Monday, March 31, 2014

BRIAN DRAKE ON WRITING FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTIAN CHAMP

BRIAN DRAKE ON WRITING FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTIAN CHAMP

MINING THE STORY

When Paul invited me to contribute to Fight Card, it was a good day. He had said very nice things about my work prior to his invitation, and it felt like a nice payoff after almost 20 years of effort in the writing game. Of course I said yes, but then blind panic set in. I’m not a boxer. I know nothing about boxing other than what I’ve seen on television. I’ve only ever been in two fist fights (in junior high) that I suppose I won. Then I remembered something Harry Whittington (not the guy Dick Cheney shot, but the author of such amazing books as Fire That Destroy) once said – He said he was able to write any story in any genre because he understood people more than things.

With that in mind, I dipped into my personal and family history for the story. I struggled a lot growing up. I hated being young, couldn’t wait to be an adult, and the complications of that dichotomy fuel the book. 

My protagonist, Alex Slayton, is a young World War II vet trying to readjust to civilian life and dealing with some PTSD. He argues with his family and has few friends. He’s in his own world trying to find his own way and nobody’s helping.

Instead, they’re telling him what he should be doing with his life and not taking into account he’s his own man. They want to put him in a box with everybody else, but he knows he’s made for more.

That initial conflict gave me my characters, but what about the boxing content so important to this series? I may not know boxing, but I know martial arts, and how you can use the martial arts to discover your potential. So instead of kung-fu, Alex would learn how to box, and learn the same lessons my teachers taught me. 

With those bases covered, I needed a greater conflict to complicate Alex’s life even more. 

My family is from Butte, Montana, which is famous for copper mining. Three generations of my family worked the mines to dig up the copper, and my grandfather and great-grandfather were the ones who dealt with the early struggles to unionize the miners. 

Those struggles often got bloody. You didn’t go to a meeting without a baseball bat or brass knuckles (or a pistol if you could afford one) because there was always the possibility of a fight with company union busters. 

Dashiell Hammett, who wrote Red Harvest based on his time in Butte as a strike breaker, chronicled the insanity of those days very well, though the things he left out were even more insane and – I suspect – he left them out because nobody would have believed him. 

So, I had my characters and my secondary conflict, but with so little space to work with (25,000 words is not a lot), I had to find a way to compress 60 years of union battles into very few words.

The Butte in my story is not the Butte my family knew. However, there are obvious parallels and I used a lot of family history in coloring the town and characters.  In fact, one character and one location is specifically named for my grandfathers. Still, there is a real-life example of everything taking place in the story. 

Those battles happened. 

A lot of guys died and many more were injured.  However, while my story takes place over two weeks, those real-life events happened over a much greater period of time.

So, Alex, a miner trying to save enough money to move himself and his girlfriend out of town, must deal with union problems, a company out to put the effort down by any means necessary, his family, and his own struggle to find himself. 

There’s boxing woven throughout, and it’s in the boxing ring where Alex will have to save himself, his future, and the town.  It all comes together in a package of which I’m very proud.

It wasn’t easy to write. I had to fight the words instead of having them flow. I felt I was in the ring against the toughest bruiser I had ever faced. I wanted to go down for the long count in every round. 

This story was so different from my usual action/adventure fare, I didn’t think I could finish. However, Paul took a chance on me and I didn’t want to let him down, so I pressed on. I had become the fighter in the ring I was writing about…Alex had become me… and I wanted the victory.

Copper Mountain Champ helped me grow as a writer.  I learn a lot about finishing what I write – I learned to keep punching.  I am renewed as I return to writing my usual fare of blondes, bombs, and wannabe-Bonds – where things get blowed up real good and the baddies are trying to take over the world. 

It’s much easier writing about heroes and villains than about yourself.

FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP

BRIAN DRAKE WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY

ANOTHER TWO-FISTED FIGHT CARD STORY

Butte, Montana. 1951…Back from the horror of World War II, Alex Slayton started working the copper mines of his hometown, but it’s hardly the life he intends for himself...or his girlfriend, Liz. However, when long festering problems at the mine force a union strike, Alex finds himself up against the mining company’s notoriously tight-fisted owner – a man who believes in violence as a first resort.  

Based on his raw fighting talent, Alex learned the sweet science from his mentor and fellow miner, Pete Kovich – hoping boxing would get him out from underground and on to a sunny future.  Now, caught in a web of town intrigue, violence, and sudden death, Alex is forced to face the mine owner’s son, a top boxing prospect, in the ring.  Alex knows he’s not ready, but the only way out is to fight – not just for himself, but for the whole town…


 


Thursday, March 13, 2014

COMING SOON ~ FIGHT CARD COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP

COMING SOON ~ FIGHT CARD COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP

BRIAN DRAKE WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY

ANOTHER TWO-FISTED FIGHT CARD STORY

Back from the horror of World War II, Alex Slayton started working the copper mines of his hometown, but it’s hardly the life he intends for himself...or his girlfriend, Liz. However, when long festering problems at the mine force a union strike, Alex finds himself up against the mining company’s notoriously tight-fisted owner – a man who believes in violence as a first resort. 

Based on his raw fighting talent, Alex learned the sweet science from his mentor and fellow miner, Pete Kovich – hoping boxing would get him out from underground and on to a sunny future.  Now, caught in a web of town intrigue, violence, and sudden death, Alex is forced to face the mine owner’s son, a top boxing prospect, in the ring.  Alex knows he’s not ready, but the only way out is to fight – not just for himself, but for the whole town…

Sunday, March 2, 2014

FIGHT CARD UPDATE MARCH 2014

FIGHT CARD UPDATE MARCH 2014

Greetings,

Our latest Fight Card novel, Rise of the Luchador, with Jadon Ridler writing as Jack Tunney, has just gone live with a brilliant painted cover by Carl Yonder.

Like last month’s Fist of Africa, Rise of the Luchador takes Fight Cards readers into a new and different culture.  This time it’s the world of the luchadors – Mexican masked wrestlers. These individuals who put on the mask of the luchador have become cult heroes in Mexico and continue to inspire fans today.  Rise of the Luchador eloquently captures the mystique of these masked heroes and provides an electrifying look at the world of Lucha Libre.

FIGHT CARD: RISE OF THE LUCHADOR

San Diego 2014 … Carlos may be the deadliest vale tudo street fighter in Brazil, but he’s no match for the drug lord on his tail. Haunted by the death of his best friend and on the run from a Mexican hit squad, Carlos is forced into hiding with a traveling carnival crawling its way from San Diego to LA.  Within this world of freaks and con-men, Carlos has no choice but to become the one thing he hates – a masked luchador wrestler.

However, once he has donned the mask, Carlos finds there is much more to being a luchador than fake wrestling moves and cheesy showmanship. There is a mystique and a responsibility carried by those who become true luchadors.  But will being a fake hero, no matter how inspired or mystical, save him from the drug lord’s henchmen…Can it erase his tortured past…Or will he be forced to once again become the killing machine he has always been?

Rise of the Luchador is the next installment of the acclaimed Fight Card Series.

As many of you know, our crop of 2014 Fight Card tales garnered a slew of nominations for the 2014 New Pulp Awards.  Congratulations to Carol Malone (Fight Card Romance: Ladies Night), Terrance McCauley (Fight Card: Against the Ropes), Derrick Ferguson (Fight Card: Brooklyn Beatdown), Anthony Venutolo (Fight Card: Front Page Palooka), and Andrew Salmon (Fight Card: Sherlock Holmes) all nominated in the category Best Novella, Carl Yonder for Best Cover Art (Fight Card: Sherlock Holmes), and Anthony Venutolo again for his nomination as Best New Writer (Fight Card: Front Page Palooka) and for creating Best New Pulp Character (Nick Moretti, Fight Card: Front Page Palooka).  Fight Card author Bobby Nash was also nominated for one of his non-Fight Card works in the Best Short Story category.  Again, congratulations to all.

Coming up in 2014 Fight Card: Copper Town Champ (Brian Drake), Fight Card: Monster Man (Jason Chirevas), Fight Card: Guns of November (Joseph Grant), Fight Card: Bridgeport Brawler (David White), Fight Card: The Adventures of Tom Sharkey (Mark Finn), and more …

I have two exciting pieces of promotional news, both of which could help Fight Card reach a successful tipping point, which I will reveal in our next update.

Until then … Keep punching …
 

FIGHT CARD AND THE WORLD OF LUCHA LIBRE

FIGHT CARD AND THE WORLD OF LUCHA LIBRE

JASON RIDLER

When most people think pro wrestling, they think America. Hulk Hogan. Stone Cold Steve Austin. The Rock.

But there is great wrestling from around the world…Japan, Canada, Germany, and many other countries…Each with its own unique style and fans. Among these unique forms, none is more dramatic and insane then that of the world of Lucha Libre in Mexico. Growing up in the Great White North, I didn’t catch too much of this world. Like most of my American peers, my TV was dominated with American and Canadian wrestlers. However, down Mexico way there was a secret world of masked wrestlers -- and they were heroes!

North of the border, masked men were almost always villains – hiding their identity.  Many were out of shape, has-been grapplers who needed a paycheck – yeah, I’m looking at you, Spoiler II. However, in the world of Mexican Lucha Libre wrestling, masked men were (and continue to be) the stars who crush the no-mask rudo villains into the mat.  They use high flying moves and ring gymnastics, which defied physics, and many believe (truly believe) these heroes have been granted magic powers.

Luchadors like Santo and Blue Demon were modern folk legends, with piles of great B-movies where they fight gangsters, monsters, and communists. I originally read about them in smelly newsprint magazines with glossy covers, wishing I could see these titans from Mexico on the screen.

Rise of the Luchador is my attempt to make an old wish come true, the wish of a kid who only got to see the descendants of great luchadors in America. I’m best known for writing novels with wrestlers in them (Death Match) or street fighters (Blood and Sawdust), but I really wanted to write about the tension between these two worlds of shoots (real fights) and works (scripted bouts).

Real combat arts are about predation, survival, and dominance. They are practiced by those who want to see who is best at crippling the other guy. Wrestling is the reverse. It went from being a combat art, to a con-game, and then to an art form – telling stories with pretend violence that relies on massive amounts of cooperation.

I could think of no bigger pressure cooker to put our street-fighting hero Carlos in than a wrestling ring. The result is pure dynamite. Hope you enjoy my addition to the Fight Card saga – Rise of the Luchador!

 

NOW AVAILABLE ~ FIGHT CARD: RISE OF THE LUCHADOR!

NOW AVAILABLE ~ FIGHT CARD: RISE OF THE LUCHADOR!

San Diego 2014 … Carlos may be the deadliest vale tudo street fighter in Brazil, but he’s no match for the drug lord on his tail. Haunted by the death of his best friend and on the run from a Mexican hit squad, Carlos is forced into hiding with a traveling carnival crawling its way from San Diego to LA.  Within this world of freaks and con-men, Carlos has no choice but to become the one thing he hates – a masked luchador wrestler.

However, once he has donned the mask, Carlos finds there is much more to being a luchador than fake wrestling moves and cheesy showmanship. There is a mystique and a responsibility carried by those who become true luchadors.  But will being a fake hero, no matter how inspired or mystical, save him from the drug lord’s henchmen…Can it erase his tortured past…Or will he be forced to once again become the killing machine he has always been?

Rise of the Luchador is the next installment of the acclaimed Fight Card series ...