Goodies General Notes and Table of Contents (read this first!)

Chapter Thirty-Four

You know how you know when you’ve written something good? When you read through it and are more interested in the story than picking out various elements. I’ve been sitting here, reading the chapter, and been too engrossed to think about what to write in the goodies page. So, I’m pleased.

I’m not a huge outliner, and this chapter is one of the reasons why. If you notice, Eric goes and finds the Illuminati guys and realizes there’s nothing he can do. Then he goes upstairs and finds Felix, realizes there’s nothing he can do, and heads back downstairs. It culminates in this line: “And there I was again, back in the vehicle area, with no plan and nowhere to go.”

One thing I love to do in my writing is to set up a situation—to get my characters in a bind—and then see if they (and I) can figure a way out. For a dumb college kid like Eric, it makes much more sense that he’d wander around, reluctant to fight but desperate to find an escape, than to imagine him immediately confronting the bad guys. And, as long as the tension and interest level remain high while he’s wandering, I have no problem with that.

Originally, a test reader said that calling the big burly Mongolian guy Genghis was slightly racist. However, since that reader was the only person to ever mention it, I felt okay leaving it in. Sorry if you were offended. (Well, not really.)

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