Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Thursday, December 15, 2022

APoS - Book 2 - Houston

I've started building the outline for Houston from the second draft, while going through it and updating bits in it that reference back to Book One. For example, in Book Two Brendan has a memory of taking Joanna to Wee Johnny's for a lemonade but he never does that in Book One. There'd be too much chance someone he knows would see them there and word get around that he's dating a Protestant girl.

Of course, word does get around, eventually, but he's covered by no one knowing for sure what religion she is until Danny mentions some IRA guys recognized her mother as being the wife of a Protestant paramilitary group leader. Then Colm tells him to end it or else, convincing Brendan he has to leave Derry to protect Joanna.

I've gone through the first two chapters. I'm not rushing this, but I'm also not doing a real rewrite of the story. Just making sure I have the info right. Plus, those two chapters are more about him coming out of a psychotic break and back into the world than any sort of story really happening. He's still going to be dealing with PTSD, which wasn't called that, back then. It was just battle fatigue and applied only to soldiers in a war, like Viet Nam.

Houston was really starting to explode in the early 70s. The city's size is already overwhelming, as is its wealth. The city was working up a master plan for the downtown area that included developers and corporations and politicians all on the same side. Which actually worked; a lot of the skyscrapers downtown actually fit together nicely, unlike Dallas' downtown. His uncle is a successful owner of a couple bars and about to buy another one. His aunt's family is in River Oaks, the rich area. But Houston is still very small town in attitude, as is revealed as the story goes along.

Something this outline will help me do is work out where to add sections I want in the story. Like when Brendan and a couple friends go to Austin to hear a punk rock band from San Antonio play at a bar called Raul's. It's needed because it factors into a moment in Book Three, when Brendan returns to Derry.

Trying to think ahead as well as behind.

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