Gloves Off: Round XXIX

A third element?

Today we’ll take a longer look at Cavities, a horror novel in progress by Jeffrey Owens

To read this section as originally published, please click here.

Chapter 1.1 Cavities (working title)

“Fuck the Bechdel Test,” Stacey Daddario said, turning on her right blinker and dutifully looking over her shoulder to check her blindspot for any potential unhinged rush-hour drivers. She didn’t notice that the light brown ’87 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera in front of her had also begun to change lanes, cutting her off. “If I’m the writer and you’re the director, I don’t see how that’s even relevant. Besides, comics are for kids anyway. No self-respecting adult reads any of that shit.”

My Response: Okay, just checking, but is Stacey the point-of-view character? If so, would she describe the other car as a light brown ‘87 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera? If not, can you get closer to her perspective? The larger issue is, if she’s the POV, how can she not notice something?

Samantha Porter sighed and said, “I just think it would be nice if we had more than one female character in the story, y’know?” Stacey put on her left blinker, giving her white, 15-passenger ’03 Ford van that she had named Bessie a little bit of gas. They were on their way up north from Phoenix, Arizona to Sam’s family cabin in Harper’s Claim, an old mining town a little south of the Grand Canyon with a population of 2013, and that was as of today. It had been 2016, until around three in the morning when Thomas Clarke, who had lost his job at the bank a week earlier, decided that the best way to handle it for his wife and their six-year-old daughter was with a shotgun. “Are we really only gonna have one woman in a horror movie,” Samantha asked. “That sounds…boring!”

My Comments: Don’t try to make this opening do too much. We won’t retain all of that background information. You want to hook us with the situation before you give us this supporting stuff. The murder/suicide is tossed in pretty glibly, and needs its own chapter set in the town. Also, beware of abstracts: 15-passenger, ‘03, south, population 2013, a week earlier, six-year-old. While these might seem specific, such short-cuts say nothing about Stacey. If she’s the POV character, how would she describe a six-year-old girl? Can you get inside Stacey’s perspective?

Stacey turned on her left blinker and checked her blindspot again, not noticing that the ’87 Olds in front of them had put on its left blinker, too, and had begun to change lanes already, seemingly following them from the front. She hesitated a moment before responding. “Alright, let’s say, hypothetically, I agree with you. Don’t you think—,” she noticed the car in front of her had cut her off again. “Jesus Christ, what’s with this fucking guy?” She slowed down at least ten miles per hour.

My Comments: Wait, she’s put on her left blinker twice. Once in the previous paragraph, and then just now. Careful. What’s ten miles per hour to Stacey?

“What are you doing,” Sam asked. “I’ve never seen you drive the speed limit before.”

“Oh, ha ha,” Stacey replied. “I’m just gonna let him have it. Like, go ahead, man, the road’s yours.” She flung her right hand out, gesturing toward the road. “It’s gonna take us at least three and a half hours to get there. Doesn’t really matter if it’s four.” She rolled down the window, stuck her left hand out, and flipped off the driver in front of them, secretly hoping they didn’t see it.

My Comments: Now I’m going to harp on right vs. left. Are they necessary? Couldn’t you write: She rolled down the window, stuck out her hand and flipped off… ? My theory is that when you designate right or left you force the reader to think rather than simply imagine or picture something. If you can limit the scene to actions, and avoid abstracts such as three or four hours (what’s an hour to Stacey?) then you stand a better chance of pulling your reader into the story. Also, if we’re so close to Stacey that we can sense her secretly hoping, then how can we also notice the car she doesn’t notice?

I vote you commit to Stacey’s POV. Let the other car move, but only note its movement as Stacey does.

The Oldsmobile sped off into the distance, weaving through a multitude of cars as it did so.

“Fucking psy-cho,” Stacey scoffed, only she pronounced the word ‘psycho’ with a hard ch sound. It almost sounded like she said ‘sideshow'. This was one of the many deliberate mispronunciations she regularly used to amuse herself. “Anyway, this is why I gave you the script weeks ago. It’s not my fault you didn’t read it until last night. Don’t you think that when we’re in the car, on the way to the cabin is a little late in the game to bring all of this up? And where are we gonna find another actor to learn the lines—which I would still need to write, mind you—and to literally show up tomorrow night?” She put an emphasis on these last two words.

My Comments: It would be nice if the Olds blew coal, like when kids stomp the gas to throw a dense black cloud of exhaust. Stacey’s window is open, right?

Consider not explaining, for example: This was one of the many deliberate mispronunciations she regularly used to amuse herself. Instead, have her do or say things often enough that the reader realizes she’s doing them deliberately.

As always, the more physical the language the better it will work. Instead of: She put an emphasis on these last two words. How about: She stepped hard on the last two words.

Sam looked at Stacey with a tentative smile and said, “I…was thinking Breanna could do it?” She shrunk back in her seat a little and added, “Annnnd I may have already added some lines and made some edits?”

“Breanna,” Stacey said, trying to hide her frustration that she had spent hours making storyboards that may now be irrelevant. “Is she any good?”

My Comments: Whenever you use tentative smile or trying to hide her frustration you cheat your reader out of deducing that from a gesture or tic. Drumming fingers, chewing fingernails, bouncing knees, chewing her hair, there are so many ways to give your characters hands, feet, arms, legs, and also hint at their emotional state. What does Stacey focus on outside of the van in order to evade Sam’s smile? What’s within view that can accentuate the tension in the car?

“Is she any good,” Sam asked. “Are you kidding? Didn’t you watch that film Daniel made that I sent you?”

Stacey scoured her mind, trying to remember who Daniel was. “Was that that one with the babysitter and the guy in the white mask with a knife?”

Sam stared at her in disbelief. “J—…y—…are you talking about John Carpenter’s Halloween,” she asked, incredulously. “Possibly the most legendary slasher of all time?”

My Comments: Would you consider a third dynamic in the car? A laptop on which audition reels are playing? A cat? Think of the scene in The Fog wherein the female lead is in her radio station, listening to recorded sound-effect tapes, while a haunted plank from a ghost ship slowly catches fire… Two people talking is a little serve-and-volley. What else can you put into this scene?

Consider a similar story’s beginning. In Stephen King’s Children of the Corn we have a man and wife battling on a road trip. But we also have the radio playing as they hear a steady stream of fire-and-brimstone preachers. This preaching becomes the ominous foreshadowing for the rest of the story.

What might your third element be?

“Okay, Sam,” Stacey said, “You know I don’t know all of this shit as well as you do! You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

“Ignoring the fact that you just called me a bitch, and the fact that you thought my my high school boyfriend, who was born in 1991, directed HALLO…ween…,” Sam trailed off. She was staring out the windshield. “Is that that car again?”

Ahead of them, all of the cars in the middle lane were swerving left or right to avoid the Oldsmobile they thought they had lost, which was now going 20 or 30 under the speed limit. Stacey switched into the left lane to pass it forgoing her blinker. “Fuck this,” she said, as she floored it. Bessie wasn’t exactly built for speed, but she came through in a pinch when you needed her to.

My Comments: Don’t assure us that Bessie will make it. Keep the tension up. And keep feeding us specifics; instead of slammed on its brakes we’d see the brake lights blaze up bright red. The Olds tires fishtail skid marks and a fog of oily smoke from scorched rubber tires. Give us the details and allow the reader to realize what’s taking place.

The Oldsmobile slammed on its brakes, and so did every car behind it. A soccer mom in a blue 2019 Dodge Caravan swerved directly toward Stacey, who saw it just in time to jerk the steering wheel so hard to the left that she found herself going 90 in the shoulder of a 3-lane highway, the divider wall audibly whizzing by on her left. The vibrations of the rumble strip may as well have been the engines of a 737 blasting straight through the open window Stacey had used moments earlier to flip this maniac off. “Fuck! Fuck!” Stacey still had control, but she regretted getting Bessie up to that speed. She let off the gas, getting down to about 65 as they passed a speed limit sign that read 55, finding her spot to merge back into traffic.

My Comments: Careful. Don’t tell us what we already know. And again, abstracts. Unpack how Stacey would perceive a 2019 Dodge Caravan and a soccer mom.

The driver of the Cutlass had gotten to her. She inherited a road rage problem from her father, but had managed to keep it in check ever since earlier that year when, traveling on that same stretch of freeway, she had seen someone in a lifted truck with a Blue Lives Matter sticker run over a man on a motorcycle and not stop, dragging the man and his bike underneath the truck. The truck had a pair of “truck nuts” which kept bouncing left and right, tea bagging the motorcyclist for a good hundred feet or more as the back of his head peeled off, leaving a trail of blood that could still be seen, if you knew where to look.

Stacey knew where to look.

My Comments: Watch out. Getting expository. This is back story, and if it’s important, it ought to get its own chapter as a flashback. Here you’ve summarized it. If anything, show us the faded trail of blood as the set-up for eventually telling us the larger story—later. And careful for tone. When you torture a biker with fake testicles, then tear him to bits, you cut your tension with absurdity.

“This guy is insane,” she said.

“Well, you did flip him the bird,” Sam said, with a little snark, ever the cool-headed one.

Stacey mocked her. “Myell you myid myeh myeh myeh myird. Shut up,” she said, trying her hardest to smile at her best friend. She knew it was all in good fun. Except for the Oldsmobile, that is, which was almost alongside them, now, and not very fun at all.

My Comments: Consider that dialog cuts tension. For the contrast, why not show them silent for a moment. Go to on-the-body to describe how Stacey’s body has reacted to the shock of the last encounter? Silence and gesture and sweating can sustain your tension.

You’ve already suggested that Bessie has seen better days. You could go on-the-body with the van.

“Okay, fuck this,” Stacey said, again. She put on her right blinker to make her way to toward the exit lane while slowing down a little to make sure there was at least one car between her and the Olds. When there were three cars between them, she got behind them. The other driver kept pace. She got into the right lane after letting a couple more cars pass. One more lane to the exit now. The Cutlass put on its right blinker and cut off the car in front of Stacey and Sam.

Sam shrunk back in her seat a bit and said, “This is getting a little scary.”

My Comments: Again, don’t cut tension by talking. The character might exchange glances. One might reach over to squeeze the hand of the other.

What seems very, very missing is the camera/phone video that runs our lives. Especially if these characters are filmmakers. Sam ought to be fumbling with her phone and turning all of this into footage. She could even narrate it, and that would allow you to use expository/summary language. For example: Sam framed the Olds on her phone, saying, “Brake lights! Soccer mom at six o’clock almost eats it! School bus coming on fast, now, in-bound at four o’clock…” That camera/phone might be your missing third element within the van.

The presence of a camera prompts a performance. Thus when Sam points her phone/camera at Stacey, we’ll accept that Stacey will act in some larger-than-life way—like flipping off the Olds.

“This is way past scary,” Stacey replied. “Thank fuck it’s rush hour. I don’t wanna think about what would happen if this had been tonight when we’re 30 or 40 miles south of Flagstaff.” They glanced uneasily at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

Stacey pulled into the exit lane. At first, she was relieved when the Cutlass didn’t put on its blinker, but that relief was short lived. As they neared the end of the exit lane, the Cutlass slammed on its brakes again and got into the exit lane behind them, flying across the median, narrowly missing the exit sign, kicking up rocks and dust.

Sam panicked. “Holy shit! What are we gonna do!?”

My Comments: You start live streaming to your million followers, that’s what you do. They’re filmmakers, they should see the world as a film. Or at least Sam ought to. As storytellers, they’ll be looking to escalate the situation and create drama—that’s your permission to make them take risks.

“Relax,” Stacey said. “I’ll pull into the QT that’s just up the road. We need to fill up soon anyway, so we’ll just do it now. They can’t do anything to us there.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Sam. She had a horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. Sam got horrible feelings often, but most of the time they were just feelings.

The Cutlass slowed down a little as Stacey turned right into the busy gas station. It passed the turn they had taken, slowed down a little more, and took the next turn in. Stacey pulled up to one of the pumps and put the van in park, leaving it running, just in case. Her and Sam both had their eyes glued to the Cutlass as it drove past the pumps in front of them, turned around, and pulled into the pump directly behind Bessie.

My Comments: Careful of head hopping. So far Stacey has been our POV character. But with she got horrible feelings often you’ve jumped into Sam’s head. The reader is going to be wondering why you haven’t describe the Olds’ occupants by now.

The women looked in their mirrors, but the sun was shining off of the Cutlass in a way that made it nearly impossible to see the driver. All they could see was a silhouette and what looked like light glinting off of the driver’s glasses.

“Did you say something,” Sam asked.

“No,” Stacey said. She reached for the door handle and unlatched it.

Samantha grabbed her arm and yelled, “What are you doing!?”

My Comments: Don’t answer questions with dialog. Keep the tension. Maybe have Stacey grab Sam’s camera/phone as if to use it to confront the other driver.

Remember the oldest rule in comics! If you’re going to almost hit a tall stoner with a beard you’ve got to show the audience the tall stoner a beat or two before the encounter. You can’t just introduce elements at the moment they’re needed.

“It’s fine,” Stacey said, removed Sam’s hand. Sam had a bad feeling about this, too. Stacey opened the door and stood on the step next to the driver’s seat, hanging her body out. With the sun glinting off the hood of the Olds, she looked at it and shouted, “GET FUCKED, CREEP!” Stacey and Sam stared back at the car. Almost everyone at the gas station turned to watch the drama unfold.

The Olds peeled out, nearly hitting a tall stoner with a beard who was walking out with a Red Bull and a Snickers. “Not cool, man,” he said, imitating Tommy Chong, who was probably his idol.

My Comments: Careful. Until we have a clear POV character we’ve no idea who’s editorializing with a line like imitating Tommy Chong, who was probably his idol. Since we’ve been in both Stacey’s and Samantha’s heads, we might assume it’s the author editorializing. And that’s not allowed in Minimalism.

Stacey and Sam watched the Olds fishtail out into the road, causing oncoming cars to swerve and slam on their brakes, then the girls stared at each other for five or ten seconds with their mouths agape. The smell of burned rubber had reached them before Stacey finally pulled her jaw up out of her lap and said, “Alright, well…I’m gonna pump the gas now.” Getting out of the van, she stopped and said, “Do you think Jason’s gonna show up on time tonight?” The question didn’t even get the chance to hang in the air before they both started cracking up.

My Comments: Why laughter? It resolves all the tension instead of carrying that tension forward to keep the reader reading.

Okay, consider that the camera/phone is your device for revisiting past events. Any time you want to jump to something—the murder/suicide, the road-rage dad, the biker dragged to death—you can pull up the video on the phone. This will allow you to depict those events with sounds and visuals, or at least reporting (the murder/suicide). And because your characters are filmmakers it will be natural for them to narrate the events. For example, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The truck has mowed down the biker, and the man is caught under the differential, leaving a smeared trail of blood down the center lane… Yes, it can be expository and judgy, but it’s narration recorded as the character is filming.

For now, decide who’s the point-of-view character and stick with her. Okay? Okay.