A template story for my own education, where I try to put together what I think I’ve learned so far.
No, these are not the Author’s notes.
It’s already begun.
This is a story about a story -- a meta-story -- stringing together sequences of Goals, Struggles, Disasters, Reactions, Deliberations and Actions into a Big Picture, complete with Beginning, Story Question, Two turning points, Climax and Ending. If these terms mean nothing to you, read the story all the same. Tell me what you like and what you hate. I’m a newbie, and need to learn.
Here, behind the fourth wall, every story is a cowboy story. Thank you, HILARY MACKELDEN, for giving me the idea.
Ploink, ploink.
Crouching behind the Sheriff’s lifeless body, Tex Template stared at his burning farm, two hundred meters away.
Cowboys from hell circled around it, pouring whiskey on the flames, laughing, yelling “yee-haw” as Martha’s dress caught fire. Martha, Tex Template’s faithful wife of many years, stumbled forward. Her dreadful screams coalesced with the wind over the prairie.
Tex Template should have been there, protecting her. Lord knows, he’d get up and charge, like the sheriff had done when the bullets slammed into his chest, but there was no stopping the Cowboys from Hell.
Blood still seeped from the bullet holes as Tex stretched over the lukewarm, perforated corpse to get a better view.
Powerless, unarmed, he clenched his fists, watching dear Martha stand her ground alone.
“My husband Tex will shoot you like dogs,” she foreshadowed through the flames.
Her bravery didn’t seem to scare them cowboys much. One rode up and shot her in the head.
Now, she lay face down in the muck near the outhouse, degraded, charred, and still twitching.
Unable to bare her agony, Tex lowered his eyes and wept, shamefully hidden behind the dead sheriff’s back.
At the farm, the ruckus died down.
Tex wiped a tear from his chin and rose.
The invincible Cowboys from Hell rode towards the setting sun, cheering, waving their black hats over their heads.
What did them hell riders want now? Martha was dead, so it had to be something else, evil and scary, to be revealed.
Whatever it was, Tex wanted something worse: Blood-revenge. Medieval Viking carnage. Raising his fist to the Heavens, he swore to make them cowboys pay for what they done, and he was gonna find a way to kill’em all. That was his goal -- The Story Goal. If you think that’s a rotten and primitive goal to have, you’re right.
There is absolutely no reason to settle for the lowest common denominator. That’s what hate-media does to idiots, and we’re better than that.
However, the story would get more complex and difficult to write. Yup. Better means more difficult.
Instead of watching his farm burn, Tex Template could be looking at a girl, missing her.
The Cowboys from hell could have been rich campus jocks, riding Lamborghinis instead of horses, and they wouldn’t have guns, but charm and good manners. The Revenge would mean getting his girlfriend back.
To level up one more notch, he could have been watching a car race and want to become a champion.
The Cowboys from hell would be his racing friends. Revenge would mean winning a race.
Level up one more time, and he could have been watching a spaceship take off and decide to become an astronaut. The Revenge wouldn’t be a revenge at all, but a quest.
The Cowboys from hell would be a complex maze of engineers, wives, journalists, deadlines, bosses, failures, …
At the very top, he could be searching for scientific or spiritual Enlightenment.
However …
In this story, those Cowboys from hell raped Tex Template’s wife and burned her alive. Just like the reader, Tex hoped to see them hanging upside-down with their guts over their faces and their members in their mouths. Gracefully portrayed, of course. Protagonists don’t murder people. They kill them fair and square, making bad guys pay for what they done. And these ain’t even real people, so relax. It’s only fun. Ploink, ploink.
Only, Tex couldn’t do those things. He was no killer. He was a normal, ethical person that the reader sympathized with; though as he lay there, inactive, he came across as somewhat of a yellowbelly.
Yellowbelly? Tex grimaced. I’ll show them evil libertines who’s a yellowbelly. They may have shot the sheriff, but by the power invested in me, they didn’t shoot the deputy. Fueled by hatred, he reached over the sheriff’s womb and pulled out a Colt .45 revolver, the most fearsome weapon in the wild, wild west.
Well, next to the Gatling gun, of course, which ought to be mentioned early on, giving the reader more bang-bang to hope for. Not here in the middle of the goddamn drama, though. That ruins everything. Snap.
Ploink, ploink.
Tex aimed along the barrel. The weapon felt cold in his hand. Cold as revenge on a silver plate. Ah, revenge. There it was again: the story goal. Don’t forget. With a grimace, he plucked loose the Sheriff’s star and pinned it to his chest. The reader nodded in approval. That’s right, boy. Be a man. Hooked, the reader smiled, knowing this was going to be awesome later on. He turned the first page.
There was a new sheriff in town, and his name was Tex Template. This was the beginning of the story. From now on, there would be changes. Big changes, to keep the reader turning pages. There would be blood and gore. More than that, there would be action, slam-bang knucklefests, quick-draw wizardry, exploding skulls and perforated bodies, tastefully described with proper euphemisms. Finally, them Cowboys from Hell were gonna git what’s a’cumin’.
But not yet. Oh, no. Later. I promise.
First, he needed to find a turning point. That’s where the gunslinger arrives and agrees to help. Or the Elite Hacker’s Programming manual, the Sacred Gemstone, the race car driver with a wooden leg or the coolest dude on campus, depending on your story. He needs to overcome an obstacle that will help him do what he set out to do. Kill the Cowboys from Hell and hang them from the old oak near the well. Ploink, ploink. Watch this:
Tex Template buried his wife and wrote a tear-dripping obituary. He didn’t have to do that if it weren’t for the Gatling Gun figuring on page three.
You must have seen one in the movies. They’re the only cowboy guns that go rat-tat-tat like the War in Iraq. In case you don’t know, I’ll tell you that it shoots 350 rounds per minute on .58 caliber, 400 rounds per minute on .30 caliber, lifted from Wikipedia.
On the front page, there was a story about the great future of the West. The railroad was coming to town. That’s what all those dynamite blasts were all about.
Dynamite. Cool. Hehe. Hehe. But, where was the elusive gunslinger?
He wasn’t even in my head, yet. Darn. I should have planned this better. No worries. The template will be my guide. Read on, and you will never write yourself into a quagmire again. I guaran-honky-tonky-tee it. Ploink.
Tex couldn’t sit and hope for the gunslinger to drop from the sky, or ride in from the sunset. He had to go and find him. That became his goal to achieve his goal. A subgoal. Let’s play it out.
Struggling ahead along the long, dusty road, Tex Template found the gunslinger in a ditch.
Drunk as a skunk, apparently. Disaster.
Disappointed, but hopeful, Tex deliberated. He should probably have looked for a better candidate, but he had been searching far and wide, and this seemed to be the only Gunslinger around who didn’t already have a job slinging guns. Besides, perfect gunslingers make lousy fiction.
Tex decided that this vagabond would have to do. Acting on his decision, he woke him up and asked, “Gunslinger, will you help me defeat the Cowboys from Hell?”
The gunslinger rolled over on his back and burped. “Give me a bottle of whiskey, two shots of laudanum and a snort of that fine ladies’ nose-powder from Columbia, and I’ll kill whoever you want, boy,” he replied in a sniveling, drunken voice.
A scruffy man he was, smelly, unshaven, impolite and barely trustworthy. We’ve already shown he was drunk. Oh, crap-golly-golly, there was an adjective, too. Let’s hope nobody notices. What adjective? The reader twitched.
So, this was the turning point? Where was I? Oh, yes. The Midpoint. The epic battle that we’re destined to lose.
Good. Let’s see if we can get the story going again.
For days on end, Tex trained with the Gunslinger. He got better and better, faster and faster. One day, the Gunslinger flung a silver dollar in the air.
Tex spun around and took aim. The sentence was so short, he didn’t even have time to draw his Colt .45 revolver.
Sorry. Pulled you out of the story, did I?
Let’s try again.
Clink.
Alerted, Tex drew his .45.
The spinning coin blinked in the sunlight as he took aim.
Bull’s eye. He pulled the trigger.
With a flaming blast, the Colt slammed against his palm.
Did I get it? He wondered as he stared through the gunsmoke.
‘Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know as well’, the reader broke in. ‘If he can’t shoot straight, how in the hell is he gonna kill all them nasty ol’ cowboys? So? Did he hit that coin or not?’
Let me see …
I’ll be a son of a gun -- he did. Your worries are over, dear reader. You can breathe.
‘Good. How about his revenge? Is he ready now?’
Well …
Ploink. The silver dollar landed at the Gunslinger’s feet, complete with a round hole, smack in the middle.
“There’s something I have to get off my chest,” the Gunslinger said. “It’s time for me to stop drinking and whoring and snorting the prostitute's nose powder. You’re so brave and honest, true to your ideals, you’ve had a positive effect on me, my friend,” he continued in a too long expose. “As much as I hate having turned a nice fellow like you into a psychopathic killer like me, with no hope for the future, I’d have to say: You’re ready.”
Tex jumped with joy. “Will I get my revenge now?”
“Oh, yeah. I promise. With me at your side and your new found skills, you’re ready, alright. Remember the story goal? We’ll make them cowboys pay for what they did. I’m just gonna have a little sip of this here fine whiskey to make the reader wet his pants. He knows you can’t do it without me. I feel depressed, too, all of a sudden. Maybe I’ll have an overdose--”
“You will do no such thing, Gunslinger,” Tex replied, asserting himself to the reader. He grabbed the Gunslinger’s bottle and smashed it against a stone using a very strong verb. “Gentlemen stay sober and pure of heart during battle. That’s how we’ll win.”
‘Enough with all this fluff. Where’s the battle?’ the reader wondered, impatient.
It’s coming. I promise.
Looming over the hills, the second turning point awaited. While Tex was away, the Cowboys from hell had taken up residence on Old MacDonald’s farm, killed all the pigs, the cows, the quack-quacks, and made it into a fortress using some new stuff from France they called concrete. Concrete was awesome back in the days because it could stop bullets and it didn’t burn. The reader knows that, of course, but likes the awesomeness aspect of it, so he forgives me for mentioning it. Right? If not, just watch what happens next.
They had a Gatling Gun mounted on the roof. Remember the Gatling Gun? Here it is, in all its might.
“See those barrels?” Tex whispered. “That weapon can cut down an army of trained soldiers.” Not to mention a farmer -- for that’s what Tex Template really was -- and a drunken Gunslinger, who, by the way, appeared to be sober. For now.
Oh, you thought the protagonist was going to get that Gatling gun, didn’t you?
Tough luck. The bad guys get the cool stuff.
Enough with the talking. Now, let’s go do battle as promised.
Despite the odds, our two epic heroes that we have managed to connect with, will have a go.
They need a plan of attack.
However, the Gunslinger had been binging absinthe while concrete and Gatling Guns were invented, so he’s little help at this point. Thank God the protagonist read about all that stuff in the Evening Cattle Gazette.
Now, Tex Template must take charge. He’s a grown man, now, and knows how to kill. Or fly spaceships, hack computers, lift weights, meet girls, drive race cars or whatever your story is about.
And charge he does. Bang, bang, orangutang. Guns blazing, he rides towards the house on a horse we need to add back there, somewhere after the Evening Cattle Gazette expose.
Back in past tense, Tex scanned the building. The roof was clear. They hadn’t manned the fearsome weapon, yet.
Big mistake, he thought, as he snuck up to the window. He wasn’t dumb. Stealth was of the essence.
A twig snapped.
The drama rose.
Tex spun around. “What’s that?”
The Gunslinger whispered. “Short sentences. They make me jumpy.”
“There’s somebody out there,” a voice yelled from inside. “Get to the roof.”
Tex peeked through the glass.
Three cowboys with black Stetson hats ran upstairs.
Bad guys, alright. “Hey, Cowboy,” Tex drew his revolver, knocked on the window and called out. “Wanna get your picture in the papers?”
“Huh?” The cowboy turned on his heel and drew his gun.
The blast shattered the window.
Who died? Tex or the cowboy? To find out, you have to read on.
Ouch. The powerful recoil made Tex stumble backwards. Blood ran from a hole in his shoulder.
Nevermind. He peeked through the window and watched the cowboy tumble down the stairs.
Oh, yeah. Killing that cowboy sure felt good. Serves him right for being such an arsonist. Tex snickered.
Hey, but what about the other two evildoers? If they manned that Gatling Gun, the battle would be lost. Did they make it to the roof?
I’ll tell you on the next line.
Here it is: Rat, tat, tat … bullets slammed into the ground as the Gatling Gun spewed its death.
Then, what happened? You’re a writer, you ought to know. Write your own battle scene. Goal, Struggle, bang, bang, Disaster,
… Reaction. Running for his life, Tex jumped as the Gunslinger slumped to the ground.
Thus ended the First Turning Point: The battle we were destined to lose.
Second Turning Point. Dejection set in. The Gunslinger was dead -- shot in the back by a gang of cowards. In fiction, the good guys win. Out here, in reality, it’s the other way around.
This is the place to throw in your philosophy. If you don’t have any, switch on the TV and watch how the poor become poorer, the rich become richer, and corrupt politicians rule a world that, at least for our purposes, sucks.
Meanwhile, back in the story, the Cowboys from hell had taken over the bank, the town hall, the saloon, the sheriff’s office, the Evening Gattle Gazette and the church. They were printing money, whoring for free and killing for less, making laws to suit their purposes, arresting people for victimless crimes, preaching hatred against Indians and lying through their teeth in the Evening Cattle Gazette. Modern times.
Tex buried the Gunslinger next to Dear Martha. Gazing at the graves through tearful eyes, he remembered how his loving wife suffered and how the brave Gunslinger had died, fighting evil. Such was the way of the world.
All was lost. Tex might as well honor his dead friend, and take up drinking, whoring and whatever that other stuff was. Had the story been different, he could have been watching the burned-out remains of his race car or maybe it was Jane, walking hand-in-hand with the second coolest dude on campus, but cars weren’t invented yet and there’s nobody named Jane in this story.
It’s still a low-point, though. Very low. Suicide contemplation low. Tex could have been lying with his head on the rails, waiting for the train to come and separate his body from his brain.
Hey, wait … that’s a great idea. Tension. Let’s do that. Ploink, ploink … ploink.
What was the point of living in a world the Cowboys from hell could ravage with impunity? Tex shuffled to the railway and lay across the tracks.
As the Choo-Choo Mama, the biggest locomotive in the West, approached to usher in the modern times and cut him in half, his mind wandered. There was something in the Evening Cattle Gazette about the railroad. The Evening Cattle Gazette. Gazette, Gazette, Gazette, … (in case it becomes a movie).
The reader pulls his hair. ‘Get the dynamite, Tex. Do it before they take over the railroad.’
Oh, the Dynamite. Of course. The biggest bang-bang in the West. Nah. Tex sighed. Not gonna happen. Not me. I’m only a broken-down farmer.
But, wait … He was more than just a farmer. He was a killer now. Nobody kills a killer’s wife and only friend without getting whacked in return. He raised his head. If only he could get his hands on that Gatling Gun.
It is my opinion, volatile as it may be, that if you’re a newbie like me, and you absolutely have to use a flashback, then do it here, where the train is close enough for Tex Template to realize that it won’t just cut him in half.
For some reason, there was a big, red snowblower mounted in front, and it would grind him to haggis and spit him out through a tube erected on the left side.
Dear Martha, he thought. Ready or not, here I come. No steamy pun intended. Tex Template remembered how they met, that moonlit evening under the old oak by the well. It wasn’t his formidable physique that made her fall for him, she said, blushing delicately. She had winked, too. It was his altruism.
(Yes, dudes. I didn’t suck that out of my thumb. I did research. Altruism makes you attractive. Allright, I saw it on Facebook. Always remember to do research.)
What would Martha have said if she saw him now? She would certainly say, “Yes, dear husband. Get up now, and avenge me if you must, but where is your altruism in all this?”
Too-toot, you cretin. Flashback over. Here comes the big, red snowblower.
Altruism? Aha. That’s what he had to do.
As the choo-choo thundered by at a breakneck speed, he quickened and rolled to the side, escaping the rotating blades by a millimeter.
Not only was Tex a certified assassin and a gunslinger -- he was a townsman: ethical and just. If weapons like the Gatling Gun became commonplace around the world, war wouldn’t be a gentleman’s sport anymore. It would be carnage, especially if those bloodthirsty Europeans got hold of them. Who knows? There might even be a World War, turning the world into a Death Star.
He had to destroy it, but how? What can one man do against an army of bad guys, armed to the teeth with weapons no gunslinger could match? He’d blow it to kingdom come with dynamite.
‘Dynamite. Hehe, hehe,’ the reader snickered. ‘Cool.’
Tex would surely fly to the skies along with the Gatling Gun, but for the sake of his wife, his friend, you, the reader and all of Humanity, he had to give it one more go.
The Second Turning Point was over. It was do or die -- or in this case, probably both.
Ill-fated, yet resolute, with the silver star pinned to his chest, sheriff Tex Template rode towards the Climax and certain doom.
Standing by the window where he shot his first cowboy, Tex hesitated. Was this really the right thing to do? The last time he was here, he got his friend killed.
This time, it would be suicide, and certain defamation as a terrorist in the Evening Cattle Gazette.
Not to mention the church. They’d blame his whole religion.
Mustering all his new found character strength, Tex struck a match and lit the fuse.
I guess you know what happened next. That’s right. Exactly what you hoped for all along.
Having lived through the beginning, both Turning Points, prevailed in both Climax and Resolution, Tex Template rode into the sunset, past the Cowboys from hell, dangling from the old oak near the well
… at the end of a story to package and sell. Ploink-ety ploink-ety, ploink, ploink, ploink.
The End
A template story for my own education, where I try to put together what I think I’ve learned so far.
No, these are not the Author’s notes.
It’s already begun.
This is a story about a story -- a meta-story -- stringing together sequences of Goals, Struggles, Disasters, Reactions, Deliberations and Actions into a Big Picture, complete with Beginning, Story Question, Two turning points, Climax and Ending. If these terms mean nothing to you, read the story all the same. Tell me what you like and what you hate. I’m a newbie, and need to learn.
Here, behind the fourth wall, every story is a cowboy story. Thank you, HILARY MACKELDEN, for giving me the idea.
Ploink, ploink.
Crouching behind the Sheriff’s lifeless body, Tex Template stared at his burning farm, two hundred meters away.
Cowboys from hell circled around it, pouring whiskey on the flames, laughing, yelling “yee-haw” as Martha’s dress caught fire. Martha, Tex Template’s faithful wife of many years, stumbled forward. Her dreadful screams coalesced with the wind over the prairie.
Tex Template should have been there, protecting her. Lord knows, he’d get up and charge, like the sheriff had done when the bullets slammed into his chest, but there was no stopping the Cowboys from Hell.
Blood still seeped from the bullet holes as Tex stretched over the lukewarm, perforated corpse to get a better view.
Powerless, unarmed, he clenched his fists, watching dear Martha stand her ground alone.
“My husband Tex will shoot you like dogs,” she foreshadowed through the flames.
Her bravery didn’t seem to scare them cowboys much. One rode up and shot her in the head.
Now, she lay face down in the muck near the outhouse, degraded, charred, and still twitching.
Unable to bare her agony, Tex lowered his eyes and wept, shamefully hidden behind the dead sheriff’s back.
At the farm, the ruckus died down.
Tex wiped a tear from his chin and rose.
The invincible Cowboys from Hell rode towards the setting sun, cheering, waving their black hats over their heads.
What did them hell riders want now? Martha was dead, so it had to be something else, evil and scary, to be revealed.
Whatever it was, Tex wanted something worse: Blood-revenge. Medieval Viking carnage. Raising his fist to the Heavens, he swore to make them cowboys pay for what they done, and he was gonna find a way to kill’em all. That was his goal -- The Story Goal. If you think that’s a rotten and primitive goal to have, you’re right.
There is absolutely no reason to settle for the lowest common denominator. That’s what hate-media does to idiots, and we’re better than that.
However, the story would get more complex and difficult to write. Yup. Better means more difficult.
Instead of watching his farm burn, Tex Template could be looking at a girl, missing her.
The Cowboys from hell could have been rich campus jocks, riding Lamborghinis instead of horses, and they wouldn’t have guns, but charm and good manners. The Revenge would mean getting his girlfriend back.
To level up one more notch, he could have been watching a car race and want to become a champion.
The Cowboys from hell would be his racing friends. Revenge would mean winning a race.
Level up one more time, and he could have been watching a spaceship take off and decide to become an astronaut. The Revenge wouldn’t be a revenge at all, but a quest.
The Cowboys from hell would be a complex maze of engineers, wives, journalists, deadlines, bosses, failures, …
At the very top, he could be searching for scientific or spiritual Enlightenment.
However …
In this story, those Cowboys from hell raped Tex Template’s wife and burned her alive. Just like the reader, Tex hoped to see them hanging upside-down with their guts over their faces and their members in their mouths. Gracefully portrayed, of course. Protagonists don’t murder people. They kill them fair and square, making bad guys pay for what they done. And these ain’t even real people, so relax. It’s only fun. Ploink, ploink.
Only, Tex couldn’t do those things. He was no killer. He was a normal, ethical person that the reader sympathized with; though as he lay there, inactive, he came across as somewhat of a yellowbelly.
Yellowbelly? Tex grimaced. I’ll show them evil libertines who’s a yellowbelly. They may have shot the sheriff, but by the power invested in me, they didn’t shoot the deputy. Fueled by hatred, he reached over the sheriff’s womb and pulled out a Colt .45 revolver, the most fearsome weapon in the wild, wild west.
Well, next to the Gatling gun, of course, which ought to be mentioned early on, giving the reader more bang-bang to hope for. Not here in the middle of the goddamn drama, though. That ruins everything. Snap.
Ploink, ploink.
Tex aimed along the barrel. The weapon felt cold in his hand. Cold as revenge on a silver plate. Ah, revenge. There it was again: the story goal. Don’t forget. With a grimace, he plucked loose the Sheriff’s star and pinned it to his chest. The reader nodded in approval. That’s right, boy. Be a man. Hooked, the reader smiled, knowing this was going to be awesome later on. He turned the first page.
There was a new sheriff in town, and his name was Tex Template. This was the beginning of the story. From now on, there would be changes. Big changes, to keep the reader turning pages. There would be blood and gore. More than that, there would be action, slam-bang knucklefests, quick-draw wizardry, exploding skulls and perforated bodies, tastefully described with proper euphemisms. Finally, them Cowboys from Hell were gonna git what’s a’cumin’.
But not yet. Oh, no. Later. I promise.
First, he needed to find a turning point. That’s where the gunslinger arrives and agrees to help. Or the Elite Hacker’s Programming manual, the Sacred Gemstone, the race car driver with a wooden leg or the coolest dude on campus, depending on your story. He needs to overcome an obstacle that will help him do what he set out to do. Kill the Cowboys from Hell and hang them from the old oak near the well. Ploink, ploink. Watch this:
Tex Template buried his wife and wrote a tear-dripping obituary. He didn’t have to do that if it weren’t for the Gatling Gun figuring on page three.
You must have seen one in the movies. They’re the only cowboy guns that go rat-tat-tat like the War in Iraq. In case you don’t know, I’ll tell you that it shoots 350 rounds per minute on .58 caliber, 400 rounds per minute on .30 caliber, lifted from Wikipedia.
On the front page, there was a story about the great future of the West. The railroad was coming to town. That’s what all those dynamite blasts were all about.
Dynamite. Cool. Hehe. Hehe. But, where was the elusive gunslinger?
He wasn’t even in my head, yet. Darn. I should have planned this better. No worries. The template will be my guide. Read on, and you will never write yourself into a quagmire again. I guaran-honky-tonky-tee it. Ploink.
Tex couldn’t sit and hope for the gunslinger to drop from the sky, or ride in from the sunset. He had to go and find him. That became his goal to achieve his goal. A subgoal. Let’s play it out.
Struggling ahead along the long, dusty road, Tex Template found the gunslinger in a ditch.
Drunk as a skunk, apparently. Disaster.
Disappointed, but hopeful, Tex deliberated. He should probably have looked for a better candidate, but he had been searching far and wide, and this seemed to be the only Gunslinger around who didn’t already have a job slinging guns. Besides, perfect gunslingers make lousy fiction.
Tex decided that this vagabond would have to do. Acting on his decision, he woke him up and asked, “Gunslinger, will you help me defeat the Cowboys from Hell?”
The gunslinger rolled over on his back and burped. “Give me a bottle of whiskey, two shots of laudanum and a snort of that fine ladies’ nose-powder from Columbia, and I’ll kill whoever you want, boy,” he replied in a sniveling, drunken voice.
A scruffy man he was, smelly, unshaven, impolite and barely trustworthy. We’ve already shown he was drunk. Oh, crap-golly-golly, there was an adjective, too. Let’s hope nobody notices. What adjective? The reader twitched.
So, this was the turning point? Where was I? Oh, yes. The Midpoint. The epic battle that we’re destined to lose.
Good. Let’s see if we can get the story going again.
For days on end, Tex trained with the Gunslinger. He got better and better, faster and faster. One day, the Gunslinger flung a silver dollar in the air.
Tex spun around and took aim. The sentence was so short, he didn’t even have time to draw his Colt .45 revolver.
Sorry. Pulled you out of the story, did I?
Let’s try again.
Clink.
Alerted, Tex drew his .45.
The spinning coin blinked in the sunlight as he took aim.
Bull’s eye. He pulled the trigger.
With a flaming blast, the Colt slammed against his palm.
Did I get it? He wondered as he stared through the gunsmoke.
‘Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know as well’, the reader broke in. ‘If he can’t shoot straight, how in the hell is he gonna kill all them nasty ol’ cowboys? So? Did he hit that coin or not?’
Let me see …
I’ll be a son of a gun -- he did. Your worries are over, dear reader. You can breathe.
‘Good. How about his revenge? Is he ready now?’
Well …
Ploink. The silver dollar landed at the Gunslinger’s feet, complete with a round hole, smack in the middle.
“There’s something I have to get off my chest,” the Gunslinger said. “It’s time for me to stop drinking and whoring and snorting the prostitute's nose powder. You’re so brave and honest, true to your ideals, you’ve had a positive effect on me, my friend,” he continued in a too long expose. “As much as I hate having turned a nice fellow like you into a psychopathic killer like me, with no hope for the future, I’d have to say: You’re ready.”
Tex jumped with joy. “Will I get my revenge now?”
“Oh, yeah. I promise. With me at your side and your new found skills, you’re ready, alright. Remember the story goal? We’ll make them cowboys pay for what they did. I’m just gonna have a little sip of this here fine whiskey to make the reader wet his pants. He knows you can’t do it without me. I feel depressed, too, all of a sudden. Maybe I’ll have an overdose--”
“You will do no such thing, Gunslinger,” Tex replied, asserting himself to the reader. He grabbed the Gunslinger’s bottle and smashed it against a stone using a very strong verb. “Gentlemen stay sober and pure of heart during battle. That’s how we’ll win.”
‘Enough with all this fluff. Where’s the battle?’ the reader wondered, impatient.
It’s coming. I promise.
Looming over the hills, the second turning point awaited. While Tex was away, the Cowboys from hell had taken up residence on Old MacDonald’s farm, killed all the pigs, the cows, the quack-quacks, and made it into a fortress using some new stuff from France they called concrete. Concrete was awesome back in the days because it could stop bullets and it didn’t burn. The reader knows that, of course, but likes the awesomeness aspect of it, so he forgives me for mentioning it. Right? If not, just watch what happens next.
They had a Gatling Gun mounted on the roof. Remember the Gatling Gun? Here it is, in all its might.
“See those barrels?” Tex whispered. “That weapon can cut down an army of trained soldiers.” Not to mention a farmer -- for that’s what Tex Template really was -- and a drunken Gunslinger, who, by the way, appeared to be sober. For now.
Oh, you thought the protagonist was going to get that Gatling gun, didn’t you?
Tough luck. The bad guys get the cool stuff.
Enough with the talking. Now, let’s go do battle as promised.
Despite the odds, our two epic heroes that we have managed to connect with, will have a go.
They need a plan of attack.
However, the Gunslinger had been binging absinthe while concrete and Gatling Guns were invented, so he’s little help at this point. Thank God the protagonist read about all that stuff in the Evening Cattle Gazette.
Now, Tex Template must take charge. He’s a grown man, now, and knows how to kill. Or fly spaceships, hack computers, lift weights, meet girls, drive race cars or whatever your story is about.
And charge he does. Bang, bang, orangutang. Guns blazing, he rides towards the house on a horse we need to add back there, somewhere after the Evening Cattle Gazette expose.
Back in past tense, Tex scanned the building. The roof was clear. They hadn’t manned the fearsome weapon, yet.
Big mistake, he thought, as he snuck up to the window. He wasn’t dumb. Stealth was of the essence.
A twig snapped.
The drama rose.
Tex spun around. “What’s that?”
The Gunslinger whispered. “Short sentences. They make me jumpy.”
“There’s somebody out there,” a voice yelled from inside. “Get to the roof.”
Tex peeked through the glass.
Three cowboys with black Stetson hats ran upstairs.
Bad guys, alright. “Hey, Cowboy,” Tex drew his revolver, knocked on the window and called out. “Wanna get your picture in the papers?”
“Huh?” The cowboy turned on his heel and drew his gun.
The blast shattered the window.
Who died? Tex or the cowboy? To find out, you have to read on.
Ouch. The powerful recoil made Tex stumble backwards. Blood ran from a hole in his shoulder.
Nevermind. He peeked through the window and watched the cowboy tumble down the stairs.
Oh, yeah. Killing that cowboy sure felt good. Serves him right for being such an arsonist. Tex snickered.
Hey, but what about the other two evildoers? If they manned that Gatling Gun, the battle would be lost. Did they make it to the roof?
I’ll tell you on the next line.
Here it is: Rat, tat, tat … bullets slammed into the ground as the Gatling Gun spewed its death.
Then, what happened? You’re a writer, you ought to know. Write your own battle scene. Goal, Struggle, bang, bang, Disaster,
… Reaction. Running for his life, Tex jumped as the Gunslinger slumped to the ground.
Thus ended the First Turning Point: The battle we were destined to lose.
Second Turning Point. Dejection set in. The Gunslinger was dead -- shot in the back by a gang of cowards. In fiction, the good guys win. Out here, in reality, it’s the other way around.
This is the place to throw in your philosophy. If you don’t have any, switch on the TV and watch how the poor become poorer, the rich become richer, and corrupt politicians rule a world that, at least for our purposes, sucks.
Meanwhile, back in the story, the Cowboys from hell had taken over the bank, the town hall, the saloon, the sheriff’s office, the Evening Gattle Gazette and the church. They were printing money, whoring for free and killing for less, making laws to suit their purposes, arresting people for victimless crimes, preaching hatred against Indians and lying through their teeth in the Evening Cattle Gazette. Modern times.
Tex buried the Gunslinger next to Dear Martha. Gazing at the graves through tearful eyes, he remembered how his loving wife suffered and how the brave Gunslinger had died, fighting evil. Such was the way of the world.
All was lost. Tex might as well honor his dead friend, and take up drinking, whoring and whatever that other stuff was. Had the story been different, he could have been watching the burned-out remains of his race car or maybe it was Jane, walking hand-in-hand with the second coolest dude on campus, but cars weren’t invented yet and there’s nobody named Jane in this story.
It’s still a low-point, though. Very low. Suicide contemplation low. Tex could have been lying with his head on the rails, waiting for the train to come and separate his body from his brain.
Hey, wait … that’s a great idea. Tension. Let’s do that. Ploink, ploink … ploink.
What was the point of living in a world the Cowboys from hell could ravage with impunity? Tex shuffled to the railway and lay across the tracks.
As the Choo-Choo Mama, the biggest locomotive in the West, approached to usher in the modern times and cut him in half, his mind wandered. There was something in the Evening Cattle Gazette about the railroad. The Evening Cattle Gazette. Gazette, Gazette, Gazette, … (in case it becomes a movie).
The reader pulls his hair. ‘Get the dynamite, Tex. Do it before they take over the railroad.’
Oh, the Dynamite. Of course. The biggest bang-bang in the West. Nah. Tex sighed. Not gonna happen. Not me. I’m only a broken-down farmer.
But, wait … He was more than just a farmer. He was a killer now. Nobody kills a killer’s wife and only friend without getting whacked in return. He raised his head. If only he could get his hands on that Gatling Gun.
It is my opinion, volatile as it may be, that if you’re a newbie like me, and you absolutely have to use a flashback, then do it here, where the train is close enough for Tex Template to realize that it won’t just cut him in half.
For some reason, there was a big, red snowblower mounted in front, and it would grind him to haggis and spit him out through a tube erected on the left side.
Dear Martha, he thought. Ready or not, here I come. No steamy pun intended. Tex Template remembered how they met, that moonlit evening under the old oak by the well. It wasn’t his formidable physique that made her fall for him, she said, blushing delicately. She had winked, too. It was his altruism.
(Yes, dudes. I didn’t suck that out of my thumb. I did research. Altruism makes you attractive. Allright, I saw it on Facebook. Always remember to do research.)
What would Martha have said if she saw him now? She would certainly say, “Yes, dear husband. Get up now, and avenge me if you must, but where is your altruism in all this?”
Too-toot, you cretin. Flashback over. Here comes the big, red snowblower.
Altruism? Aha. That’s what he had to do.
As the choo-choo thundered by at a breakneck speed, he quickened and rolled to the side, escaping the rotating blades by a millimeter.
Not only was Tex a certified assassin and a gunslinger -- he was a townsman: ethical and just. If weapons like the Gatling Gun became commonplace around the world, war wouldn’t be a gentleman’s sport anymore. It would be carnage, especially if those bloodthirsty Europeans got hold of them. Who knows? There might even be a World War, turning the world into a Death Star.
He had to destroy it, but how? What can one man do against an army of bad guys, armed to the teeth with weapons no gunslinger could match? He’d blow it to kingdom come with dynamite.
‘Dynamite. Hehe, hehe,’ the reader snickered. ‘Cool.’
Tex would surely fly to the skies along with the Gatling Gun, but for the sake of his wife, his friend, you, the reader and all of Humanity, he had to give it one more go.
The Second Turning Point was over. It was do or die -- or in this case, probably both.
Ill-fated, yet resolute, with the silver star pinned to his chest, sheriff Tex Template rode towards the Climax and certain doom.
Standing by the window where he shot his first cowboy, Tex hesitated. Was this really the right thing to do? The last time he was here, he got his friend killed.
This time, it would be suicide, and certain defamation as a terrorist in the Evening Cattle Gazette.
Not to mention the church. They’d blame his whole religion.
Mustering all his new found character strength, Tex struck a match and lit the fuse.
I guess you know what happened next. That’s right. Exactly what you hoped for all along.
Having lived through the beginning, both Turning Points, prevailed in both Climax and Resolution, Tex Template rode into the sunset, past the Cowboys from hell, dangling from the old oak near the well
… at the end of a story to package and sell. Ploink-ety ploink-ety, ploink, ploink, ploink.
The End
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