You ever have one of those dreams where you have to do something but something else keeps getting in the way? Maybe you’re running from a monster but you’re waist-deep in mud? Something like that happened to me last night. I hosted a party at a remote farm. The setting was perfect for a sorority party massacre a la bunches of bad ’70s slasher B-movies. As the last car was leaving, I called to the woman in the landrover, “Can I get a ride back to civilization?” She nodded but waved for me to hurry. That’s when it turned into a nightmare as the last-minute tasks were loaded up. If I didn’t finish locking up quick I would lose my ride.
As I recall, the list of scenarios was something like:
1. Check the barn for lit lanterns.
2. Check the house to make sure the water was turned off.
3. Solve the Mystery of the Old Mill with the Hardy Boys.
4. Confront a huge monster lurking in the cattle stalls.
5. Wash and dry the dishes and put them away.
6. Deal with a snake in the basement.
The tasks went on and on and, always in the background, the pressure built. I was going to lose my ride and be stuck on this Hell Farm of Eternal Night. The woman waiting in the landrover really amped up the tension and put a clock on the plot. It’s conflict and tension among believable characters that get the story engine chugging.
Anyway, all that nonsense got me thinking about the underlying themes and worries beneath the main action in my books. What’s the big fret our heroes and heroines have to deal with when other missions and side-missions are done?
Here’s my list:
1. This Plague of Days: How’s a mute kid on the spectrum going to save the world from a global pandemic of zombies?
2. AFTER Life: What’s a SWAT officer and a nanotech research scientist to do when they tap into the collective consciousness of a zombie uprising about to invade the United States?
3. Brooklyn in the Mean Time: How is such a flawed protagonist going to solve the mystery of his father’s criminal past?
4. Bigger Than Jesus: How does a hitman get out of the mob and overcome his past?
5. Higher Than Jesus: How does a hitman get past his addictions to save the girl?
6. Hollywood Jesus: Can a hitman go legit? How does he become a hero when everyone, including the FBI, is after him?
7. Wallflower: How does a failed comedian go back in time to save the world?
8. Haunting Lessons: Why is it that a young woman can see ghosts and what does a secret society of assassins have to do with it?
9. Death Lessons: The woman who sees ghosts must return to her home town find a secret weapon to deal with unearthly forces? What’s the weapon?
10. Fierce Lessons: How does a secret society of assassins deal with incursions from another dimension?
11. Dream’s Dark Flight: Why are people around the world dying in their sleep in bizarre ways? How can an NSA analyst, a doctor and a physiotherapist stop the killings from an isolation tank at Berkeley?
12. The Night Man: When a wounded warrior returns home searching for a life of peace, how can he untangle himself from dirty cops, bomb plots and the criminality of his own family?
13. Robot Planet: When the last few humans combat a robot uprising powered by the Next Intelligence, how can they win against such a powerful enemy?
14. All Empires Fall, Self-help for Stoners and Murders Among Dead Trees: How can a writer sell anthologies? Sure, there are several award-winning stories in the mix but literary anthologies aren’t huge sellers. (Self-help for Stoners is really kind of a novelty bathroom book that sells some paperbacks in the run-up to Christmas each year, so there’s that.)
15. Amid Mortal Words: If you had a book that could eliminate all the people who make the world a more dangerous place, would you? How many dead innocents would be acceptable to you?
~ I’m Robert Chazz Chute. In that dream I mentioned at the top? I missed my ride. Alas. I spend my waking hours writing apocalyptic epics, killer crime thrillers, and assorted science fiction and horror. Please click on the links to the right to pick up your next binge read. Cheers!
