The Last Finesse by Brian Bloom @BrianB_Aust

From Chapter 37

‘Gramps wasn’t around anymore. Successful industrialists don’t have time for their daughters. My mother had her hands full with the boys. Teenagers crave attention. That’s all I was doing. It turned out I was quite normal. I finally grew up. Sports were helpful.’

He was as intrigued with her as ever. ‘What kind of sports?’

‘Gymkhana horse riding, till I was 15, and then some board surfing, on the odd occasion, and then, more recently, board sailing. I love to be at one with nature.’ She flicked back her hair and looked up at the sun.

‘So,’ he said in response, ‘we both know how to ride a horse – that’s a start isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ I guess so, she replied, ‘but I’d rather play golf.’

‘I’d be delighted if you’d play with me,’ he stated enthusiastically. ‘What did you do when you were “finished” at that “finishing school” of yours?’

‘I’ve told you,’ she answered: ‘my old man wanted me “barefoot and pregnant” in the kitchen next door – he thought it was time I settled down. We had a hell of a fight, but I had Guido on my side, and my mother finally came to the party and supported me.

‘I enrolled in a journalism course at Texas U, in Austin. I did quite well. My old man finally acknowledged my existence by coming to my graduation ceremony. And then our relationship became an armed truce, when I “informed” him I’d decided to go out on my own.’ Using her index and middle fingers, she drew quotation marks in the air, around the word “informed”.

‘That wasn’t his idea of how a good Italian woman should conduct herself. I basically told him, “Go fuck yourself!”, but I used more diplomatic language – as they taught me at finishing school. He finally came to realise he’d been a failure as a father, and backed off. From time to time, he still dangles my trust fund in my face, in the hope he can make me see reason and live my life according to his paternal script.’

‘Right,’ Luke acknowledged. ‘And your mother?’

‘Mum died when I was 20, a week before my 21st-birthday party. That rug was also pulled out from under me, and it was the last straw, as far as I was concerned. That’s when I moved to San Francisco to start living my own life properly.

‘That’s also why I wanted to know your views about gay marriage. Like Sydney, San Fran’s got a large gay community, and I’m lucky enough to have a lot of gay friends.’

His ‘naughty streak’ surfaced again. ‘And if you come to live in Australia among the “large gays”?’

She smiled, but was clearly fixated on wrapping up her story. ‘Some of them might miss me.’

‘Did you struggle to get a job?’

‘No,’ she answered, ‘not really. A few doors were opened to me because I topped my class and was the daughter of Louis Marchetti.’

Luke imagined the opening doors, and indulged in a quick fantasy about banging his boys up against her open doors . . . ‘So,’ he remarked, ‘he wasn’t entirely a waste of rations . . . Hang on a second: did you just say you topped your class?’

She had a palpable air of relief that she’d finally told her story. ‘Look, Luke, he’s not really a bad guy; it’s just he’s been hanging on to his old values in the modern world. I’m convinced that somewhere deep inside him, he’s just as sad as I am that we don’t have a relationship. I’m his only daughter. Maybe, if you and I finally get together, it’ll serve as an ice breaker.’

‘You topped your class?’ he persisted.

‘Yes,’ she replied, with a trace of impatience. ‘So what?

He considered his next question. ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

‘Sure,’

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Genre - Conspiracy Thriller

Rating – MA (15+)

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#Author Brian Bloom's #WriteTip On How to Make Your Characters Believable @BrianB_Aust

How to make your characters believable within the context of your story?

There are nuances that flow from this question: If, for example, you are going to write a Harry Potter type story, then your characters will need to be able to live and breathe within that thought paradigm.

It follows that the first thought you have to address before you craft your story’s characters is: What is the thought paradigm within which the characters must live and breathe?  Will your fiction be skewed towards fantasy or reality and where on the spectrum do you want it to sit?

Another important question one has to ask is: “Who do you want to read your story?” The answer will evolve by way of what is known in the marketing world as a profile demographic. How old? What gender? What income bracket? What IQ? What level of education? Employed or unemployed? Married or single? Left brain (logical/pragmatic) or right brain (imaginative/visionary) oriented? What do they do for entertainment? Sports lover? Music?

Once you have done this, then the subject heading above evolves to become: “How to make your characters believable to the people who are most likely to read your story, within the context your story?”

Once you have defined the thought paradigm and the target reader profile, you need to ask yourself: “What am I going to write about?” and there are four criteria here:

1. What genre?
2. What is the story going to be about?
3. How is it going to end?
4. How is it going to begin?

All of this will be in very rough terms. You haven’t yet reached the stage where you have to think about plot or themes. By way of example: “I want to write a realistic science fiction story that talks about life as it might be in (say) 20 years time. I want it to end in catastrophe – where only a few people will be left alive – and I want it to begin with the explosion of technologies that are emerging today. Along the way, I want one/some potentially dangerous technology/ies to be embraced in an irresponsible manner.”

By way of example of a possible target market for such a novel: “Readers will be predominantly male, but maybe (say) 25% female, and they will be fairly sophisticated with IQs of over 110. They will likely be between the ages of 18 and 45. At the younger level, there is likely to be a high level of unemployment but a concomitant high interest in “technology” and IT based games, and at the older level there is likely to be a degree of adult sophistication.”

Okay, now you have a picture of the target reader in your mind, what specific characters will your story need and what personality profiles will they have that render them believable and memorable to those readers, in context of this story?

They won’t all pop out at once, but maybe 80% will. Keep a database of characters and start to define who they are, what they look like, what they do in their personal and business lives, why they are important, what are their personality profiles and their unusual talents; and what are their idiosyncrasies? Could any have latent mental health issues?

Importantly, no one is perfect in real life. Everyone has some flaw or another. What “flaws” will your characters have? Make sure that the flaws are clearly defined because that is what will add to both their believability and their “interestingness”.

This one has a slight stutter, that one is loud, this one dresses with a particular – but predictable – flair, that one is a gregarious womaniser, this one is a scientist but suffers from epilepsy, that one is a banker who is anal about whether his shirts are clean and he keeps three clean shirts in his bottom drawer at the office. This one is argumentative and likes to disagree for the sake of it, that one is a royal pain in the arse but he/she is tolerated because he/she seems to have supernatural intuition. These examples emphasise that it is the idiosyncrasies of the individuals that differentiate them from other characters. WHO are they? It’s not just about physical looks. Novels that survive in literature tend to have deeply interesting characters. Arguably, that is one reason why the Harry Potter series was so successful.

Now that you have well defined (say) 80% of your characters, you can start to write the storyline.  Whether you move to generate the plot and/or themes immediately seems to me to be a matter of style. If you’re anally analytical you will plan it in anal detail; if you’re crazy creative you’ll wing it. Those are two ends of the spectrum. Most people don’t sit at either end, they’re somewhere in the middle. Do what is comfortable for you.

Along the way, you’ll probably find you don’t have enough characters, so you will have to develop some “on the fly”. Make sure they are all recognisable as people and make sure that they talk and behave in character as the story develops. That way, the reader will develop an affinity for some and a dislike for others and the reader will enjoy the story more than he/she would if they have to ask: “Now who was that character again?”

There is an energy force in the world—known to the Ancients—that has largely escaped the interest of the modern day world. Why? There are allusions to this energy in the Chinese I-Ching, in the Hebrew Torah, in the Christian Bible, in the Hindu Sanskrit Ramayana and in the Muslim Holy Qur'an. Its force is strongest within the Earth's magnetic triangles.

Near one of these--the Bermuda Triangle--circumstances bring together four very different people. Patrick Gallagher is a mining engineer searching for a viable alternative to fossil fuels; Tara Geoffrey, an airline pilot on holidays in the Caribbean; Yehuda Rosenberg, a physicist preoccupied with ancient history; and Mehmet Kuhl, a minerals broker, a Sufi Muslim with an unusual past. Can they unravel the secrets of the Ancients that may also hold the answer to the future of civilization?

About the Author:

In 1987, Brian and his young family migrated from South Africa to Australia where he was employed in Citicorp’s Venture Capital division. He was expecting that Natural Gas would become the world’s next energy paradigm but, surprisingly, it was slow in coming. He then became conscious of the raw power of self-serving vested interests to trump what – from an ethical perspective – should have been society’s greater interests.

Eventually, in 2005, with encouragement from his long suffering wife, Denise, he decided to do something about what he was witnessing: Beyond Neanderthal was the result; The Last Finesse is the prequel.

The Last Finesse is Brian’s second factional novel. Both were written for the simultaneous entertainment and invigoration of the thinking element of society. It is a prequel to Beyond Neanderthal, which takes a visionary view of humanity’s future, provided we can sublimate our Neanderthal drive to entrench pecking orders in society. The Last Finesse is more “now” oriented. Together, these two books reflect a holistic, right brain/left brain view of the challenges faced by humanity; and how we might meet them. All our problems – including the mountain of debt that casts its shadow over the world’s wallowing economy – are soluble.

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – MA (15+)

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Beyond Neanderthal by Brian Bloom @BrianB_Aust

From Chapter 12 – Visit to a Blue Amber Mine

As Tara alighted from the vehicle, she found herself facing a ghostly white haze of wispy, low-lying clouds that hung as if suspended in time above the undulating hilltops. The peaks rose from the variegated emerald and olive valley below and stretched into the distance amid a virginal mixture of lush equatorial undergrowth. She drew a deep, involuntary breath.

‘Wow!’ There were no other words to describe the feeling of awe-inspired privilege that washed over her. The vista was about as far removed from Central Park as a New York city skyscraper was from the little pastel coloured huts lining the Carretera Turística.

Aurelio smiled. Intuitively, he seemed to understand that the most appropriate response to this magnificent sight was silence. It was a full two minutes before Tara gathered her thoughts.

‘Let’s get going,’ she said.

They made their way carefully—gingerly climbing over dead logs, negotiating their way around rocky outcrops, and grabbing onto available plant life to steady themselves as they walked and stumbled their way towards the valley below. On either side of the track, a mixture of tall, fronded plants grew in an array of shapes and sizes beside stunted and gnarled old trees with deep green foliage. Tara thought of the trees like friendly bystanders, their leafy branches protectively shading Aurelio and her from much of the glaring sunshine above. They came across a trickling stream, which they followed for a while; Tara ever mindful and vigilant, watching for any sign of wildlife in the undergrowth. Except for the background humming of insects, the occasional noisy squawking of a flock of parrots flying past overhead and, once, the silent imprint of a shoe sole on the muddy banks of the stream, they seemed to be alone.

Then, in a clearing, they came across a group of young men standing seemingly relaxed and chatting. A few feet away, under a lean-to made of branches and palm fronds, one of them squatted while cooking something on a small paraffin or gas stove. Aurelio and Tara had arrived at the mine.

Again, there was a short conversation in Spanish. Again, there was a wrinkling of noses followed by broad smiles of understanding and agreement. There were also some side comments and laughter amongst the men. The word ‘gringa’—foreigner from America—came up a couple of times. Tara thought she also heard the words ‘bonita’, and ‘sexual’, but she couldn’t be sure. She decided to keep a slight distance for the time being. They were in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest civilization.

Aurelio walked back towards her. ‘They will be happy to show you around, but we should remember our time limitations. We cannot spend more that half an hour here if we are to return to Santo Domingo before dark.’

‘Are you trying to protect me from these guys?’ she asked with a smile. Aurelio looked embarrassed.

‘What’s he cooking?’ she asked to change the subject. ‘It smells great.’

‘That is called arroz con abichuelas, a mixture of rice and beans. He is probably cooking some small pieces of beef with it, but it could be any meat.’

‘Can one buy that in a restaurant in Santo Domingo?’

‘Of course, but not exactly the same. This is a local dish for locals. To sell food like this to tourists would be like offering leftovers to your guests. It would not be right. In the restaurants it is much more carefully presented and is usually served with salads.’

The word ‘dignity’ popped into Tara’s mind. Aurelio seemed to have it, and that was what she had seen on the faces of the fruit vendor and the amber polisher and, now, even the miners as she approached them. Other than their initial jocularity, they seemed to consider her as their guest and themselves as hosts who happily welcomed visitors into their world. The men were just being men.

As they approached the entrance to the mine, a happy looking miner wearing a backward facing baseball cap sat with a short-handled pick in one hand, a lump of soft rock in the other.

‘Hola, señorita,’ he said, grinning broadly.

She smiled back at him, lifted her hand in greeting, but continued to follow Aurelio to the mine entrance. It was like standing at the entrance to the burrow of a large animal.

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – MA (15+)

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