most of my sales are of eBooks.
However, I found I caught a few more mistakes (aren't there always a few?) when proofing the paperback and had to edit both the eBook and paperback versions; such a hassle. This time I'm publishing the paperback first.
Here's the current version of the cover:
I'll see how the proof looks and make changes if necessary.
P.S. It might appear a little blurry because it was a screen shot. Pages doesn't allow exporting to image formats.
In April, 2011, I attended my first "bloodless" bullfight in Stevinson, CA. I blogged about it here. The bullfight was part of the research for my second Grand Starr novel, Death of a Matador. It was about this time I conceived of another novel with the forcado group as main characters. I'm now in the process of writing that novel, working title The Young Bull Wrestlers.
I'm only about 8,000 words in and have begun writing a scene where the team is practicing at the main character's house in Hilmar, CA. This scene, and a similar scene in Death of a Matador, was inspired by an actual (man I hate that word) experience I had. A patient of mine was well known in the Portuguese (Azorean) community in the Hilmar-Stevinson area and arranged for me to have "back stage" access to the Amadores de Merced team of forcados, or bull wrestlers. I didn't know I'd have this kind of access and so wasn't prepared. I probably could have made more of it than I did.
As I've blogged before, it's important to me that my books be as "real" as possible, meaning I don't want to give a reader an opportunity to say "No way that could happen!" (Canals excepted; it's a horror/sci-fi novel). With this in mind, I've done some research on the basic technique or approach used by a team of forcados.
What Forcados Do
Forcados are called on to wrestle a bull into submission after it's been run around the arena for 15-20 minutes by a matador either on foot or on a horse, so the bull has been worn out to a degree. (Mind you, it still has plenty of energy and fury to run one of its horn through your gut!) At the two bullfights I attended, the horse and foot matadors did not whip up much excitement from the crowd, despite their great skill and artistry. People were talking and eating, trying to stay warm, texting or talking on a cell phone, drinking and laughing with friends, etc. My feeling is they've been to so many bullfights that the novelty is long gone.
But when the horns blow and the chosen eight leap over the wall and strut into the arena, the crowd comes alive. Cell phones drop into laps, children crowd the front of the stands to get a better view, and people quit yapping. (I never saw anyone set a beer down, though.)
The forcado's goal is to wrestle the bull into submission on the first try. From what I've gathered this means their front guy needs to have stayed on the bull's head until the bull has been subdued. If they fail they keep trying until they get it right. It took one team three tries to wrestle the last bull of the evening at one of my two bullfights. (The biggest and meanest bulls are, generally, saved for last.)
Positions
Eight members are chosen to fight each bull. (Some teams have over 20 members.) They are assigned specific positions that have specific tasks. They are as follows:
Position #1: Cara or Caras - "Faces the bull"
This is the guy that leads the team into the arena. His is the position of greatest risk and skill. His one goal is to jump on top of the bull's head, preferably between the horns, wrap his arms around the bull's neck, and hang on until the bull has been subdued.
When you watch my YouTube video I've linked to, you'll notice that #1 is backpedaling when the bull hits him. Obviously, this takes some of the oomph! out of bull's charge.
You should also notice that the #1 position requires some style and grace. He must show the bull that he's not afraid of it by his posturing and verbal taunting (which you can't hear on the video). He doesn't just run into the arena and start yelling at the bull.
#1 is aided by junior matadors who stand outside the wall and distract the bull with their brightly colored capas, or capes. The distraction allows #1 to get closer to the bull. Why? So the bull doesn't hit #1 after charging halfway across the arena. The closer #1 is to the bull, the less inertia the bull will have gained when they collide.
Observe the guy in the #1 position in the following three photos:
#1 is out there in front, by himself.
He jumps on the bull's head. #2 is right behind him.
He is hanging on for dear life.
The last picture is a good segue into...
Position #2: Contra Caras - "First helper"
#2's main job is to see that #1 stays on the bull's head. If #1 is slipping off the front of the head, #2 tries to push him back up. If #1 is about to go over the bull's head onto his back, #2 tries to pull him forward. His roll is one of timing: he's got to get to #1 while the bull's head is down.
This #2 has moved to the opposite side of the bull.
You'll see in this picture that #2 moved to the side of the bull and has grabbed the bull around the neck. His #1 is securely on the top and front of the bull's head. This position can be dangerous because he doesn't get to backpedal like #1 does.
Numbers 3, 4, and 5 have entered the frame. 2 and 3 are there to...
I admit I don’t visit Goodreads often enough. Sometimes not for months. But, when I do, I like to see if any new reviews have been posted for my novels. I found one today. Here’s the link in case you want to see the original review. Here’s the text of the review:
Canals starts off as a typical crime thriller as Detective Daniel Lawless comes to the scene of a dismembered body by a canal in California. Everett Powers then develops a wonderful story written in the style of a good police drama. Every character the reader meets is given a full introduction, it is not a case of "this is John, a 20 year old man" - you get to know each character as a real person. This character development is true for everyone, whether they continue to the end of this novel or meet a violent death.
Detective Daniel Lawless is a different type of policeman and has a quirky character. He likes opera and has a collection of 82 pairs of shoes giving him the nickname of shoe boy when he was at school. Before he can solve this death by the canal, another death occurs along a nearby canal. Something is going on around the canal network but can Danny solve the case before more people are killed?
Slowly the reader finds that this is not your typical crime thriller. Little bits of information are drip fed into the story to make you think that something nasty may be lurking in the canals. Bit by bit this story becomes a science fiction novel.
Everett Powers develops a wonderful plot that bit by bit becomes a race for Daniel Lawless to save the day. The reader along with Daniel begins to understand just what is going on along the canals and we begin to get the bigger picture.
Canals is a very entertaining read. I like the way it moved from a crime thriller to a thought provoking science fiction story. The message at the end is very moving and forces you to consider real life global issues.
I can find nothing wrong with Canals. It is a great story that was told with precision and detail. The writing is top quality and it was a joy to read. I enjoy walking my dog along canals and now I will always wonder what may be in the water. I vote this book the top score of 5 stars. Canals is available as a 609 KB Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2011.
CANALS was the first novel I completed and my only horror/sci-fi novel. The Grant Starr novels are thrillers. CANALS can be purchased for 99 cents right now at your favorite ebook retailer. I noticed Amazon is selling the quality paperback for $14.39, though I don’t know why. I never lowered the price from $15.99 and it’s sold only on Amazon.
I finished the first draft of my adaptation of The Mighty T to the silver screen. It weighs in at 120 pages, about 20 above my goal.
I was advised that new screenwriters shouldn't turn in scripts longer than 90-105 pages, but when I looked at the winning scripts for the recent Nicholl competition, they were all about 120 pages. We'll see how it looks after edits.
Some nuts-and-bolts stuff about my process.
1. The screenplay resides in Scrivener for Mac at the moment and will until it's ready for submission. Scrivener has a screenwriting mode, which makes it easy to format while you write.
2. I have Scrivener sync the screenplay onto Dropbox in Fountain format. That way I can work on it on either my iPad or, as I did yesterday, on a PC. Edited documents synced perfectly the next time I load Scrivener. I tried typing a new document using Fountain syntax but Scrivener put it in a trash folder when it synced. I'm not sure why. I copy and pasted the new doc into Scrivener but had to format it line by line. Kind of a hassle.
3. I wrote with iA Writer on the iPad and Word on the PC. I've used a Mac since March and it was a bit rough going back to a PC. It didn't help that it had a cheap keyboard with poor tactile feedback.
While waiting for feedback from some excellent readers who are reading SUNSET HILL, I decided to try my hand at adapting one of my novels to film; i.e., write a screenplay. I thought, I've written four novels, how hard could it be to write a screenplay for one?
Little did I know...
Screenplays and novels are not alike in the least. Novels can be 350 pages of prose while a screenplay should come in at about 100 pages. And no prose. They must consist of mostly action and dialogue with very little description. If a character must be described, it should be no longer than one sentence.
Peter Stone was the screenwriter for the original The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (1976) (Stone passed away on 2003.) He's an Oscar, Tony, and Emmy winning writer. He talked about the differences between writing a screenplay and a novel in the commentary feature on the Charade DVD.
“When I couldn’t sell the original screenplay (for Charade) I was advised by my wife, and my agent concurred, to turn it into a novel. I had never written a novel and it was in the course of writing the novel that I came to realized that I had no ability for writing novels at all. It’s a different set of muscles. There are very, very few people who can write dramatic material and narrative prose. Very few. Chekhov could do it. There are some today who can do it. Richard Price can do it. Crichton. They just call on a different set of muscles. One is descriptive and uses language in a way that dramatic material does not.
Dramatic material—everything has to be revealed through behavior, that’s all you have to reveal it with. And description plays such a small part in it. It’s just a different set of muscles at work and I don’t have them, or I never developed them, or I wasn’t interested in them or something. But I sure discovered it immediately. So it was a rotten novel.” (Emphasis added.)
"A different set of muscles." That's exactly what it feels like to me.
I've decided to adapt The Mighty T for film.
I Googled screenwriting, found a bunch of good information, and talked to a writer I met on Twitter, Katherine Bennet, who is a screenwriter. Alright. Ready to write that screenplay. After I reread the book. It'd been a while.
When I stopped to come up for air, I was 45 pages in. Unfortunately, I was on page 37 of the novel. Yeah, that won't cut it. At that pace I'd end up with a 500 page screenplay, enough for five movies.
Back to the drawing board.
Katherine strongly suggested using Chris Soth's Mini Movie Method: Organize the screenplay into eight "mini movies," each 12-15 pages long. It is supposedly the format Hollywood is looking for in a screenplay. I just couldn't wrap my brain around that format, though. Not for The Mighty T, at least. And, I'm very impressed by the movies coming out of Hollywood these days. Most are terrible.
So, instead, I decided to use the three acts format, with act 2 broken into two parts. I've organized the novel thusly:
Act I - the killing of the utility GMs
Act II, Part 1 - blowing up the Jones Pumping Plant
Act II, Part 2 - blowing up the O'Shaughnessy Dam
Act III - the attack on the Don Pedro Dam
Each act gets about 25 pages.
The task then becomes, what to cut from the novel? Obviously, much has to be cut. In fact, most of the novel has to be cut. And that hasn't been easy. I've had to cut scenes I really like. It's been a little like having a family of 50 but only being able to take 10 with you on vacation.
I'm currently into Act II, Part 2, with 54 pages written. (According to Scrivener's page count.) I'm writing the draft for screenplay in Scrivener, because I love it and already own it, but will have to get a dedicated piece of software for the finished product.
