The Writers Block

Cpl. Sam Baker tried to remember that he was one of the lucky ones. He could have been among the first soldiers in the United States Army deployed to Midway Island to try to stop the Jap onslaught across the Pacific. When his squadron leader, Lt. James Buchanon Moses had handed out the orders consigning Baker and his brethren to shore duty defending the San Francisco Bay, Cpl. Sam had suspected, with just a touch of secret relief, that he had lucked his way into avoiding a swift and sure death.

That’s how Baker ended up spending what should have been the last few minutes of his life huddled in a concrete lookout in the Marin Headlands staring at the swirling fog, never quite believing that Admiral Yamamoto’s flagship could be concealed in the dark clouds that obscured the horizon. The loud crash of waves slamming into the base of Bird Island yards in front and a hundred feet below him meant he never had the chance to hear the scrape of the oars from the Jap landing party moments before its members set boots on the sandy shores of the United States.

The angry Pacific was nothing like what Baker had imagined as he had ridden the swaying train from his mustering depot at Fort Leonard Wood, just a couple of hundred miles from his hometown of Lebanon, Missouri across the American frontier to the Richmond, California railroad siding. The biggest body of water he had ever seen was the Lake of the Ozarks, created when he was 13 when his daddy and hundreds of other unskilled laborers completed the Bagnell Dam. As a teenager, Baker had loved to ride the rapids of the Niangua River in his canoe, steering through the shallow rocks with his dog Osage barking at the churning water from the bow. Now, staring at the pounding waves of the ocean, that river seemed tamer than his little sister’s pony.

Even if he had been capable of such thoughts, Cpl. Baker wouldn’t have believed that one of the men scaling the California cliffs intent on slitting the soldier’s throat had also grown up in the Missouri Ozarks.

“Nice detail on the backstory, Lisa,” Sgt. Stanley Foster broke radio silence as he clicked off the Baker biography icon and continued to ascend the bluff towards where he suspected the American lookout was located. “If I didn’t know better, I would think your fiancée gave you access to our personnel files.”

“Lisa is fully read in on OpSec,” the voice of Capt. Robert “Bobby” Norwood came through the landing team’s coms.

“Whatever you say, G-man,” Foster paused in his climb to survey the area around him. To the south, the rotating beam on top of the Point Bonita lighthouse cast eerie shadows off the swirling fog. To the west, he could just about imagine the Japanese invasion fleet over the horizon. “Just remember, this mission is Patriot Act minus 60 years or so.”

“Old General Tojo never needed permission from anyone to spy on everyone under his command,” the third member of the landing party, Sgt. Major Frank Washington had just finished stowing the landing craft and establishing a defensive perimeter around the LZ.

“Okay, enough with the chatter,” Norwood’s voice held the same timber of command that they had all heard that first day the squad rolled into the outskirts of Fallujah. It gave them all a strange sense of comfort. “Foster, bag us an Ozarks Mountain boy.”

“Yessir, Captain G-man,” Foster had reached the summit of the cliffs where he paused to get his bearings. In these early days after Pearl, the blackout that had been ordered for San Francisco still wasn’t fully implemented. A glow to the southeast would have made for easy targeting for the Japanese Zeros staging on Yamamoto carriers now moored at the Farallon Islands 28 miles off the Barbary Coast.

Looking back to the north, Foster saw the glow of Baker’s cigarette giving away the sentry’s position. The invader slipped the hunting knife out of the sheath on his belt and began to move towards his target. He stopped to identify the source of the sound of birds circling over the ocean and noted the shadows cast from the moonlight on the gulls. Foster hoped the racket from the birds would provide the distraction he needed to get closer to Baker.

Foster flashed back to his own youth exploring the caves that dotted the hills on the banks of the Niangua. How many times had he slid his hunting knife between his teeth and sneaked up on his little cousins in the dark? He moved closer to the lookout position, ears on alert for communication equipment which would probably have consisted of a wind-up field telephone connecting Baker with his commanding officer. Truth be told, the 1940’s equipment probably wasn’t all that less reliable than the satellite phones that kept dropping out in the sandstorms of Anbar province just when the need for backup was the most acute.

By now Foster was close enough to Baker that, in a real combat environment, he could have smelled the target’s body odor over the acrid scent pouring from the cigarette. In Iraq, smell was a hunter’s most valuable weapon, offering more mission vital information than a data dump full of signals intelligence or sigint. In the cold and fog of San Francisco Bay, Foster conceded to himself that BO might not be quite so important.

The sergeant was now crawling on all fours using whatever available cover he could find to get into the killing zone. Baker showed no signs that anything might be wrong. Foster shifted the knife into his right hand and moved in for the kill. The moonlight shone off the shiny blade. Foster started the slashing movement aimed right at the American’s throat when…

“Camptown Ladies Sing dis Song, Doo Dah, Doo Dah,” the tinny music shattered the tension of the moment. Shit, he had forgotten to turn his cell phone off before starting the mission.

“That is the most lameass ringtone I have ever heard,” Washington was laughing so loud now he nearly tipped over in his wheelchair.

“Congratulations Foster,” Norwood tried unsuccessfully to keep the humor out of his own voice. “You have succeeded in saving the United States of America from a Japanese invasion using technology that won’t be invented for another 50 years.”

Foster wasn’t listening. Instead he was talking with his fiancée, double-checking the grocery list she had given him earlier in the day. Soon Norwood was reaching for his own cell phone after noting the caller ID showed the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Office of the FBI was on the line.

Sgt. Sam Baker remained in blissful ignorance of how close he had come to death.

SCENE ANALYSIS


Opening and Closing (1-5)

(4.0)

Does the scene feel like it opens, evolves, and closes properly, or does it feel awkward, improperly set, concluding too suddenly, or other issues?

Like opening here and the effect produced by the surprise contrast of the mysterious American from the future? (or is this a holoscene on a training vessel somewhere around the year 2020?) ; but as a whole it should be more cinematic and less anecdotal (see notes below).

The conclusion is comic relief and well done. The corporal is not killed and has no idea how close he came to death.


Complication/Plot (1-5)

Does the scene itself, the cirumstances contained therein, push the major plot line(s) and major complication forward?

Uncertain. Have to remain neutral on this for now.


Quality (1-5)

(4.0)

Is the choice of this scene in this place with this circumstance and characters as effective as it can be in the context of the story as a whole? In other words, is it needed, could it be made more effective, could it be replaced by something more effective in terms of creating story energy and pushing the plot lines/complications forward?

One has to assume it is. The very circumstance of the scene creates plenty of story energy and it appears effective if the intent is to introduce a crack team of time-jumping commando types from the future, or whatever.


Setting (1-5)

(4.0)

Does the choice of setting maximize opportunities for energetic story and narrative? Does it feel correct for the story circumstances depicted? Does it avoid the setting cliches of being in a car, plane, at a funeral, a birth, etc.?

It appears this particular scene and circumstance are well chosen for the purpose of creating energetic story and narrative, and certainly, the obvious cliches are avoided, unless of course lots of military sci-fi begins with this kind of set.

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PROSE NARRATIVE


Clarity and Quality (1-5)

(2.5)

Do we clearly understand what is being said? And is the quality of the prose itself sufficiently competitive for the genre?

The quality of prose is fine, but some confusion in the narrative here. You note it's a Jap landing party but it turns out they are Americans from the future? The reader is confused. We do not even see the Americans costumed as Japs.

Issue:

“Nice detail on the backstory, Lisa,” Sgt. Stanley Foster broke radio silence as he clicked off the Baker biography icon and continued to ascend the bluff towards where he suspected the American lookout was located. “If I didn’t know better, I would think your fiancée gave you access to our personnel files.”

Who is Lisa? Is that a nickname for the tech gadget he is carrying? And who is who's fiancee? Is Lisa Norwood's fiancee? You have to clear these details up for the reader.

“Lisa is fully read in on OpSec,” the voice of Capt. Robert “Bobby” Norwood came through the landing team’s coms.

Again, who is Lisa? Was Foster originally talking to a person or to a tech gadget? The reader has to return to this and read repeatedly, believing something was missed. And throwing acronyms around like OpSec can get counterproductive if the reader is left in the dark; and "Bobby" isn't a terribly original nick for a guy named Robert. What about "Bullslasher" or something like that?

Further:

“Old General Tojo never needed permission from anyone to spy on everyone under his command,” the third member of the landing party, Sgt. Major Frank Washington had just finished stowing the landing craft and establishing a defensive perimeter around the LZ.

How does the above comment follow on what came before? If this guy is the third member, is Lisa the second?


Verve and Tension (1-5)

(4.0)

Is the narrative due to word choice or circumstances depicted sufficiently energetic and interesting or too quiet? Are circumstances created, words used, strings of dialogue spoken that spark tension?

The circumstance is certainly energetic. A man waits to be killed in a bizarre twist of fate that he can neither understand or predict, while his killers are joking, and the reader believes they are soldiers sent from the future. Many questions remain.


Originality (1-5)

(4.5)

Do the circumstances of the scene, the act of dialogue, the flow of the work feel original or cliche? Do you feel refreshed by it, or does it feel too familiar?

The circumstance is lively and creates suspense as well as mystery. What the hell is really going on?


Imagery and Movement (1-5)

(2.0)

Is there sufficient imagery and movement in the scene to prevent eye boredom? Remember, the reader is watching a film unfold inside their head.

Need to mix in the camera eye depicting corporal's movements and personal visuals with his interior monologue that will reveal his background. Right now you're choosing to remain 3rd person distant for the duration.

He pours his coffee, lights his cigarette, we see his face and hair, his eyes, the boredom, his eyes, and the sound of the water triggers the canoe on the Niangua ... then cut to Foster on the cliffs. Now you have the same issues. The dialogue is snappy (but confusing--see below) but the cinema craved by the reader is lacking. We want to see more visuals of the this guy scaling the cliff, see his hands pulling himself up, hear the chips of stone scittering down beneath him, and all that mixed in with the communications.


Character Depiction (1-5)

(2.0)

Are characters depicted in such a manner as to create interest? Do they feel sufficiently different from each other? Are they cliches? Are they sympathetic?

As above, we never get a clear visual of what these peeps look like. The background of the corporal is interesting and builds a little sympathy, but the killer-grunt banter on the cliff feels a lot like other killer-grunt banter from books and film. It's fun, sure, but it does not make them feel different or unique. Perhaps future scenes will do this. Consider creating a source of tension or implied tension between the grunts and their captain. They're way too happy!

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