Saturday 7 August 2010

HIGH DRAMA BLOGFEST

With only four hours to go until I have to board an plane and fly DL HAMMOND posted what?! 
Please go and check his Blogfest and giveaway! The drama is high and the stakes are higher. And I am not only talking about how unpopular posting this blog has made me with He-who-must-not-be-named! I'm looking forward to reading more of the drama posting and raising the stakes here too! ;)
STAYING LOST is an MG action/adventure
Jon's father CEO/Owner of the ASHTON & ROYAL GROUP has been contaminated with a heavy metal poison. Nerysa is all that stands between Jon and fate that might be even worse.

The sirens sounded throughout the building. The time had come. “Jon, say Goodbye. We have to go.”
 Smoke from the canisters in Hamish’s case, several floors below, was now billowing from the air vents. Charlie Ashton chuckled weakly.
“Dad! I love you.” Jon clung to the hand lay on the bed nearest him.
“Then – live.” His father croaked even as his free hand moved to claw at his chest over his heart. “Ner-ysa?” His eyes begged her to say the words. The pain in his face was greater than the one that ripped at his heart.
The nurse began to check his pulse of his free hand while the monitor’s erratic bleeping began to stutter.
“I promise, Charlie. I will keep him safe.
“Enough, Jon we have to go.”
Nerysa grabbed Jon by the scruff of the neck and began to pull him towards the door. When he reached the slick, white frame, the monitor beside the bed became, for a moment, silent. The line ran from jagged to flat. The silence didn’t last long as a piercing, high pitched warning sounded. 
With one hand towing Jon backwards, their ability to get through the door was compromised. He bumped a shoulder against the frame. This unleashed an inner daemon no one knew lay dormant there. Jon began kicking and screaming. His booted feet caught Nerysa, the door and the frame.
Nerysa picked him up. She held him under one arm while he flailed his arms and legs and tried to break free. She could hear trouble. The sound of running feet. There was very little time left. Nerysa had to try to fulfil her promise to get Jon out of the building and to safety.
She peered around the door into the corridor beyond. Angry flushed faces, with sharp suits and bodies like Arnie, were storming towards the room, their guns already drawn. 
The first shot sent wood chips flying into Jon’s hair. The second sent a shower of glass over them both. 
The shards and crystal cubes halted Jon’s struggles. He was fascinated by the rainbows split by the flecks of glass. 
Nerysa was able to loose the first few shots with a greater degree of accuracy than she could have hoped for if Jon was still fighting her. She hit the first guard in the chest and the second struck high in the thigh. She pushed Jon beside her through the door and forced his stumbling feet to keep going.
They ran towards the end of the corridor where the sign indicated there was a stairwell. A key pad provided security and Nerysa wasn’t sure how she was going to make it open when she heard a call and footsteps running behind her. The nurse had tears in her eyes as she keyed in the code for the door. She didn’t need to say the words. She settled for passing on hope, “Good Luck.”
Nerysa ducked under her outstretched arm and tugged Jon with her. They had to make it. There was just one flight of stairs to the roof. That still might be too far, she could hear echoes and clattering below them too. At least four people. As they turned the corners in the stairwell, she could hear the tell-tale clinks of metal hitting the handrail. She jammed a small amount of plastic explosives into the lock, and onto the hinges of the door.
Using an automatic timer, she prepared the device. Nerysa hurried Jon back down to the turn in the stairs and triggered the explosion. Plaster fell as dusty snow while they ran back up. The footsteps were closer now, and the voices were no longer difficult to decipher, they were as clear as if they were standing right next to them. Probably because... they very nearly were.
Coughing, eyes streaming, stumbling over the twisted metal that had once been a door, Nerysa and Jon felt, before they heard, the whisper soft arrival of the MD 500. With its new design this two-man helicopter was uniquely manoeuvrable. It descended onto the flat roof a little way from their current position.
 A bullet ricocheted back from the low wall ahead. 
With one hand on Jon's head, Nerysa laid down covering fire into the stairwell. She kept her hand on his collar, as they ran towards the helicopter.
Jon stuttered to a halt at the side of their escape vehicle, “There isn’t another seat, Nerysa.”
His reply was less verbal than he would have preferred, Nerysa picked him up and dropped him behind the seats. There was a luggage space and he, apparently, was the luggage. 
The force generated by the machine was instantly felt. Nerysa was pushed back into her seat and Jon became best friends with a range of safety equipment, a metal box and the remains of several lunches eaten on the move – angular, metal or smelly his choices were limited. 
When the helicopter dropped like a stone at the edge of the building Jon thought his breakfast would be joining the litter on the floor. He couldn’t see anything so his body reacted to the changes at a basic level. They were now hurtling forward at speed and he was pressed up against the chairs in the front with no way to do more than hold on and hope.

25 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Real action heroine stuff here.

    Great read, and would love to be able to read on.

    best
    F

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  2. I love me some action! Very nicely done. I detected a couple POV shifts, but after reading The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo where its prevalent, who can be picky.

    Sorry about making more flight a little more tense today. *Sheepish grin* Thank you for taking part in my blogfest.

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  3. This was great fun to read and the action really pulled me in. Like DL, I also found some POV slips. You might consider taking a look through also for telling cues, such as "sent wood chips flying at him." Either way, a worthy read of high drama!

    Thanks for sharing.

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  4. High drama indeed - well done! This was a very exciting scene.

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  5. Very tense and visual! Great scene choice, Elaine! :-)

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  6. well done! "There was a luggage space and he, apparently, was the luggage. " my favorite line! thanks for posting.

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  7. Great sequence! I find action hard, but you pulled it off nicely! Is John a child?

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  8. ...nicely done, and don't worry, I just caught wind of the event myself:)

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  9. --Jon thought his breakfast would be joining the litter on the floor.-- Great line. Thanks for sharing, it was fun to read.

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  10. Nice! I like the pace and the action! Good job :)

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  11. This scene must have been a blast to write. I certainly enjoyed reading it! Great pacing, lots of action -- it has it all. The omniscient POV is my only hesitation, as I generally feel more connected to all the characters when I only "experience" the story through the filter of one POV. But as DL mentioned, many authors (Stieg Larsson) pull it off with success.

    Best of luck with this awesome project!

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  12. Hi, Elaine. ;-)

    I love MG & YA adventures; this had excellent action and tension. I noticed a couple of POV slips as well--easy to do, especially if you've been writing another WIP in present tense. I have to watch myself all the time. The "sent wood chips flying," however, isn't one of them. That's in the correct tense.

    Good work!

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  13. I love chick action and POV slips... Join the club. I know they should be watched but they kinda make the reader feel/see a scene better when through a couple well placed and written POV's.

    Cool bit of action!

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  14. Action is so difficult to write- well done! Loved the imagery here...

    "Plaster fell as dusty snow while they ran back up."

    A very vivid picture! Thank you for posting this to the blogfest, and for your comment on my entry too!

    ~bru

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  15. Wow, this was grip-your-seat action! I felt as if I were watching a movie as I read this--so vivid. Well done!

    —Portia

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  16. Action is definitely hard to write, and you nailed the heart-pumpingness of it. AND I'm very curious about this inner daemon. Also, is it just me or does this read more like YA than MG? I'm definitely not an expert in either.

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  17. I'm with Portia; I had the movie running in the background also. I could see your characters and the setting vividly. The action was paced well. There is a lot of storyline woven into the dialogue and action, but it isn't overwhelming the scene.

    The focus remained on the race to safety. Its hard to combine action and backstory effectively. Great job here. I know enough to keep up, but no so much I miss the action.

    Good work.

    .......dhole

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  18. High drama, indeed. Thanks for posting this. Oh, and I loved the last sentence.

    Sharde

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  19. This was great. I agree with Summer above--I loved the line: "There was a luggage space and he, apparently, was the luggage." Thanks!

    On a side note, I really like the sound of Near Edgeware--It looks like my kind of story. :D

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  20. loved this! Really enjoyed the action. also i loved the last line!

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  21. Bullets, helicopters, that's some serious drama. Great job! :)

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  22. That was a refreshing entry! I liked the action.

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  23. WELCOME TO ALL MY NEW FOLOWERS!!!!
    Thank you all for the comments on the high drama scene. I love STAYING LOST - one of my jobs for the holdiday is to do an edit and cut 10,000 words. Jon Jacob - Jon - is ten, but due to age rapidly. Vocabulary speaking it is MG
    This is my mid(holiday)week, twenty minutes internet ration -- I´d be dying if I wasn´t having so much fun in sunny Ibiza!
    I´ve been catching the bus! Can you imagine? Me and my car are normally umbilically attached and here I´m queueing and catching the local buses. Everything and everyone has a story: they didn´t before, but they do now! ;)

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  24. Okay I'm showing up here late, but I got sucked into this scene. And now I'm all worried - did his dad really die? Why did the nurse help them? Jeez, these blogfests can be torment.

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