Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Philli Part 9

Once again, be in mind that the URL and such of my blog will soon update to be under my real name.

 It was not the team that usually dealt with rebellious Unaccepted, and we were not such people anyway.
They walked briskly, nearly running, to our door. The whole way they stooped over as though expecting gun fire. Dear Lord, not something terrible. Don't let them take Daddy or Ephesus again.
Of course, there was no gunfire. They came to our front door and knocked. They knocked hard, but still politely.
Daddy opened the door, and they all rushed in. The last one slammed the door behind him. Ephesus turned to go towards his bedroom, but the commander barked at him, "Don't move at all! Hands away from your pockets!"
Ephesus froze, his back still toward them. We all obeyed.
Then the commander relaxed. His men were standing around him with guns pointed in every direction, still hunkered down. They must still be afraid of shots.
Their commander sighed. "At ease, troops. These won't be any trouble."
The men cautiously stood up to their full height. Once they were standing I could see that they were all very decorated. The United had sent their crack peace-keepers to us.
Daddy asked in a low tone, which betrayed his fear, "What is the matter, captain?"
"We were sent to pick up two Christians and bring them into special custody."
Ephesus, not turning around, asked, "May I ask why?"
"You can, but it won't do much good. I won't tell you, and in fact, I can't because I don't know. Regulations. We are not told why, just what to do."
Father asked him, "May you give us a few minutes to gather our things?"
That was my daddy. He wouldn't have fought them if only the captain were there. He knew the Bible. They did not bear the sword in vain.
The captain spoke, "Yes, but my advice would be to not try to bring too much. Everything has to be searched and inspected, and if you bring too much, the inspectors will just toss a lot of it away instead of checking it."
I watched helplessly as my daddy and brother went to gather together some clothes, their electronics, and a few emotional trinkets. As Father went through the door the bedroom he called back, "Do you have any idea how long we will be in custody? Or what kind of custody this is?"
The captain answered, "In a secured apartment complex. No one knows how long they'll be there."
Ephesus returned from his bedroom with a bag. He had put on his coat, the pockets of which were always bulging with everything from garbage to computer chips. He never remembered to empty the pockets.
Ephesus asked, "Am I permitted this much, and can I wear the coat in the car?"
My father had experienced trouble trying to travel with his laptop before. They never trusted Unaccepted with anything technological on the mass transit systems. As he exited his bedroom he asked, "Will there be any trouble with me bringing my laptop?"
The captain appeared surprised. "What do you mean? Neither of you are coming."

6 comments:

  1. HUH? That last sentence makes no sense!

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    1. Ahh but it will very shortly when I get into my writing mode today, muahahaha.

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  2. That does it. You've written plenty of cliffhangers before, but this tops all. Epic.

    And I also love the display of character personality here! You captured the differences between Ephesus and Dr. Smyrna well. I can totally see Ephesus overstuffing his pockets!

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    1. Again, the Smyrna family was very well characterized in Red Rain, and Ephesus' personality is captured in his name if you just check Revelation.
      I don't think I will be able to pull anything as clever as your Revelation references, or your constant references backwards in italics, but I may do some of that upon revision when this is done.

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    2. That's encouraging to know, in regards to my characterization. Red Rain being my first published novel, I'm still learning and trying to figure out "is this actually working" based on reader feedback. ;)

      See, I develop my characters based on their plot. Occasionally I will examine them separately, but for the most part I do not know anything about them outside of their plot. I'm driven by motivations - "Does this make sense for the character in this situation?" - and that's how I refine both character and plot. Once I get each scene to make "sense" in that way, I consider it done.

      I guess that makes me a plot-driven writer... It's a little bit of a different process, and it means I don't know a whole lot about my characters outside of their book. I couldn't tell you what kind of music Ephesus likes (random example) because it wasn't in the book. If it came up in a scene I could decide what feels right. Outside of the book... it's kind of meaningless.

      All of that rambling to say, it's really encouraging to hear that the plot-driven method can produce sufficient characters. Studying how you're interpreting my characters is helping me to see how they're coming off through the novel. Good stuff...

      Anyway! I'm so thrilled you're poking into the Revelation references. Originally all the characters were supposed to be heavily based on their churches, but I had to scale it back. It's subtle, but it's there if you're wanting to look. So I love that you're going that direction. :)

      Thank you again for writing this!

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    3. I used to be a plot-driven writer, but reading a few pieces on HW and other places made me realize that you need more character involvement. I had mimicked LOTR, which has so little about characters it is lame. I have no wrapped around build plot around characters mostly.

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