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  • Cole Matthews

    Emotional Rescue

    By Cole Matthews

    Ahhhh!  The plot is thickening.  The characters have developed perfectly.  You have balanced your pace so there is riveting action, informative scene setting, and a richness to your tableau.  Everything seems to be going so well, and yet, your beta reader drops a bomb on you.  "It's just falling flat."   What are you supposed to do?  Where do you turn?  How can you enrich and round out your characters?  How about a little emotional rescue?  Let's try filling in the back story of y
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Busted chapter 43

[Note I'm using the 2005 moon tables, but the dates are needing fixing. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html. More notes at the end]   Steve sat watching Chris as he ate his lunch at his desk. He hadn't said anything when Joe had dropped Toby off, he hadn't said anything when Chris asked him for a lift to the gay bar he'd seem Joe and Alex at, and he hadn't said anything the whole morning as they both dug through a mountain of paperwork and research. He was finding it hard to keep
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Busted chapter 42

[i didn't know Joe was a mime, I swear!]   Chris woke up, feeling more rested than he had in months. For once his sleep had been undisturbed by the raw dreams that always heralded Alex's appearance, or the erotic dreams of his own that had been as bad in their own way. There wasn't any trace of the fatigue that Alex brought either.   His first alarm went off then. He hadn't been up before his alarm in a very long time. It was nice. He gave the pillow he'd grabbed one last hug, then rolled o
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Busted chapter 41

[Aren't mornings after great?]   Joe woke up to the sound of twittering birds and the morning sun shining on his face. There was something not quite right about that, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was early, well before coffee, and he wasn't thinking too clearly.   Alex had slept in, something that was unusual for him. Unless Joe was staying over his apartment, which he'd only done a few times, Alex was usually up first and off to work, doing whatever it was. Joe gave a sleepy smi
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Busted chapter 40

[in which we find out exactly why Chris' day was such a crap one. And the fact that Joe uses the same nickname for Toby as Chris does is entirely coincidental. Really]   The drive back to his house was long enough that the good feelings Chris gotten from the club had time to fade away. He was back to brooding again, and staring out the window without actually looking at anything.   Joe could tell he'd faded. Something was seriously bothering Chris, and it worried him. He'd hoped that time in
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Busted chapter 39

[Chris definitely needs to loosen up some. But, then, he's had a really bad day...]   Chris hadn't been paying much attention while Joe drove. He was too caught up in his own thoughts. It had been an exceptionally bad day, one he was trying to forget, though he couldn't. He'd thought maybe some target practice would have helped, but it hadn't, no matter how many times he imagined the target at the end was someone real. He'd actually been relieved when Joe had decided to drag him along somewher
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Busted chapter 38

[And it's the end of a very bad Tuesday, and the start of three parts of it getting better. I really need to go see what the gun laws in Connecticut are -- I'm not even sure if some of this is possible here.]   Thursday evening Joe was in the parking lot of the firing range when his cell phone rang. The call came through with no phone number attached. Joe smiled
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Busted chapter 37

[Apparently the B story will not be denied...]   Tuesday evening Joe tried to knock off work early. He was supposed to meet Steve at the firing range. It was his third time there and Steve was right
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Busted chapter 36

[since you can post comments to draft entries, I think I'm gonna leave my notes until the end for this one. I posted 35 and 36 together, since I've a backlog, and a bit faster than normal. If you missed it, here's 34, and here's 35]   The last place Joe thought he'd ever go back to was the Peddler's Pony. It was a dive, a run down neighborhood bar whose sole claim to fame was it was established before indoor plumbing was common. A hundred years later they still hadn't gotten around to putting
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Busted chapter 35

[isn't family swell?]   Joe had been staring at his phone for the better part of an hour. The Chinese food he'd ordered for lunch had gotten cold and congealed while he stared at it. He didn't care. He didn't have much of an appetite.   He shook his head. Putting it off wouldn't help any. It would make things worse, really. The later it got the more likely someone would be drunk. He didn't need to deal with that.   Sighing, Joe picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. He h
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Busted chapter 34

[The first of three parts for this particular monday in the story. I'm tempted to group them all together and title it 'Dodging the Bullet']   "So, had a fun weekend?" Steve was munching on the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin as he watched the steam rise off his coffee. At least he presumed it was steam. There was always the possibility that it was smoke from the Styrofoam being eaten away by the coffee.   "Don't even start," Chris growled. He still felt like hell. Toby hadn't made it a
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Busted chapter 33

[Joe almost used the word 'execrable'. Correctly, too. But oh, boy, that man's got a temper. Things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get, so since this isn't a tragedy that must mean it's all up-hill from here!]   Chris woke up with a headache so bad he wondered if he might be dead. Probably not, he decided after a few agonizing minutes. If he were dead it wouldn't hurt so bad.   He felt like crap. Besides the pain in his head, he was pretty sure something had crawled into his
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Busted chapter 32

[in which we find that the author can't quite manage to work in the phrase "something under the bed is drooling". Dammit.]   Chris' couch was damned uncomfortable. Joe had spent the better part of two hours trying to get to sleep on it, but he just couldn't. It was so old the lumps had lumps, and the ones that didn't had springs sticking through them. He had no idea how Chris had managed to lay on the thing, drunk or not.   Joe's anger had died down as the evening passed. He was still annoye
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Busted chapter 31

[A bit longer, this one. Only two more to go and we're done with this bit. Woo!]   Joe came downstairs, bare chested and shirt in hand, to see Steve guiding a barely conscious Chris out of the living room.   "C'mon, Chris," Steve was saying. "One foot in front of the other. You can do it."   Chris looked up and saw Joe. His face broke into a huge grin. "'M dreeeeming," he said. He turned to Steve. "y'din' tell me I was dreeeming." There was drunken accusation in his voice.   "Yeah, it's
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Busted chapter 30

[There's a reason Joe left home at 18, changed his name, and never looked back. A reason he doesn't drink, too, they're just different reasons. This one's the reason he's so mad at Chris...]   Joe was fuming as he carried Toby upstairs. He'd actually worried about Chris earlier. He snorted. Sick. He knew exactly what sort of sick Chris was.   Toby moved in his sleep and held on a little tighter to Joe. Joe's fury vanished for a moment as he gave Toby a little squeeze and a kiss on the top of
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Busted chapter 29

[it's weird, stopping at what's really just a scene breakpoint, but only occasionally. Still, it keeps me moving, which is good]   Joe was snoring softly when Steve nudged him awake. At some point, after a half dozen games of Candyland, he and Toby had managed to fall asleep. Joe was still sitting on the floor. Toby was curled up in his lap with Joe's arms wrapped around him.   "Hey, wake up," Steve said softy. "It's time to go to bed."   Joe looked up, entirely confused.   "Uh
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Busted chapter 28

[Apparently Toby really likes Joe. Didn't expect this particular twist. Gotta love characters that surprise. Poor Alex though, he's getting the short end of things with Joe]   Joe and Toby kicked the soccer ball around for an hour before they were interrupted by a clap of thunder from off in the distance. The promised storms were coming, and they were bringing lightning in their wake.   "Guess it's time to head inside, Toby," Joe said.   "'Kay, Uncle Joe."   Joe was glad for the excuse.
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Busted chapter 26

[i'm not sure if this bit's too revealing. I'm tempted to cut it, actually]   Saturday morning Chris woke up to the sounds of his third alarm. He'd had to dig his spare alarm clock out of the closet the past week. Chris had been having a hell of a time waking up ever since the divorce was final. Two or three days a week for the past month, he'd wake up feeling like he hadn't slept.   When his dreams had just been dreams it was bad enough, but now they were full-blown hallucinations. Or fanta
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Busted chapter 25

[i hadn't planned on writing this chapter either. And now I realize I need some chapters in the B storyline in the past. Argh!]   Joe always had the hardest time finding a parking spot at Alex's apartment complex. He didn't go there all that often
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Busted chapter 24

[i hadn't planned on writing this chapter. I was going to just skip to the next one. Well, okay, the one after that, since there's [i]another[/i] little chapter coming I can't skip. Best laid plans
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Busted chapter 18 and a half

[As I'm getting into this I'm realizing I need more work on the B storyline, which'd be the whole death thing. There should be a chapter before this one where Stephanie's family is found, and some of the boring really needs to get removed from this. So we're going back in time a little. Whee! This 'wednesday' is the day before Joe is in on the interview with Stephanie]   Wednesday morning Chris Gagnon was sitting at his desk digging through the medical examiner's preliminary report on the O'Ma
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Busted chapter 23

[i bet you thought I'd forgotten about poor Alex! I think I need some connecting material with Chris and Steve, though]   Friday afternoon Joe was still digging through the pile of evaluations on his desk. It was slow going, slower than normal. He'd been playing the events of the past week over in his mind. Everything was just so strange.   A week ago he was happy and things were simple. Maybe they weren't picture perfect, but he had a quiet life he liked and a boyfriend he loved, and that w
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