Outline: Wrong Side of the Tracks

Wrong Side of the Tracks

When It comes to outlines I often tell my students about The Chicken or the Egg. That is what comes first the outline or the storyline? I have read authors who claim to do it both ways. Remember in grammar school the teacher requiring you to write an outline first. My recollection of the experience was that my brain clutched. I was completely unable to write an outline about something I knew nothing about. So for me the story had to come first and to get to the story I have always written vignettes. From the vignettes the characters are birthed, the story world developed and the story line begins to suggest itself. In teaching my class The Exploratory Writing Workshop at New Horizons Academy at WDC I require the writing of six vignettes, a simple outline and then a Comprehensive outline.

There is nothing magical about the number six. In the current class I'm taking at HSP, Romantica the story line for the novel emerged after only four vignettes. In the process of writing the class requirements (Romance/Sensual Prose.) I made frequent forays into other backstory vignettes and finally into writing the outline. The Outline is a living, breathing document that contains all manner of useful stuff. When I was writing this one a thread came to me of a character who is Alonso's Cartel contact. I don't know at this point if it is a useful direction but I didn't want to lose it.

Anyway as my muse shares thoughts and ideas I do my level best to capture and organize them into some sort of coherent outline that I can later work using my faculties of reason. It provides the bite sized (vignette sized) chunks a writer can easily develop without being overwhelmed by the complexities of a novel that nobody I know can juggle and still come out with events and chapters that lead down the road to conclusion

At this point I have to mention my muse. My view on muses is different from conventional wisdom that speculates that the ideas we write about germinate in our minds. My view is that we are tied to a greater corporate reality and our muse is like a modem link to that reality. In other words we don't dredge up what we write from the bowels of our subconscious but rather grab onto the skirt of our muse who takes us into an external world. Rather than thinking it all up ourselves we dial into a whole new dimension. What happens as I write the vignettes is that I get a fire hose of ideas that might appear unrelated at first but will soon congeal. The challenge is to write madly capturing each thread as my muse delivers it onto the video screen of my imagination. If I don't get it down it all too soon disappears into the ether of lost thoughts and is forgotten. It is like waking up from a dream, which at first is so vivid and trying to remember it an hour later when it is all but lost to recollection.




Prologue: Captain Grey and Agent Calhoun; Agent Calhoun returns Louisa to Captain Grey. She has been instrumental in bringing down Organized Crime families in New York City.

Chapter 1: The Convenience Store shootout

Chapter 2: Carmelita’s Room

Chapter: 3 Flashback on New York City… Louisa and her sister Lupita. Includes episode of Drug Cartel lockdown and internal investigation.

Chapter 4: (Lesson 1 part 1) Louisa gets caught in the kitchen. Spat with Lt Simmons.

Chapter 5: Flashback on the trial and Lupita put in Witness protection Program.

Chapter 6: Captain Grey and Lieutenant Simmons.

Chapter 7: (Lesson 1 part 2) Dinner at the Supper Club.

Chapter 8: Louisa and Captain Grey.

Chapter9: (Lesson 2) The Amusement Park

Chapter 10: Louisa and Lt Simmons.

Chapter 11: (Lesson 3) Alonso at Louisa’s apartment.

Chapter 12: The intruder

Chapter: 13 Chase:

Chapter: 14 Louisa and Lt Simmons. Tells him she knows how to get the information he asked for. If its not there in the house she will soon be working an Internship at the Agency

Chapter 15: Alonso and Roaul have a heart to heart and outline possibilities. In this chapter Alonso and Roaul discuss the possibilities of what is going on.

Chapter 16: (Lesson 4)The Surveillance Room. Louisa checks out the house. Finds the Surveillance Room (Safe Room), then Carmelita’s room. Thinks Alonso is a psychopath. He wants to show her a “ROOM” which she thinks is the torture room, only to be led upstairs. In the bedroom Alonso tries to seduce her. After another setback he shows her the Surveillance Room which she is already familiar with. Here Louisa discovers the torture room was where Carmelita took her submissives.

Chapter: 17: Internal Investigation, Cartel Style: The next morning a van with Roaul pulls into the driveway. A cartel team gets out and Roaul knocks on the door. Alonso lets them in. Mrs. Fortuna and Louisa shows up for work. The team brings in electronics gear, a polygraph and a galvanized tub. The four (Alonso, Mrs. Fortuna, Louisa and Rochelle) are interrogated, to determine if they have been compromised. Alonso promises to make it up to Rochelle.

Chapter 18 (Lesson 5) Rochelle’s Party: Rochelle has her school friends over for dinner, dancing and the girls to stay over for a pajama party. Louisa and Alonso act as chaperons. Alonso and Louisa go down to Carmelita’s room to get away.

Chapter 19: Heart to heart with Roaul. Roaul announces that Alonso has been selected to run the National distribution Operation for the Cartel. Roaul brings Alonso up to date with his findings. It wasn’t the holy spirit

Chapter 20: Hostile Take over. Louisa saves Alonso. Escape through adjacent townhouse….into tunnel that opens in garage of abandoned filling station.

Chapter 21: (Lesson 6) Roaul’s lair: An offer you can’t refuse. Louisa and Alonso consummate their love for each other. This is the second time we have let you down amigo… We had to let it play out the way it did….sorry. Shot your way out, I’m amazed, never thought you had it in you. If I accept….If you accept? I want Louisa, along for the ride like Carmelita was.

You don’t drive a very hard bargain…. Well, let me think… Didn’t I just update her security clearance? Seems like I did so why would I object to such a simple request…. Oh, I get it. It’s my blessing you want. Of course it is Stand up both of you and join hands.

Do you PH take this skanky broad to be your live in whore? ….(Personally I think you could do a whole lot better. Her hair is scraggly, her t…s all but invisible, standing there with the ass of a third grade dolescent boy. Is there some hidden quality I’m missing?) To fondle and f… whenever that clutch gets the itch and those nasty fingers lift her skirt?

I do.

And do you c…, take this CS for your master? (Sweet J….s, he’s old enough to be your father and another ten years won’t even be able to get it up. Personally I think you could do a whole lot better.) To cook his meals, suck his d…, or anything else he asks your worthless ass to perform?

I will.

Then by the power vested in me as El Guapo, Steward of the Inner City, Adjudicator of Life and Death, I pronounce you joined in the most unholy of matrimony,

Let us Pray. I swear by the thermonuclear heat of the Big Bang that gave matter and light to the universe and the chilling darkness of absolute zero, that waited with open arms… that if either one of you miserable FUs ever rat me out, hell won’t be too deep or hot enough to hide you.

It’s appropriate dear friend, at this tender moment, to kiss the B…..

Epilogue: Captain Grey and Agent Calhoun.



Discussing the plot with Linda

I was talking with Linda today about the plot and as always she was full of insights.

One of the questions still unanswered in my mind was when does Alonso realize that Louisa is an undercover cop?

When he catches her in the Kitchen?

When she keeps putting him off? (I.e. an undercover policewoman having sex with a target opens a can of worms for the prosecution of a case.)

When he sees the fear as he takes her to the “room?”

When she blasts her way to the rescue during the Cartel takeover attempt?

The corollary is when does Louisa realize that Alonso is a deep mole for the FBI?

The answer provided by Linda is when during the internal review, cartel style, when he pops the chewing gum into his mouth prior to taking the polygraph test.

This is the same thing Louisa is getting ready to do and sees the slight of hand as having FBI school written all over it.

So with that resolved it is now possible to move on with the story.

The next question that pops up is that after the rescue by Louisa, how do they get out of the house as the police are coming up the drive.

I was considering a convenient back door tunnel but Linda said that sounded a bit too contrived. Why not have the thermite explosive device take out the main fuse panel as it melts down the computer. With no light in the house Alonso, Rochelle and Louisa go back upstairs and hide in the surveillance room. As the police search about they overlook in the dark the hidden Safe Room. (The safe room operates on generator power) Then in the wee hours they slip out through a window after the police have posted guards to protect the crime scene and plan to return in the morning. (Who they see on the monitors) They get clear of the building on foot. Alonso gives Rochelle a hundred K in a suitcase, tells her to go visit her Aunt Cecilia and calls her a cab. Then he calls Rouel who picks the two up and takes them to one of his safe houses.

In the safe house they consummate their relationship, and are married by Rouel who has one of those mail order minister degrees.

The only problem I can see with this scenario is that Louisa has held back the location of the Safe Room from her bosses. She has reported the location of Carmelita’s room but not the location of the Safe Room. I will have to give this some more thought. (Since Louisa suspects at this point that Alonso is an FBI mole, she decides to not report the Safe Room thinking he or Rochelle might need to use it. Plus she suspects that someone in the Police Department is leaking information to the cartel. How does she know this? Because Raoul keeps popping up at the right time with such a consistence she can no longer attribute it to chance.)