Part three:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IydOHZwMj8vrvYwBVOT5rbNGXVPEDvj8YYL79btKRsY/pub
As part of my quest to create the perfect script, I actually got some of my actor friends to do a table read of the story with me. It turned out great! I completely screwed up the recording and couldn’t use a bit of it, but trust me, what it added to the story for me was marvelous.
I went into the table read hoping that they would reveal vast swathes of the story that didn’t work, so I could yank out a hundred pages and not feel bad. I left thinking that, ya know what? This story really DOES work! It’s both funny and creepy and occasionally desperately sad, and the fighting parts are fun and the running parts are fun. It manages to be a Conan the Barbarian story, a western and a meditation on the Civil War at the same time.
Anyway, mad thanks to Beau and C. C. and Marco and Hilary for helping me bring the story into the next level of incarnation and to figure out a really, really good way to convey the nuances of funny book drawing from one mind to another.