I tried using reedsy to write this book.
editor.reedsy.com
Writing Prompt: Wanted: You're The One.
- Thread starter Retroman
- Start date
Retroman
(Your local Retroman since 2021)
So I tried using Reedsy while writing my Hitchcockian-James-Bond-Gerry-Anderson-Shirow premise. I only wrote the prologue and introduction, 'cause I have my test week today and I want to put it on a temporary halt. And I would like to have feedback from you all. I hope this file works to be opened. Have a nice day and thank you for your understanding.
Last edited:
Retroman
(Your local Retroman since 2021)
Here is the prologue of the story, I also make use of ChatGPT's help to redefine and fix the story into readable and clear version.
First version:
PROLOGUE
22nd of June, New York City, 20:15 PM.
During the times of turmoil, people may live peacefully. But the underworld does not allow that to exist, it doesn’t allow people to enjoy true peace and mundanity.
We now find ourselves in an unusual and dark space. We see an ashtray on a wooden table made of oak tree, it’s white clean and shiny. When a left hand in black sleeve holding a burned cigar extends itself to reach it to remove the long burned rudimentary tobacco on it. Then, as we move a little bit backwards this space reveals itself as an actual a penthouse. The penthouse looks futuristic, blending mid-century with a cyber twist. A smoke came from an egg-shaped seat, until a dark figure rises to walk to the window to see the shiny skyline with a dark mind in his head. This is Leopold Conrad Mason, a vice president serving and aiding the president of the United States of America. However, he’s dark, twisted, angry, vengeful and hateful.
The terrorism and substance abuse in the country keeps rising, the government and the president have to find ways to stop the predicament. And the president established a prohibition on drugs, alcohols, and firearms to its citizens, except for law enforcements and soldiers the prohibition on firearms is not prohibited. It made criminals furious, arms companies have to sign an agreement to the US government to stop their sells on guns to ordinary people and in which they have to pay higher taxes as they also serve for the protection of their country, the president has increased the age for alcohol consumption to 28 years old, drug manufacturers have been banned, preventing people from acquiring recreational drugs as means of relaxation or pleasure, now they are only administered for medicinal use and to be handled by the CDC.
As consequence this policy has caused criminals, kingpins, mobsters, drug lords to run amok. Cultivating more and more illegal recreational drugs, producing illegal alcoholics and trafficking armaments to prepare themselves for rebelling against the US government. The entire country is almost at the brink of collapse due to terrorism, and illegal hoarding and manufacturing of those products. One cosa-nostra organisation who swears to cause an uprising against the government and replace the national order with their iron fist dubbed themselves as The Stingrays’ Den, led by an AWOL US Marine Corps general named Arnold “Cobra” Knight. He organised the terrorisms, heists, murders, municipal damages and destructions, rampant drug and alcohol abuse. He also has collaborated with underworld people to join his cause on establishing a new national order.
‘This country is falling apart, the president is aloof, unorganized, screwed, and greedy. His prohibition only worsens the problem we’re in...’. Leopold mutters to himself. He decides to walk to the table of his living room, grabbing a newspaper with the heading: THE STINGRAYS’ DEN, PUBLIC ENEMY NO.1? As he looked and read the newspaper again from the first paragraph, reading the veritable leader of the syndicate named Arnold Baron Knight, it gives him a new idea, what if he could work together with them by persuading Arnold Knight that he will be helping his cause for a new national order, and also to make The Stingrays’ Den victorious to killing the president and rule the entire country. Or maybe, the world?
“I want to change the United States, and I will do so, the president will be no more, it will be the two of us who will rule the country, with our own way and our own favour. I promise I will return the stolen freedom that they had. These people have been repressed by the president, we can’t allow this repression to continue any longer. With the Stingrays’ Den in my and Arnold’s hands we will be greater and superior then those corrupt politicians, the president and the government agencies, and intelligence agencies will be ours to control too.”
And there Leopold oaths with a paranoid sense of mind, that he will be unstoppable, with his planned alliance that he will soon forge with Arnold Knight.
First version:
PROLOGUE
22nd of June, New York City, 20:15 PM.
During the times of turmoil, people may live peacefully. But the underworld does not allow that to exist, it doesn’t allow people to enjoy true peace and mundanity.
We now find ourselves in an unusual and dark space. We see an ashtray on a wooden table made of oak tree, it’s white clean and shiny. When a left hand in black sleeve holding a burned cigar extends itself to reach it to remove the long burned rudimentary tobacco on it. Then, as we move a little bit backwards this space reveals itself as an actual a penthouse. The penthouse looks futuristic, blending mid-century with a cyber twist. A smoke came from an egg-shaped seat, until a dark figure rises to walk to the window to see the shiny skyline with a dark mind in his head. This is Leopold Conrad Mason, a vice president serving and aiding the president of the United States of America. However, he’s dark, twisted, angry, vengeful and hateful.
The terrorism and substance abuse in the country keeps rising, the government and the president have to find ways to stop the predicament. And the president established a prohibition on drugs, alcohols, and firearms to its citizens, except for law enforcements and soldiers the prohibition on firearms is not prohibited. It made criminals furious, arms companies have to sign an agreement to the US government to stop their sells on guns to ordinary people and in which they have to pay higher taxes as they also serve for the protection of their country, the president has increased the age for alcohol consumption to 28 years old, drug manufacturers have been banned, preventing people from acquiring recreational drugs as means of relaxation or pleasure, now they are only administered for medicinal use and to be handled by the CDC.
As consequence this policy has caused criminals, kingpins, mobsters, drug lords to run amok. Cultivating more and more illegal recreational drugs, producing illegal alcoholics and trafficking armaments to prepare themselves for rebelling against the US government. The entire country is almost at the brink of collapse due to terrorism, and illegal hoarding and manufacturing of those products. One cosa-nostra organisation who swears to cause an uprising against the government and replace the national order with their iron fist dubbed themselves as The Stingrays’ Den, led by an AWOL US Marine Corps general named Arnold “Cobra” Knight. He organised the terrorisms, heists, murders, municipal damages and destructions, rampant drug and alcohol abuse. He also has collaborated with underworld people to join his cause on establishing a new national order.
‘This country is falling apart, the president is aloof, unorganized, screwed, and greedy. His prohibition only worsens the problem we’re in...’. Leopold mutters to himself. He decides to walk to the table of his living room, grabbing a newspaper with the heading: THE STINGRAYS’ DEN, PUBLIC ENEMY NO.1? As he looked and read the newspaper again from the first paragraph, reading the veritable leader of the syndicate named Arnold Baron Knight, it gives him a new idea, what if he could work together with them by persuading Arnold Knight that he will be helping his cause for a new national order, and also to make The Stingrays’ Den victorious to killing the president and rule the entire country. Or maybe, the world?
“I want to change the United States, and I will do so, the president will be no more, it will be the two of us who will rule the country, with our own way and our own favour. I promise I will return the stolen freedom that they had. These people have been repressed by the president, we can’t allow this repression to continue any longer. With the Stingrays’ Den in my and Arnold’s hands we will be greater and superior then those corrupt politicians, the president and the government agencies, and intelligence agencies will be ours to control too.”
And there Leopold oaths with a paranoid sense of mind, that he will be unstoppable, with his planned alliance that he will soon forge with Arnold Knight.
Last edited:
Retroman
(Your local Retroman since 2021)
Next...
CHAPTER 1: THE MARSHALL-SMITHS
22nd of June, Jackson City, Mississippi, 20:30 PM
It’s the summer holidays, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Douglas Marshall Love, but my wife calls me by the name of “René”, that’s because she lost her late husband that she loved so much who goes by the same name because his ship sank in the Atlantic Ocean because of engine malfunction. I am forty-two years old, 1,89 meters tall, a horticulturist, tea-connoisseur, working for Lipton, and an artist during my free time. I have two children, Robert Smith( of 10 years of age, he unfortunately suffers of hypertrophy and autism and now he is almost as tall as me) and Sylvia Smith (16 years old, a normal daughter) and I have a half-Canadian wife of 46 years old born in Alaska to an Alaskan father and Canadian mother and later grew up in Illinois, she is an actress and singer, can speak French and German too, 0,10 meters shorter than me by the name of Lucille Martin Smith, but she goes by the name of “Lucy” to her fans, and me. We all live in Jackson, Mississippi, we are about to go on a vacation in the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. To the sunny and warm coasts of the state. Our luggage is already ready behind the trunk of my 1957 Dodge Town Panel. It’s a brave scarlet beast, it’s like my protector, my only pet to have in house and at work. We will be leaving from 6 am because it takes ten hours to drive there.
But now I am in my very humble house, where I can find peace from the stubby haywire and tasks of work. I find myself sitting on my desk, finishing my report on my typewriter of today’s tea leaves quality and soils that I checked on every nursery in the south-east of the United States, so that they are suitable to be used and sold by Lipton. I typed each letter carefully, because you are not allowed to make typos and yet you can’t delete any wrong letters because a typing machine doesn’t have an eraser. And yet that is because I still cannot afford a computer while everybody already did. While I am working on my report Robert and Sylvia have fallen asleep so quickly, and my wife Lucy is so engrossed in her book The 39 Steps of John Buchan. She’s curious about the fate of Richard Hannay while being watched, searched, and tailed by a spy named Sidney Clock whose plot is to turn the world into haywire by provoking a new world war. And Lucy delves deeper to find out his next move to stop Sidney the after he escaped from London to Scotland’s landscapes only to find refugee from the spies and clearing his name. I knew the story already. I wouldn’t suggest myself to spoil her because it would make her only knowing the whole conspiracy and delving deeper into the story would be no use.
I get bored when I do this kind of stuff, writing reports and records about my research. Because you need concentration, notes, and memory to complete your report. I am almost at the finish line, from all that constant and monotonous concentration I immediately took a small break of my hands and eyes from the typing machine by taking a glance of the sales graphs, checking and looking at the graphs of every tea on a piece of paper, rising and declining like mountains, looking how many packs of each tea could yield a certain amount of dollars, nationally and internationally. And I continue again, I type the very last sentences of my report, tack, tack, tack, tack, type my full name on it aand, done! Finally, I finished my job, relief and peace penetrated through my mind. I am finally free of the shackles of this terrible thing I have to do. Making reports, well, except checking on the soil, tea quality and taste. I stand up and take a glance from the window of the starry sky and the bright skyline of Jackson city that brightens the night. There has been a tremendous and rapid change of the architectural movement in this whole federation, ranging from art-deco, streamline modern, googie, mid-century modern, and cyberpunk. It’s so beautiful I must say.
Until a nostalgic moment comes into my mind, when my youthful and wise friend of mine William ask me: What lies the future for us? He asked me. That’s something that I can’t say, I answered. You know, you always dream what you want to be when you were a kid. You dream of your favourite dream job in the future, and how fun it feels like. I chose myself as a horticulturist because we need to provide sustainable and healthy product. Furthermore, to preserve the nature and its resources from today for the future. And then William asked me one more question: What would you like to be in the future? I answered: a horticulturist and vegetation inspector. And it is now my job, to inspect the quality of vegetables, fruits and also tea leaves. To provide fresh, healthy and tasty products that could sustain much longer. And William asked me again: How long do you think we will live? I answered: Not that I know, but it is best to work hard and avoid bad things to keep living, be a proper individual, find a good and proper job, raise a proper family. But I think it needs more than that for humans to keep on living. We love discussing philosophical things, but those musings really keep us close and strong. I think that William wants to become a philosopher, and I believe that now he may be a philosopher, teaching students on how life works.
Ah, on these hours on the ABC tv they mostly air Hitchcockian movies. And when midnight comes, they will air Japanese animated movies. Japanese animated shows and movies are versatile, they range from children to adult themes. These themes are categorized into different categories, but I forgot all of them. I am not really an anime fan, but the art and expression are distinguished and interesting than the average American comic books and cartoons. I am more into stories about espionage and ordinary people in international intrigue and espionage. Then I take today’s newspaper from the desk paging to the page with a list of tonight’s tv shows.
-The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) (20:55)
- Perry Mason (22:10)
- A Fistful Of Dollars(23:00)
- Bubblegum Crisis (00:15)
Now I found my favourite movie of all time: the Man Who Knew Too Much. Now that’s what I am going to watch. I walk down the stairs to find Lucy so engrossed in her book The 39 Steps. She’s so serious, her expression is like an intrigued person, and as if the story is really hugging her face.
‘Lucy?’ I called her, and she lost her concentration and changes her glance to me. ‘Yes? What is it, Doug?’ She asked me back. ‘Shall we watch a movie on the tv? To-night they are airing The Man Who Knew Too Much.’ I told her. ‘Okay, why not?’ With a voice so soft between confusion and willingness.
And the two turn on their 1957 Admiral TV, the screen displays the McKennas eating a tajine with the Dreytons. A premonition of their involvement in the intrigue. Little did they know a slow but dreadful threat will rise from the shadows and turn their lives upside down.
CHAPTER 1: THE MARSHALL-SMITHS
22nd of June, Jackson City, Mississippi, 20:30 PM
It’s the summer holidays, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Douglas Marshall Love, but my wife calls me by the name of “René”, that’s because she lost her late husband that she loved so much who goes by the same name because his ship sank in the Atlantic Ocean because of engine malfunction. I am forty-two years old, 1,89 meters tall, a horticulturist, tea-connoisseur, working for Lipton, and an artist during my free time. I have two children, Robert Smith( of 10 years of age, he unfortunately suffers of hypertrophy and autism and now he is almost as tall as me) and Sylvia Smith (16 years old, a normal daughter) and I have a half-Canadian wife of 46 years old born in Alaska to an Alaskan father and Canadian mother and later grew up in Illinois, she is an actress and singer, can speak French and German too, 0,10 meters shorter than me by the name of Lucille Martin Smith, but she goes by the name of “Lucy” to her fans, and me. We all live in Jackson, Mississippi, we are about to go on a vacation in the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. To the sunny and warm coasts of the state. Our luggage is already ready behind the trunk of my 1957 Dodge Town Panel. It’s a brave scarlet beast, it’s like my protector, my only pet to have in house and at work. We will be leaving from 6 am because it takes ten hours to drive there.
But now I am in my very humble house, where I can find peace from the stubby haywire and tasks of work. I find myself sitting on my desk, finishing my report on my typewriter of today’s tea leaves quality and soils that I checked on every nursery in the south-east of the United States, so that they are suitable to be used and sold by Lipton. I typed each letter carefully, because you are not allowed to make typos and yet you can’t delete any wrong letters because a typing machine doesn’t have an eraser. And yet that is because I still cannot afford a computer while everybody already did. While I am working on my report Robert and Sylvia have fallen asleep so quickly, and my wife Lucy is so engrossed in her book The 39 Steps of John Buchan. She’s curious about the fate of Richard Hannay while being watched, searched, and tailed by a spy named Sidney Clock whose plot is to turn the world into haywire by provoking a new world war. And Lucy delves deeper to find out his next move to stop Sidney the after he escaped from London to Scotland’s landscapes only to find refugee from the spies and clearing his name. I knew the story already. I wouldn’t suggest myself to spoil her because it would make her only knowing the whole conspiracy and delving deeper into the story would be no use.
I get bored when I do this kind of stuff, writing reports and records about my research. Because you need concentration, notes, and memory to complete your report. I am almost at the finish line, from all that constant and monotonous concentration I immediately took a small break of my hands and eyes from the typing machine by taking a glance of the sales graphs, checking and looking at the graphs of every tea on a piece of paper, rising and declining like mountains, looking how many packs of each tea could yield a certain amount of dollars, nationally and internationally. And I continue again, I type the very last sentences of my report, tack, tack, tack, tack, type my full name on it aand, done! Finally, I finished my job, relief and peace penetrated through my mind. I am finally free of the shackles of this terrible thing I have to do. Making reports, well, except checking on the soil, tea quality and taste. I stand up and take a glance from the window of the starry sky and the bright skyline of Jackson city that brightens the night. There has been a tremendous and rapid change of the architectural movement in this whole federation, ranging from art-deco, streamline modern, googie, mid-century modern, and cyberpunk. It’s so beautiful I must say.
Until a nostalgic moment comes into my mind, when my youthful and wise friend of mine William ask me: What lies the future for us? He asked me. That’s something that I can’t say, I answered. You know, you always dream what you want to be when you were a kid. You dream of your favourite dream job in the future, and how fun it feels like. I chose myself as a horticulturist because we need to provide sustainable and healthy product. Furthermore, to preserve the nature and its resources from today for the future. And then William asked me one more question: What would you like to be in the future? I answered: a horticulturist and vegetation inspector. And it is now my job, to inspect the quality of vegetables, fruits and also tea leaves. To provide fresh, healthy and tasty products that could sustain much longer. And William asked me again: How long do you think we will live? I answered: Not that I know, but it is best to work hard and avoid bad things to keep living, be a proper individual, find a good and proper job, raise a proper family. But I think it needs more than that for humans to keep on living. We love discussing philosophical things, but those musings really keep us close and strong. I think that William wants to become a philosopher, and I believe that now he may be a philosopher, teaching students on how life works.
Ah, on these hours on the ABC tv they mostly air Hitchcockian movies. And when midnight comes, they will air Japanese animated movies. Japanese animated shows and movies are versatile, they range from children to adult themes. These themes are categorized into different categories, but I forgot all of them. I am not really an anime fan, but the art and expression are distinguished and interesting than the average American comic books and cartoons. I am more into stories about espionage and ordinary people in international intrigue and espionage. Then I take today’s newspaper from the desk paging to the page with a list of tonight’s tv shows.
-The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) (20:55)
- Perry Mason (22:10)
- A Fistful Of Dollars(23:00)
- Bubblegum Crisis (00:15)
Now I found my favourite movie of all time: the Man Who Knew Too Much. Now that’s what I am going to watch. I walk down the stairs to find Lucy so engrossed in her book The 39 Steps. She’s so serious, her expression is like an intrigued person, and as if the story is really hugging her face.
‘Lucy?’ I called her, and she lost her concentration and changes her glance to me. ‘Yes? What is it, Doug?’ She asked me back. ‘Shall we watch a movie on the tv? To-night they are airing The Man Who Knew Too Much.’ I told her. ‘Okay, why not?’ With a voice so soft between confusion and willingness.
And the two turn on their 1957 Admiral TV, the screen displays the McKennas eating a tajine with the Dreytons. A premonition of their involvement in the intrigue. Little did they know a slow but dreadful threat will rise from the shadows and turn their lives upside down.