Why this chapter now, and why no chapter number?
The placement of this chapter isn’t known yet.  As the chapters develop I am sure it will become clear to me when this information finds its place in the novel.  I provide it to you so you understand some essential motivations for Richard’s actions.  If you have thoughts on when this should pop up as we write, I would love to hear your thoughts.

The reason for this chapter
One of the biggest differences between a screenplay and a novel is that with screenplays you simply have to let the audience do a lot of the mental work for the characters.  The viewer gets to assume motivations from their own past or other experiences.  There just isn’t enough time in a script to tell the back-stories in any significant ways.  After finishing the screenplay for “Intervention”, I was left with the feeling that Richard’s motivation for falling so hard for Jane needed to be explained.  Generally, with a script, an explanation is a matter of a few lines spoken in a scene and the associated skills of the actor.  The actor, well, acts, the lines come and we hope that the viewer would fill in the blanks.  

I have read more than my share of “how to books” and one of the things I had apparently given short shrift to was the never-ending advice about the heart line of the story.  Now there are lots of terms for this story attribute but I like heart line so I am sticking with that.

“Intervention”, as a movie is a bit of a suspenseful visual romp where the real question is, how bad can it get for our hero and will Richard/Dick survive and if so how.  The second question I usually get from readers in the middle of the script is, “How are you going to kill that bitch?”

But a novel, that is an entirely different well… for lack of a better word, story.  A novel has to have some of the flash sure, but more, it has to have a through line with heart; something to give those who live in the words and their own minds a reason to turn the page that is something more than flashy sentences.  

Originally, in thinking about the start of the novel, I kept focused on how to reproduce the great set pieces I so much liked in the movie script.  

Unfortunately, I found I lacked the back-story that would give explanation to Richard’s actions.  In putting some back-story together I found out something ironic about the character of Richard, he isn’t the most active, interesting or fun character as the story is told in the movie, at least not until the very end.  But now, through circumstance and events, I needed to tell the story. He is now, by far, the most compelling person, and it really has become more effectively his story.  Everyone else services that story and this will be a much better book for it.

So what is the heart line here?

Richard is a man who has a weakness for and belief in love; core traits that translate into his spirit not being balanced when he meets his first love.  Richard learns that true love is rare and is often a bitch.  The love of his life nearly mortally wounds his heart and so, for Jane, he is easy pickings.  Like a predator, she chases him down and wears him out until he can be killed.  He is a man who needs to learn what love is, even as he remains addicted to at least the hope for love.

Richard is a good man forced into an impossible situation; having started down a bad path by having his heart broken, life just keeps kicking his ass, and he ends up in a place where all his options are taken and his must decide to destroy his wife or spend his life in prison at her hand.  Ironically, Richard redeems himself through having enough hope to fight back and even leaving the door open for a future with Alex.

In his character arc he learns to value himself enough to be his best person and his daughter enough to be a stronger better man after all of the fire.  Love was his weakness, love is his strength, all of the rest is, the rest of the story.

So, here you have it.  Richard is blinded by love, but not in the way you would imagine.  He is a man fundamentally fractured by love when he meets Jane.  His has a void so vast and central to his spirit that he overlooks the danger signs everyone, even his best friend, see.  He found love before Jane and now he is chasing that thing as hard as he can without watching his steps.  That is where he trips.

Read Richard’s Chapter (to be posted tomorrow) and let me know what you think.