Jaded...

Okay, I think I have all the editing detail work done on APoS-Derry, now, so tomorrow I'm doing one last proofing. Gonna try and find whatever additional typos that might be in the text. Once that is done, I may dig into the Houston part of the story and do another draft on that before letting go of Book One.

My main goal will be to make certain Brendan's memories match what's in the Derry section of the book, and I don't want to be done with it till I'm sure. There may still be adjustments to be made to have them flow into the Houston section, and I want that part settles before I plow into Houston, completely.

The last section -- Return -- is set nearly 8 years after he leaves Derry, so he won't be remembering things perfectly...and yet, he will. But a lot of redevelopment will have been done in the city, with streets rearranged and the town deeply shattered. It'll be like a whole new city, even though it isn't.

So I stepped back, this evening, and watched an episode of Kenneth Branagh's Wallender. I'd seen a few and grown weary of the brutal emphasis on the lead character's suffering and meaning and on and on, and this one just reminded me of why I stopped watching. It was a 60 page script expanded into 90 minutes by lots of long takes of Kenneth emoting.

It also had some stupid moments in it. Like a burly man knocked out by chloroform in moments (it takes a lot longer). And a man bound and kept in a room for three weeks, in his undies, in a seated position on the floor, blindfolded but in a way that would have let him remove the blindfold with his bound hands, which he doesn't do, yet still being strong enough for the killer to force-march into the woods. His legs' muscles would have weakened too much.

But what really struck me most was how its whole visual style was almost exactly like Shetland and Hinterland and Vera and other UK detective shows I've see. So much so, it would be hard to tell them apart if you didn't know the actors. The scripts are the same bent, too. Dark and meaningful, and sexless.

Funny...but the best and most sensuous relationship in all of them is in Shetland, between Malcolm (a bit of a player in money and people) and Jimmy (the police DI who oozes integrity). They share custody of a daughter, since her mother is dead. (First married to Malcolm, who's father; then to Jimmy, who's dad). If the producers had been brave, they'd have made them a couple. The chemistry was there, just not the nerve.

Typical.