26 Sept 2013

Lethal Ladies #8 - Commentary

Again, please read the chapter before continuing.

Last week's chapter is indeed the proper chapter 8.  The cat-and-mouse hunt is still going.  Rose is not taking being the mouse well.

If you look at a map of the area, there really isn't an alley.  Nor does it look like it'd be deserted at night.  Really, the apartments there look luxurious.  Granted, Google Maps shows 2013, not 1982.  Things could have changed.  However, the alleys should be the woods.  This really does highlight the need for proper research before using a location.  Ideally, I go there first and look and take photos for myself.  I should have placed the the chase in Drammen, Norway.  Or maybe Bergen, but neither of those cities have Russian embassies while Rome, the capital of Italy, does.  However, if I keep people involved in the story, no one is going to look for the locations I used until afterwards, ideally because they're in Rome at the time.

During the brief gunfight, notice that all that's being heard are the bullets.  I had meant to research the proper sound of a silenced pistol but never got to it when I wrote the scene.  The sound isn't the one heard in movies; the sound of the metal parts moving is still heard.  The Bourne Identity has a silenced pistol that sounds closer to reality; it also sounded wrong because of decades of movies using the pffft.  But the lack of a bang was deliberate, though it might have been too subtle.  Rose's wound and her reaction is mostly me working out the trajectory of the bullet as it grazes her leg.

Over at the Soviet embassy, Elena has the first moment that she's not in complete control and that it is possible for someone under her command to die.  The idea in the flashbacks is that both Elena and Rose are relatively new agents.  Elena is the analyst, searching for patterns, maintaining a large team.  Rose is the field agent, working either alone or in a small team.  Elena is playing chess at this point; she's trying to out-think Rose and cover the locations the American could go.

The last section is south of the start.  The area is far closer to what I wanted - light industrial.  Fewer people around because everything is closed, and more forboding walls, albeit in corrugated tin instead of brick.  Again, the streets in Rome were retrofitted to the story.  Next time, I work out the locations before writing a chase scene.  Makes it easier to figure out the dramatics.

Tomorrow, the end of the flashback.
Saturday, over at MuseHack, Doom.
Coming soon, more details about my NaNoWriMo project as I prepare to write.

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