Bookshelf Battle

Some character development for Gunther…setting out the scene with 30 captive Buchanan Boys. Part of me thought I should just have the zombie apocalypse start here but I wasn’t ready yet.

Knox and his sons, I hate to say, are throwaway characters. There hasn’t been time to expand on them. Gunther needed more manpower to watch 30 people and as we’ll see soon Slade will become preoccupied with the ladies.

It just wasn’t plausible that Gunther could watch them alone and not get rushed.

I was a little worried because Knox is old so with Gunther it’s like two old guys. So I did my best to differentiate him.

The Knoxes will most likely return and unless something else pops into mind, probably become zombie food.

This is the chapter that made me believe this story had legs.

I started out with Slade as a quiet stoic – a parody of Clint Eastwood’s “stranger” in his old cowboy movies like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Brown hair, bulging forehead vein, raspy voice, doesn’t talk much.

But then I thought well, that joke can only go so far.

Then it hit me – what if he isn’t this tough guy with everyone? What if, behind closed doors, he lets it all hang out with Miss Bonnie?

I love it. I think it’s funny. He shows such little emotion to everyone else but then he’s crying to Miss Bonnie. Waah. My Deputy hates me. Standing Eagle Hates me. Everyone hates me. Being a marshall is hard. Waah make me feel better.

I relate to this chapter. Personally, I feel like in a perfect relationship, you shouldn’t have to be “on” with your significant other. You get up, you go out in the world, you put on your brave, tough face. You might be unhappy in your mind but you get your job done and come home.

You shouldn’t have to put up a front with your wife or husband. So many other people out there will be happy to tear you down so why not be with someone who is willing to prop you up when you’re feeling down?

I guess people might differ, but I feel like that’s what a marriage is supposed to be all about and a lot of people lose sight of that. Looks seem to trump everything but people forget we all get old and you still need to be able to trust and carry on a conversation with that person when they’re old and hideous.

Slade attempts a proposal. He’s got a ring. He doesn’t actually show it. He offers to take her away from all this. It’s not the same as a proposal but its an indication that he’d like more of a relationship where he pays her to snuggle and talk.

She rebuffs him but when he knocks out Roscoe for calling her a whore, she’s like, well, I’m in love, no one’s cared enough to do something like that for me before.

And then we see how easily can slip back into his fake tough guy facade.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if people pick up on this, but you know how Christian Bale will be Bruce Wayne and talk normal and then he’ll be Batman and talk with a raspy voice?

That’s kind of like what Slade is doing here. He’s a normal guy around Miss Bonnie but then he puts on a tough personality to the rest of the world.

I feel like this would come across better if this were a movie. An actor acting one way in front of Bonnie and another in front of everyone else, you’d get but here it is easy to miss.

I also like how he offered to pay for the money Roscoe would have paid had he not been knocked out and Miss Bonnie replies that she’ll just go through his pants and take it out later.

Oh and we learn that Miss Bonnie shot her ex husband. I still can’t think of a way in which that would come up so it’s looking like that might be a secret Slade will never find out.

She’s a prostitute and a brothel owner. Usually, you’re one or the other but I thought it worked well with the backstory – she’s scooping up as much money as she can so she doesn’t have to be dependent on a man because when she was it didn’t end well.

I liked this Chapter.

Doc is the kind of guy who lies nonstop yet I’m pretty sure he believes himself. I’ve met people like this. You probably have too.

Some of his lies are probably half-grounded in reality. He probably has traveled the world. Maybe he’s been to England and India and felt that justifies adding a fib about advising the Queen and the Raj.

Then again, he lies so much, you’d never know if he was telling the truth if he was.

I thought it was a) very funny and b) developing his character by having him finagle his way into charging three women for umm illicit activities on the grounds of a medical examination.

And keep in mind, he’s such a good liar he believes he’s doing them a favor.

I had no idea “Annabelle” would be back but she does come back later to humorous effect and really compliments Doc as a fellow self absorbed perverted reprobate. They make a good couple.

In the rewrite, I will probably cut out the two women (sorry Doc, you’re losing your three-way) and just flush out Annabelle a bit more, what does she look like etc and just make it so Doc talks her into his ummm…medical advice.

This scene was by and large to set up what it is like inside the Bonnie Lass, the town’s saloon. Cowboys fighting, typical chairs being broken, crooked card games, all usual Western stuff.

Miss Bonnie’s sass shows when she shoots the bottle out of a guy’s hand before he can break it over someone else’s head.

Looking back, it might be a glimpse into the idea that she isn’t totally happy there. It’s like her whole life is spent babysitting “assholes” and I have noticed as the story goes on, she calls people assholes often.

The downside to this chapter is Doc gets lost for awhile. At this moment, Gunther is baby sitting the Buchanan Boys at the church and since there are 30 plus, he can’t do it alone. I don’t think even he and Doc could do that alone.

Doc can’t be a guard and be charming prostitutes at the same time, so I erred on the side of letting him slip away for awhile just because that’s how much I like him in this scene.

Finally, the end – where Slade comes in and there’s all this talk of “Miss Bonnie having something Slade needed and he wasn’t going to leave until he got it…”

It makes you think that he came there to get busy, right? But read on to Chapter 8…

Here we have our first introduction to Standing Eagle. We learn that there is a tribe of Native Americans living nearby, and that Slade and Standing Eagle have formed a tenuous friendship over the past year that has kept the townsfolk and the tribe from attacking each other.

I had to put a lot of thought into this. Native Americans got a pretty raw deal and that’s an understatement. To fully grasp what happened, imagine if a race of better armed aliens comes to earth today and is like, “OK, I guess we’ll live here now” – would we humans be like, “Hello, we’re already here.”

Purposely, I don’t mention what tribe he’s from because I know if I do someone will object. “You have him doing this or that but that tribe didn’t wear that kind of clothing, do that kind of thing…etc.”

I don’t believe Native Americans particularly care for being portrayed in Westerns since the sentiment behind any western is “Hooray for the cowboys!” and the cowboys didn’t really give the natives much to celebrate, to put it mildly.

But I felt any western really needs Native Americans so my attempt at keeping everyone happy revolves around basically making Standing Eagle feel like, “Sheesh…another mess made by these dummies that I have to help them clean up.”

I do need to rewrite the curse. Initially, it was going to be more of a mystery where people wonder whether the zombie outbreak was caused by the curse or by Doc’s medicine.

But as we’ll see later – we find out that Blythe is plotting a zombie apocalypse before our heroes find out there’s going to be one.

Thus, the reader will become bored if he/she knows who’s bringing the apocalypse – once everyone knows, the red herring is pointless.

I may change the curse to “something bad will happen” or I might remove it all together. I had to remove it because I enjoy the line, “Shut up, dumbass. I’m trying to curse you here.”

Smelly Jack Buchanan.

He’s an example of a character I didn’t really consider in my mind at first but then after sitting down and flushing things out, it has been a lot of fun to create him.

I needed a hook. And after thinking of a few different problems he could have had to make him reviled by my 3.5 readers, I finally settled on that he’s smelly.

And he isn’t happy about that nickname. He regularly protests that the press was supposed to refer to him as “Handsome Jack” but that nickname just won’t catch on the way “Smelly Jack” did.

Then on top of that, he has a gang, “The Buchanan Boys” which largely consists of 30+ members of his inbred family.

Brothers, cousins, and then the running joke becomes that most of them are his “brother-cousins.”

So in other words, his mother got together with one of her brothers and…

OK nevermind. We don’t need to think about that. Yuck.

As the story progresses, the ancillary Buchanan Boys become a lot like “the Minions” i.e. the little yellow henchmen on Despicable Me.

There isn’t much description of them because I can’t provide individual descriptions of over 30 people, but whenever Jack needs a lackey to do something, I just think of another name for a Buchanan. Rufus Buchanan, Frank Buchanan, Artie Buchanan…the list goes on.

They’re all expendable.

Also, I liked Smelly Jack’s line about “if you’ve got the steel you make the deals.”

Pretty much a good introduction to what the Old West was like. The US Government wanted it, but either didn’t have or didn’t want to spend enough money on Army/Law Enforcement so the day was often won by a-holes with guns i.e. people like Smelly Jack.

Almost makes you think Gunther has a point about walking away.

A glimpse at the affection held between Slade and Miss Bonnie.

Slade’s stoic facade is cracked by a smile when he is told by Gunther that Miss Bonnie is concerned about his well being.

We meet Doc.

Of all the things to make fun of about the old west, “snake oil” or potions, elixirs, so-called medicine designed to cure everything has got to be at the top of the list.

Doc is quite the hilarious showman, though I don’t believe he intends to be funny.

I see Doc as a man who is full of himself, yearns to have a place in history as a revered, great man and honestly believes he’s doing a good thing by peddling his Miracle Cure-All.

And keep in mind, even as far as the 1950’s, cigarette companies were putting out ads with doctor approved cigarettes, so heck, you almost can’t blame Doc for thinking himself a genius for “touting the curative properties of cocaine.”

By the way, I’m thinking of changing cocaine to opium. Cocaine seems funnier. Opium seems more time period appropriate. As far as I know, they had both in the 1880s.

My four observations about this chapter:

1) We meet Miss Bonnie for the first time. She’s sassy – throws a dude over the railing, yells at Gunther for shooting his gun inside the joint, and offers to help Slade when no one else will.

2) I never intended it but there’s an ongoing theme of “employee/employer” loyalty. Being a good employee means sticking by your boss even when you think a different course of action is warranted.

(Obviously, I don’t advocate taking that to a ridiculous level – i.e. if your boss orders you to do something super evil, you should walk away).

Thus, Gunther gives a rousing speech in an attempt to find some volunteers to help Slade fend off the Buchanans. He does this even though in the first chapter, he tried to talk Slade out of the whole thing.

So if your idea is rejected, still do your best with the idea the boss is angling for.

(We’ll see this concept later with Blythe and his dealings with the Legion Corporation Board of Directors. Although in that case, there is much evil happening.)

3) Gunther is a bit of an homage to Festus on Gunsmoke. Every episode, Festus would tell his boss, Matt Dillon, that his idea was the dumbest idea he ever heard, sure to get everyone killed, and then after his protests fail, he’d be the first to have Dillon’s back.

4) Scenes like this also happen in westerns. The hero and the townsfolk would often be at odds as to what to do about the bad guys. Townsfolk would often pressure the hero to just let the bad guys do what they want lest the bad guys engage in even more evildoing.

Thus, Blake and Townsend sort of become like those old man muppets in the Muppet Theater, constantly heckling Kermit the Frog and telling him how much he sucks without offering an idea of their own.

Chapter 1 Reblog – The story begins with the classic western showdown scene. Slade is standing in the street, waiting for the Buchanan Boys.

Gunther, his elderly deputy, tries to talk him into a “common sense approach” – i.e. it is unlikely Slade will survive when there’s so many Buchanan Boys coming and is it really worth it to die just to make a point?

OK…stay with me here, 3.5 readers.

Zombies + Dinosaurs = ZOMBIE DINOSAURS!

Oh my God I was so excited to interview these guys. I really was. Such an awesome concept. Undead zombie dinosaurs wreaking havoc.

Really and truly, a must read!