THE GOLDEN EASTER EGG

 

I haven’t posted in a while because I was writing a new story. I just finished it and now I'm doing the arduous task of editing. Hate that part. It is not related to the crossbreed books. It will be the start of a new series based loosely on characters and adventures played out at the Blood Moon Social Club. Let me reiterate and say “loosely based”. This book is inspired by storylines I wrote for our inter active theater Blood Moon events. There were hundreds of vampires, werewolves, demons, mummies, ghosts, and human hunters running around the Blood Moon Social Club every month for years. Not all were directly involved with the main plots some were doing their own thing. However, to base a story on that sort of dynamic I had to condense the story from a big chunky stew down to a fine sauce. So I compressed many characters into composites and tried to capture the essence of what Blood Moon was all about.

The plot of any good story nearly always involves the characters be engaged in a hunt for the Golden Easter Egg. So it often was at Blood Moon. The GEE can be anything of worth from an amulet, enchanted sword, magic jewel, or a crown that grants one the power to control giants as in Jack the Giant Slayer. What an awesome movie I loved it. This plot device is used by every writer and film maker, the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock called it the MacGuffin.

I recently watched TNT's The Librarians their GEE was a magic crown worn by King Arthur. CW's rendition of DC's The Flash has a variation of the GEE. Barry Allen “The Flash” is searching for the mysterious killer of his mother. The same GEE is being used in Gotham the teenage Bruce Wayne is after the killer of his parents. A live person is a perfect GEE. Imagine if you knew the whereabouts of such an individual. You might claim a reward or blackmail the GEE. But then you might end up dead and the plot thickens. Of the three examples I won't be following the Librarians it was a too silly for my tastes, and I was not drawn to the characters or the clunky dialog. The Flash is well done and holds my interest but it is a little weak on intensity. Gotham is wonderful. I absolutely love the new look at old BatMan villains back when they were young and had not donned their familiar costumes. This is a great rejuvenation of an iconic storyline. In addition you have a plethora of characters and many subplots revolving around the main plot. Much room to screw with your perception and create conflict and chaos.
The GEE, whatever it may be works best if you have a lot of characters running around in your story. One finds the Golden Easter Egg and has it for a while then someone steals it and now everyone is after them. Think of it as a football game if one team has the Golden Football most of the game the excitement level slows. But if the football changes hands a lot the pace picks up. If the score stays even right to the end the suspense builds to an explosive climax. {Yes I know mixing sports and sexual metaphors is cliche but I just couldn't stop myself.}
The writer can control the story's pace by manipulating the GEE and who has it. In Marvels Agents of Shield the writers do an excellent job of having more that one GEE and they keep them changing hands. Another tactic is you never know who is on what team. The characters are always dying or defecting. They also come back from the dead and then you're not sure of anything.
Agents of Shield is well written and keeps me wanting more. But where it shines is in the character dialog. I really care what happens to them. So you see the GEE is not always what makes a story compelling it's the characters competing for it.

In my own humble effort at writing SciFi action adventures, I try my best to involve the reader in the lives of the characters. In Crossbreeds 1: Battle Butte I send my Soldiers of Fortune Griff, Butch and Jesse off to find an artificial intelligence brain essential to making ancient technology work for the people of Battle Butte. However, my high tech GEE is not the primary focus of the story. It is the women these three reckless daredevils encounter. You see I find that the best way to create conflict and chaos; very important for any story, is to introduce strong independent women. Once you do that the male characters do what all men do. They become entangled in romantic webs and now you have real life unfolding in your fantasy world.
In my new story Death and Domination I have interesting protagonists and sinister antagonists. Some are the aforementioned dynamic females. Building strong character composites from those played by the ladies of Blood Moon wasn't difficult. Nor was it tough to interject romantic webs to entangle my male characters. Blood Moon was rife with supernatural lust.
Even with all of that going for me I decided to employ yet another writer's tool. As I said the GEE can be anything and doesn’t necessarily need to be the main focus. That said, it sometimes turns out that the GEE is so important that it becomes a leading character. Such as when the GEE is a live person, or when the object is so much more than everyone looking for it even realizes. I'll end right there before the teaser becomes a spoiler.