How They Scored

More thinking about characters. Name Characteristic Comments Doc / Don The smart scientist type; possible father figure; PhD, software millionaire, owns the cabin He might talk about something that’s happened there at the cabin. Maybe in the past he brought up strippers. As a smart scientist type, he wants to break loose, but observes -- has trouble joining in, maybe. Happy / Harry A happy man; he has enough in life, but during the events here, he is tempted! This is the one most likely to be in a suburban setting, and why not. A little reminiscent of John Updike, complete with the anal sex. Grumpy / Greg Type-A personality; that guy at the sushi bar in Las Vegas. This guy’s story has to be about a prostitute, someone he hired. Perhaps he has a customer service issue with her. Or maybe something to do with the mob in Vegas. Sleepy / Shaun Under-achiever, slacker; in a way, also a hedonist; in the morning he meditates, but as the day wears on he becomes more hedonistic. Each night he e...

Thinking about characters. Greg doesn’t like Shawn and Dusty because they are his opposites, but Shawn and Dusty are distinguishable. Shawn is the slacker, easy-going type; Dusty is neurotic, possibly a little obsessive-compulsive. Seth and Dusty are both neurotic, but Dusty is more anxious and obsessive-compulsive, while Seth is more of an introvert. However, Seth is not as introverted as Bart. Bart is a network nerd. He, also, is wealthy, because he worked for Netscape and then for Google. But he does not have an ostentatiously wealthy lifestyle like Don. Don is more a scientist than a business success -- he is a Silicon Valley millionaire, not the (acquantance 1) type but the sort-of smooth type. He's a CTO but has managed to smooth himself out -- a little like Ford or that guy who was the head of inet. Greg is more the classic type-A business type, but he’s not as successful as Don or even as wealthy as Bart. He is a very minor real estate developer -- he redevelops strip mall...

I'm going to need to start thinking about distinctive characters. Suppose each character embodied a particular characteristic, based on a standard set -- for example, the seven deadly sins. I wouldn't have to go so far as to name the characters or the chapters after these -- although, on second thought, it might be kind of funny to play with the characters’ names like that. Another idea: What if there was one woman on the scene? She should be: not associated with any of the men particularly. What if, for example, she was the cook, someone who works locally -- a local woman, perhaps -- since she lives out in the boonies there -- one of those appealing young earth mother hippie types, the kind you would see at Holden? Hmm... that type has her advantages and disadvantages. Another alternative would be to make her have another language as her first language, so that the men feel more comfortable talking with each other when she’s in the room... No, I don't like that idea so muc...

F.N. from ____ Press called with a brainstorm. She said she had received a manuscript from an agent that was of really low quality -- a scenario in which two housewives got together to exchange erotic stories -- and that, while rejecting it, she came up with an idea of her own for an erotic novel she thought I would be perfect to write. She adapted the idea to a group of men. They’re together for some reason -- golf match or something -- and share tales, probably inflated, of their sexual exploits. It would have an episodic structure with each of the men getting his own chapter. She asked me if I were interested, and I sort of am. I immediately started thinking of ways it might work, and I said I would write something up and submit it to her in a sort of proposal format -- a few pages long -- and then discuss it with her when I returned to town after the 22nd. Some of the ideas I had: the main setting has to be a situation in which a group of men are together for some believable reason...