Ryne Douglas Pearson's Blog, page 19

Yes. Ninety-nine cents! You can the eBook version of my serial killer thriller from Amazon or Barnes & Noble for this low, low price until the end of the month. Sorry, no free set of steak knives with every purchase.

 

[image error]

 

What is Top Ten about?

A killer who believes himself an artist of unmatched talent is incensed when he is placed last on the FBI's most wanted list, and begins killing off those fugitives above him, each in a twisted manner that serves his creative vision.

But his horrific climb to the top, which leaves both guilty and innocent dead in its wake, must be stopped by a young, driven FBI agent who is given an almost impossible and equally inexplicable task— save number five on the list.

At all costs.

This eBook version of Top Ten is what I call the 'Author's Cut'. When it was originally published in hardcover, the publisher insisted on deleting several scenes that they considered 'too intense'. I disagreed, but had to make the cuts for the book to move forward. I always felt that they 'neutered' the backstory of the antagonist. Now, with rights reverted to me, and being in control, those forced edits are back in. I hope you give it a shot and enjoy it!

Thank you!

Best attack ad of the campaign season (HT to David Ward).

Never gets old...

This is when I plug my eBooks, so, here are my eBooks. They're a pretty good read. Really aggressive sell there, eh?



I hope you check 'em out. If you want to try a sample, on the right sidebar there are links for each eBook that allow you to read an excerpt on Amazon for free.



To purchase from Amazon, click the covers below.



[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]



To purchase from Barnes & Noble, click the covers below.




[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

A terrific book, which was the basis for much of Steven Spielberg's Munich, tells the story of Israel's covert response to the massacre of its athletes at the 1972 Olympics.



[image error]

Over at the Kindle Author blog. Check it out HERE.

I was trying to remember the scariest moment of my life. One that might roughly equate to those in horror movies, only real. Not necessarily including a deranged slasher, but, hey, if that had happened to me, I'm thinking likely numero uno on my list.

You know what I came up with? (man, this is sad)

A Halloween Haunted House. The kind you pay to get into.

When I was in high school.

I was sixteen.

No, I wasn't some cowering five year old, hearing glass break and fearing that a monster was about to get me. I was almost an adult and people in latex masks were jumping out of dark corners through a haze made by fog machines and I was convinced I was going to die.

I screamed like a little girl. My hands had a death grip on my friend's shoulders ahead of me. The thud thud thud of my heart, literally, was making the puka shells (shut up...it was 1980) rattle against my throat. I have never, ever been so scared.

When we finally made it out of the maze-like monstrosity that filled most of an unused warehouse, I wanted to cry. I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss the damp asphalt and sob. But I held it together. And when one of my friends commented that the whole thing, which we'd paid $2 each to enter, was lame, well...

'Completely,' I agreed, holding my puka shell necklace in place so the rattling would not alert them to my lie.

Later, the friend whose shoulders I'd gripped for my very survival thanked me.

'What for?' I asked.

'Guiding me through there. How'd you know my eyes were closed? That thing was freaking terrifying!'

What did I say? 'Dude, what a wimp.'

I know, kinda pretentious there that last part, right? Maestro? Really?

Well, yeah. The term actually fits. But I pregress (which is nothing more than premature digression--it's the only premature issue I have--honestly--stop laughing!).

What I'm talking about here is the vast difference between writing novels and writing screenplays. I've done both. A lot. For eighteen years now. It's how I pay the mortgage and buy the bacon. I started in novels initially, with my first published by William Morrow in 1993. Around 2000 I transitioned to working in, ahem, film. Hollywood. Where aspiring screenwriters come to be crushed by reality and trams on the back lot. I was fortunate and have had a good run so far (please, please, keep buying my stuff because, you know, they don't give bacon away). In that time of shifting focus I learned some valuable things about the differences between novels and screenplays, and novelists and screenwriters.

First, to reference the title of this post, screenplays are mechanical objects. Look at them. They have parts. Slug lines, and parentheticals, and CUT TO's and all sorts of things that have to be put together to craft a finished monstrosity that someone else will interpret. Screenwriters are mechanics, fixing a car that someone else will drive. We move the parts around. Replace them. Somewhere in there we actually write, but it's always within the constraints of the required parts. Take away the slug lines and, boom, the wheels fall off.

I don't necessarily like that. I love having a finished story in that format that people will enjoy when it's finally interpreted and on the screen, but I always struggle with (pretense alert--pretense alert) the artfulness of it. The lack of a singular, flowing voice uninterrupted by parts. Not every script would even benefit from such an infusion of this full-on narrative voice, but when you actually find it in a screenplay, it's a revelation.

In novels, you are the god of your own universe. What you lay out there on the page, be it paper or virtual, is a continuous stream of narrative that, when it works, flows. So seamlessly that the reader may forget they are reading. You are like a maestro conducting a literary symphony.

Pretentious? It's not intended that way. It actually feels amazing when the words flow, and the story comes together, in either format. Recognizing the difference when you begin to write either, and embracing the often divergent skill sets, makes the process less crushing and more liberating.

Because they make faces like this...

[image error]