Comments on: Hell on $5 a Day: Sodom All Over Again - Chapter 1

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:41:07 +0000

Acgh, don't worry Greg, I understand that you had a LOT of time on the first book and it came out perfectly polished, but you are a great author and I appreciate the attention to detail you give your writing. I am one of the 99% who would have accepted Belgium instead of France blithely the way you had described it in simple terms without the town specifics but the fact that you were worried about the detail lets me know that I was absolutely correct in thinking that you take great care with your work. It shines through and makes the story all the better for it. Now, enough of my blathering I gotta get back to the story,

By: Greg Bulmash

Greg Bulmash — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:56:08 +0000

It's not a matter of running it by a writer's group. It's a matter of time. Last time, the story was 60% written and had been rehashed a few times before it ever went online. Even when I was writing new chapters, I was usually finishing the first draft three weeks before publication, giving myself time to step back and then reapproach it semi-fresh. Now I'm trying to make a weekly deadline for each chapter, whether I'm happy with it or not. I gave myself a month to work out the plot basics and dove in. Life is getting crazier... I didn't even get started on the latest chapter until yesterday. I'll be lucky to get it finished by tomorrow night, then have to do an edit and tightening on Sunday before it goes live. On the one hand, that leaves me posting work I'm not as satisfied with as I'd like. On the other hand, it forces me to keep pushing through the story and get that first draft done, but what I'm publishing is definitely an early draft. The question is whether to work on it in quiet for 6 months, then get back to publishing, or accept the compromise of not being as happy with the work and try to keep my momentum.

By: Parahacker

Parahacker — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:55:33 +0000

I like it so far, but I have to say that the writing was far, /far/ tighter and more polished in the previous story. A suggestion: run these past a local writer's group. They're everywhere, and there's really no substitute for a face-to-face discussion to grapple with cutting out fat and enhancing drama correctly. If you can't find one, there are critique forums (lifehacker.com had some links a while back, I think) where there's a privacy policy, and you can get some feedback and feel confident before your words get seen by the general public you'll be ready.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:30:13 +0000

Love it!!

Minor typo though:

Despite what the Army had done him

instead of what they had done TO him.

By: daymon

daymon — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:46:47 +0000

At least Alian over came his hunger. Only a short time after he fought it off.

Looking good.

By: Greg Bulmash

Greg Bulmash — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:54:11 +0000

So what was the epiphany I had in the car, you ask. Well, I was driving along, thinking about how to introduce Alain's vampirism. There would likely be people coming into this story without having read the first, and it has to stand on its own, so besides the backstory with Marie, I had to introduce the fact that he was a vampire, but I didn't just want to say it. That's when I got the idea for the scent of fear coming off the sergeant hitting all those addictive triggers. He uses his abilities before that, but it's not until that smell of fear causes an involuntary oral erection (fangs dropping) and the accompanying thirst that the vampirism is overtly acknowledged. I just liked the idea so much, I was slapping my steering wheel, shouting "that's it!" and accidentally hit the button to turn on the cruise control. D'oh. Still, this chapter kicked my butt. The first part was the balance between the story at hand and the backstory, setting up Alain and what's happened while moving the real plot along. I tried to just sort of let that come naturally, dropping into memory where it felt right. The second part was the history and the geography. That was a killer. When I wrote Hell on $5 a Day, I never expected to return to World War II with Alain. In fact, even as I came up with the idea for this story, the focus was so much on Alain and Marie going to Los Angeles, that I really didn't think we were going to delve back into the war. But something made me want to introduce Alain while he was fighting Nazis again and I knew the Battle of the Bulge took place in the Ardennes, so it was perfect, because Alain and the guys had been in the Ardennes in the first book. One problem, most of the Battle of the Bulge took place in the Belgian Ardennes, not the French Ardennes. So I'm trying to not only figure out how Alain gets to Belgium, but I'm realizing that I actually have to present some geography that's got a smidge of freakin' accuracy. I spent hours scrolling around Google Maps, looking up various French and Belgian towns in Wikipedia, reading history on the Battle of the Bulge just to get a few facts right. In fact, I've got a summer reading list as long as your arm to prep me for the various characters and situations I've got planned for this story. I think I'm spending as much time on research as I am on the actual writing. If 99% of readers wouldn't know the difference, why don't I just make it all up? Am I really working so hard for that 1% who might still forgive my liberties with fact? Nope, it's me. If I feel like I'm full of crap, I feel my writing smells of it. So, to prevent stinky writing, I've got to do my reading. Anyway, thanks for reading the latest chapter, plus this long author's note.