Location Description

In my Screenplay writing class we had a location description assignment and I pulled from the beginning of my short story, Rise.

Theron sat stunned in the driver’s seat, the truck pulled over to the side of the highway.  Smell of iron from Wyatt’s blood was beginning to make his stomach churn.  The map of Nebraska laid crumpled with red fingerprints between the seats on the console.  Every inch of the front of his truck was sticky, tainted.  He looked in the rearview mirror to see his face, half illuminated by the sun while the other was as if he was trying to use costume paint, like Two Face from Batman.

Cars rushed past his, their engines roaring towards the next destination.  Theron looked out at the flat landscape surrounding the road, low grass plains and dirt.  The land was as barren as he felt.  They were supposed to make it through together, but that shootout was quick and Wyatt was inexperienced.  He looked back over at Wyatt’s soaked body, Theron’s white tank top balled up on the bullet wound.

He reached over and gently shut Wyatt’s eyes.  His stomach churned and he got out of the car.  The fresh air couldn’t rid of the smell but he finally felt like he could breathe.  And with that first breath in, he let out a guttural cry.  He fell to his knees and slammed his fists, causing the rise of dirt clouds around him.           

INT. CAR – DAY

The seats are bathed in blood and a body, WYATT, is slumped in the passenger.  A balled up TANK TOP rests over the wound.  His eyes are vacantly staring up at his friend.  A bloody MAP is stuffed between the two seats on the middle console. 

THERON, 24 and now hell bent on revenge, sits stunned in the driver’s seat.  He stares ahead at the road, void of how to handle the recent death. Theron’s face is half covered in blood while the other by the sun.

Theron looks out at the landscape, a flat sea of grass and dirt surround the small strip of HIGHWAY. CARS pass by, SOUNDS of roaring engines and the cutting of air fills the silence. 

Theron looks over at Wyatt, tears beginning to from. He reaches over and CLOSES Wyatt’s eyelids.  He then gets out of the car to breathe and to release his anger.

Dialogue

For this writing exercise I worked through different ways of a dialogue section of my short story, Rise.

Original Dialogue:

“Hello Theron,” his father said calmly.

“Father,” Theron responded firmly.

“What brings my estranged son back home?  If I recall, your last words were something along the lines of… ‘Fuck you’ and ‘I hope you drink yourself to death’.”

“My words may have been rash at the time but I don’t live with regrets.”

His father chuckled and took another puff.  His smile always had a tinge of malice, the stained yellow teeth sometimes looked like fangs from the corner of the eye.  Theron took a step up, the wood creaking under his heavy, worn boot.

“Ah, ah, ah.  Watch yourself,” his father warned.

“You can’t keep me from her forever,” Theron replied.

“You left, son.  You took off without telling me where you were going, you-”

“Oh come off it.  Acting like you cared about me.  You barely cared about mother.”

“I loved that woman.”

“Yeah with a fist and a of slew swear words.”

His father sighed, put his cigar to rest in an ashtray and walked towards the steps.  Theron stiffened; the pistol in the back of his pants reminded him it was there, the barrel pressing into the small of his back.  His father slowly took a step down, one board between them.

“What do you want, Theron?”

“To see her, to take her.”

“That ain’t gonna happen, son.  She belongs here.”

Theron took the last step, their faces now a few inches apart.  He could smell the tobacco and mist of whiskey on his father’s lips.  Not much had changed.

“What if I earn it?” Theron proposed.

“Yeah, how so?” his father asked.

“I’ll work for you, one last time.  A year of services.  I get ma, what’s mine of the will, and the truck.”

“You want ol’ Bessie?  Fine.  But the rest, you’ll have to do some dirty work, kid.  You won’t like it and sure was hell will consider ditchin’.  How do I know it will be worth my while?”

Theron sighed, already regretting what he was about to say.

“If I don’t make it through a year, I stay indefinitely.  Until I’m dismissed.  Or dead.”

His father’s eyebrows raised, the tips of his lips twisted into that ugly smile Theron hated.  But it didn’t matter, he bought into it and his father was itching to exercise some control and revenge on his son.  No one gets away with what Theron did; no one usually survives that attempt. 

“Done,” his father said.

Edit #1:

“Hello Theron,” his father said calmly.

“Father,” Theron responded firmly.

“What brings you back?  If I ‘member right, your last words were somethin’ along the lines of… ‘Fuck you’ and ‘I hope you drink yourself to death’.”

“Something like that.”

 “Ah, ah, ah.  Watch yourself.”

“You can’t keep me from her forever.”

“You left.  Took off without telling me where you were going, you-”

“Ah, come off it.  Actin’ like you cared about me.  You barely cared about her.”

“I loved that woman.”

“Yeah, with a fist and a ‘YOU BITCH’.”

“Better watch that tone, boy.”

“Okay, fine.”

“No apology?”

“Don’t start.”

 “What do you want?”

“To see her, to take her.”

“That ain’t gonna happen, son.  She belongs here.”

“What if I earn it?”

“Yeah, how so?”

“I’ll work for you, one last time.  A year of services.  I get ma, what’s mine of the will, and the truck.”

“Uh-huh… No.”

“C’mon!”

“You had your chance to be apart of it.  But you left.”

“Well I’m here now.”

“You want ol’ Bessie?  Fine.  But the rest, you’ll have to do some dirty work, son.  You won’t like it and sure as hell will consider ditchin’.  How do I know it will be worth my while?”

 “If I don’t make it through a year, I stay indefinitely.  Until I’m dismissed.  Or dead.”

 “Done.”

Edit #2:

“Hello Theron,” his father said calmly.

“Father,” Theron responded firmly.

“What brings my estranged son back home?  If I recall, your last words were something along the lines of… ‘Fuck you’ and ‘I hope you drink yourself to death’.”

“Yeah, still mean ‘em.”

His father chuckled and took another puff of his cigar.  His smile always had a tinge of malice, the stained yellow teeth sometimes looked like fangs from the corner of the eye.  Theron took a step up, the wood creaking under his heavy, worn boot.

“Ah, ah, ah.  Watch yourself,” his father warned.

“You can’t keep me from here forever,” Theron replied.

“You left, son.  You took off without telling me where you were going, you-”

“Oh come off it.  Actin’ like you cared ‘bout me.  You barely cared at all.”

“I loved you.”

“Scars say otherwise.”

His father sighed, put his cigar to rest in an ashtray and walked towards the steps.  Theron stiffened; the pistol in the back of his pants reminded him it was there, the barrel pressing into the small of his back.  His father slowly took a step down, one board between them.

“What do you want, Theron?”

“To see her, take her with me.”

“That ain’t gonna happen, son.  She belongs here.”

Theron took the last step, their faces now a few inches apart.  He could smell the tobacco and mist of whiskey on his father’s lips.  Not much had changed.

“What if I earn it?” Theron proposed.

“How would you do it this time ‘round?” his father asked.

“I’ll work for you.  A year of services.  I get her, the will, and the truck.”

“You want Bessie?”

“Course I do.  About that time to pass it on.”

  His looked Theron up and down and said, “Fine. How do I know you won’t consider ditchin’, that it will be worth my while?”

Theron sighed, already regretting what he was about to say.

“If I don’t make it through a year, I stay indefinitely.  Until you send me on my way.  Or I end up in a ditch.  You tend to like those.”

“Great hiding spots, you know just as well as I.”

“So what’ll it be, deal or no?”

His father leaned in close enough that their eyelashes almost touched and he said gently, “Deal.”

First Person Exercise

From my previous post, I took the same scene of Theron coming to terms with Wyatt's recent death but I put it in first person and added a bit more to the beginning.  The story has complete potential to become first person.  It could make it a more visceral experience for the reader, but for the time being the story is in third person.

Here is the First Person version:

I tried my best to weave through traffic undetected.   Time was limited and the blood wasn’t going to stop flowing.  The one that was supposed to make it through it all with me was dying and I had a tiny window to fit us both through to make it worth anything.  Wyatt held my wife beater over the hole in his stomach, but his slipping conscious couldn’t keep the pressure.  The right half of my body was soaked in his lifeline. I kept calling him back to reality and reminding Wyatt to try to keep himself alive.  I would push hard on the blood soaked tank until Wyatt remembered the pain.  He would cry out for me to stop, but I’d press harder and remind him that my tough love was keeping him alive.  But I knew deep down it didn’t matter.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the .45 colt locked in Wyatt’s spine along with my body half soaked in blood.  They would blame me without a second thought probably.  That’s how it was back home and I was a stranger to the Midwest.  The map I was using had bloody handprints all over it and I wasn’t even sure where a hospital would be.  Which meant asking for directions.  I wasn’t sure if I could expose us so quickly without Wy getting some actual help.  I needed to think but the staggered pulsations of his stomach followed by streams of blood kept me blindly following the road. 

“Th-The-Theron,” Wyatt called softly.

I quickly turned my head, “You’re gonna make it Wy, don’t give me some last speech shit.  Okay?  Don’t.”

“Theron.  You have to do it.”

“What?  No, no, no.  You’re doing it with me man.  I’m not loosing you, not now.  We’ve made it this far Wy.  I’ll get you help and then we’ll do it.  Together.”

“Ther… I’m not-“

“YES YOU ARE DAMN IT!  You… you are stronger than you think right now.  I get that you don’t feel it.  But.  But you ain’t dyin’ today.”

“Listen.  No… matter what. You… You have to kill him.”

“WE will.”

“I love you brother.”

“Don’t say that shit right now.  You’re going to make it.”

“I love you brother.”

“C’mon Wy-“

“Theron.”  Wyatt stared up at me, his eyes fixed and gentle. 

I sighed, “I love you too, brother.  Now stay with me.”

I pushed harder on the pedal, the dumpy truck that had been in my family for too long  slowly revved up to the highest speed capacity of 85.  I looked back at Wyatt from the seemingly never-ending road, his eyes closed, stomach flat.

“WYATT!” I cried out. 

Wyatt’s eyelids didn’t flutter, his hand limply rested on the balled up shirt.  He was gone.  My stomach twisted maliciously until tears finally released the pressure.  I pulled over; my blurried eyes blinded me from seeing the road.  My breath stuttered before the guttural cries drowned everything out.  My knees dropped to the ground and my head collapsed hard in the dirt. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Beginnings of a Novella

I started the writing process for my novella, Rise, in the summer of 2014.  It all started by seeing a peculiar driver on the interstate and it inspired this idea.  I have created a skeleton of the story, the scenes are there but of course need quite a bit of fleshing out.  The story was built upon in my Fiction Writing Class during the fall semester at UNL and, unfortunately, I was only allowed to go to a certain page number.  This lead to the issue of elements of the story not coming full circle. I had plot lines that weren’t fleshed out and I had to make adjustments. I plan to continue building, revising, and working through this story until I find that it has reached it's peak.

Rise is about a young man taking the final journey to seek vengeance against his father.  A man that drove his truck wildly down I-80 in the summer inspired me, he had no shirt on and he seemed extremely agitated. He passed my car and he kept leaning over to the side, like something or someone was there. That’s when the first scene in my story popped into my head.

The most challenging part in writing this story was not to be too plot heavy. I have the aspiration to make this story into a novella, and so I had trouble configuring what to keep and what to cut.
The most rewarding of this process was getting my idea down on paper and forming a story around it.  I always struggle with sitting myself down and writing.  Maybe it’s because I’m lazy, or a fear of failure, but I think I’m past that now.  I want to keep working on this story because I feel that it has potential.  My professor and classmates think so as well, so it’s looking like it could work out for me.

Here is my first writing exercise and scene that came to my mind.

Theron sat stunned in the driver’s seat, the truck pulled over to the side of the highway.  The smell of iron from Wyatt’s blood was beginning to make his stomach churn.  The map of Nebraska lay crumpled with red fingerprints between the seats on the console.  Every inch of the front of his truck was sticky, tainted.  He looked in the rearview mirror to see his face, half illuminated by the sun while the other was stained with crimson.

Cars rushed past his, engines roaring towards their next destinations.  Theron looked out at the flat landscape, low grass plains and dirt surrounded the road.  The land was as barren as he felt.  They were supposed to make it through together, but that shootout was quick and Wyatt was inexperienced.  He looked back over at Wyatt’s soaked body, Theron’s white tank top balled up on the bullet wound.

Wyatt stared vacantly up at Theron, the boyish blue eyes he once had now held a tinge of gray.  Theron reached over and gently shut Wyatt’s eyes.  His stomach churned and he got out of the car.  The fresh air couldn’t rid him of the smell but it freed his lungs to breathe.  His breath stuttered before his guttural cries drowned everything out.   

The Hidden Darkness Inside Us All

This is my final Film Theory and Critique essay from the Spring semester of 2015 at UNL.  I find the film, The Babadook, to be surprisingly insightful and much more than just another horror movie.

The Hidden Darkness Inside Us All

            The film that struck me the most in the past couple of weeks was The Babadook.  As an active spectator, this film spoke volumes about the struggles everyone faces when in stages of grief and trying to handle everything else in their lives.  There is a hidden darkness within everyone and it varies person to person as to how they deal with that darkness.  This film is very important for this generation because people find other ways to deal with their grief, which includes: violence, drugs and alcohol, and suicide.  This film is very prevalent in our time and as an active spectator I was able to apply the pain and struggle that Amelia was going through to my own experiences.  It made me realize how dangerous it is to bury all the suffering down, something that I am still struggling with.

            The Babadook had a dream-like quality when it came to shot composition and choices in editing.  I found the editing style to be minimalist and almost jarring.  It made me feel, as a viewer, that I was seeing everything via Amelia’s memory.  For example, when Robbie brings her flowers.  Her and Samuel have a confrontation and he runs away.  Then the film cuts to her walking down the hallway and Robbie is gone.  She is so sucked into her cage of frustration that she doesn’t even seem to really take in that Robbie had come by to check in at all.  The dream-like quality continues when we see her rustling around in her sleep but it is combined with such an odd, whirring sound that it’s as if she never went to sleep.

            One particular moment of shot composition was the dream of the car crash towards the beginning of the film.  The music is jarring and ominous; it’s up close and personal.  We see her fall into bed and it gives the viewer a sense of falling down that dark whole of grief that is hard to climb back out of.  Whenever she is asleep or trying to not fall asleep, the camera gets very close to her face and it almost makes the viewer want to lean back to get away.  It’s a great way to give the impression that people are uncomfortable with those that are struggling and even feel inconvenienced by the person struggling.  Amelia’s sister refuses to go to her house, finds Samuel to be a terrible kid, and is irritated that Amelia is still depressed about her dead husband after seven years. 

            This brings the active viewer to the realization of how important that it is to understand the importance of empathy and actively being there for someone that is going through a rough situation.  The film could also be interpreted as how dangerous it is for those stuck in an abusive household.  The scene where Amelia basically snaps and cuts off the phone line as well as shake the large knife at Samuel is a real moment for many people in an abusive relationship.  Samuel is cut off from the world, they are stuck in that dark house, and she has complete control over him.  She makes him take pills to sleep and then turns around to make him stay up with her so she doesn’t feel so alone. 

            Although the Babadook brings on this behavior, the film can also be interpreted as Amelia going insane with her grief and snapping after struggling for so long.  There is a short mention at the birthday party that she used to write children stories and it is quite possible that in her dark stages of grief that the viewer didn’t see, she could have made this book to deal with her rage.  She doesn’t want to let the pain come in, to fully move on, but rather to lock it away in the basement.  To bury that pain down, deep inside her created this monster that bubbled up and over her consciousness until she was no longer herself.  Of course, this interpretation can be argued due to certain things happening like her levitating towards Samuel or when she pukes up a bunch of black substance.  But from a pure interpretation point, this is a concept that an active viewer can experience and relate to.

            There was a strong presence of sound effects in the film that really brought power to certain moments.  One thing that I noticed was that there was a buzzing, almost like a fly or vibration that happened whenever she opened the book or when the Babadook was around.  It’s this minimal sound that gives such an intimidation to the viewer because it brings out so much fear of what is about to happen.  Also the music in general, which is minimal, was almost stress inducing, putting the viewer emotionally in the shoes of Amelia or Samuel. 

            Another element that I interpreted from the film was the danger of isolation.  Amelia and Samuel are isolated for the most of the film in the house.  They are trapped with this depression, a dark grief that is slowly overcoming them as human beings.  Samuel is struggling to find a happy balance, to be rid of his fear.  He turns this into trying to create weapons to protect his mom from the darkness that is overtaking her.  He knows that the car accident was a violent situation that could have easily killed both he and Amelia.  He knows how much it upsets her when Oskar is brought up or when he gets into his things but at the same time he is trying to break down these walls because in the end he loves her and wants her to get past this.  However, Amelia’s tendency of isolation affects Sam.  When they are at the birthday party, he holds onto her until she forces him to go play.  He decides to hide away in the tree house because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself outside of his house, outside of his mother’s hold.

            Everyone has darkness inside of himself or herself.  Along with this darkness comes the technique on how to handle it.  The film, The Babadook, really delves into these personal issues with close and personal shot compositions and dream-like cutting between shots.  The sound effects paired with these makes the viewer feel like they are inside of Amelia, just like the Babadook.  As an active viewer, I understood the interpretations of the gripping strength of grief and the dangers of pushing it away in order to move on so people around you don’t feel inconvenienced and push you farther away when all you need is a loving hand to help you through.  I realized that I personally bury my problems because sometimes the pain is too much and I don’t think people in my life care to keep hearing about it.  But we all need to reach out and grasp our darkness and gain control before it controls us to the point that we don’t know who we are anymore.

            The values of subversive and challenging cinema are that it wakes people up.  When I first saw film that wasn’t the money-making-formulaic blockbuster, I realized how much a film gives a viewer.  My mind expanded and I felt inspired to find these films that challenged my preconceptions and to open my eyes to the stories that aren’t told in major theaters. These films are important in keeping the cinematic experience alive.  Art isn’t about entertainment; it’s about the ever-growing human experience.

            I have noticed that these challenging films are getting more attention, starting on the indie circuit or pay per view.  People are starting to get bored with the same old story told over and over again.  We are seeing this in television with shows like Breaking Bad and Girls.  People are becoming more open to changing it up and learning something new, which I find to be a generational thing.  The only issue is that with this change towards a new form of storytelling, we can easily fall into the pattern of repeating that process, which may happen with the new show Better Call Saul.  We are moving forward, but we must be sure to keep moving forward and not become stagnant.  This industry is ever growing but it also can kill off talent that could change the future.  Deal with the darkness, the hypocrisy, the fear of the future and we can all move forward.