Butch and his teammate, HAMMER, are the sole American survivors of a gun battle between their unit and North Korean commandos, both sides fighting over possession of a stolen suitcase containing a miniaturized fusion device that could either provide unlimited clean energy or be converted to an undetectable bomb seven times more powerful than a nuclear explosion. Leading the North Koreans is the sociopath, Commander PARK. Pressed into helping the Koreans is a disgraced former CIA operative, BARRETT JENNINGS.
Cole meets with the uncle who raised him, MASTER LI, and is warned to stop his search for Butch. Barrett discovers Cole’s identity (with the help of a genius computer hacker, LILLY), which opens a twenty-year-old wound when Barrett was blamed for the disappearance of Cole’s father, along with the man’s invention. Barrett enlists the 14K organized crime syndicate to help capture Cole. Hammer, separated from Butch during the fight for the device, thwarts the gang’s attempt to kidnap Cole, and the two then set off to find Butch and the device. All parties converge on the city library where Butch, now disguised as a monk, is attempting to communicate with the Pentagon. Barrett and Park capture Butch, while the 14K gang nabs Cole.
Danger mounts as Chinese authorities begin investigating foul play within their borders. Cole fights his way free of the gang and reunites with Hammer. Both men find Barrett’s apartment and discover Lilly (the man’s stepdaughter), who divulges Barrett’s identity and plan. Cole clashes with Hammer, who is willing to sacrifice Butch in order to recover the fusion device. Lilly offers her help in exchange for her and Barrett’s rescue from Park’s grip. Meanwhile, Barrett discovers the true nature of the case the North Koreans are pursuing and, sensing he and Lilly are to be assassinated by Park once he has the device, frees Butch. Butch, trusting Barrett was sent to rescue him, leads the turncoat to the site where he hid the device. Barrett, hoping to make a quick fortune selling it, shoots Butch before escaping with the case.
Cole, along with Hammer and Lilly, arrives at the location of Butch and finds him gravely wounded. Butch fingers Barrett for shooting him and for stealing the case. Cole wants only to save his brother but Butch makes him promise to kill Barrett and recover their dad’s invention. The revelation that the device is his father’s scientific discovery propels Cole forward to fulfill his brother’s mission. Cole is forced to abandon Butch at a hospital. Cole pursues Barrett to a remote dock where the ex-CIA man is planning to escape China by boat. With the Chinese military now actively looking for Cole, Cole confronts Barrett and Park sparking a gunfight. Barrett kills Park. As Barrett turns the gun on Cole, Hammer kills Barrett. Cole, Hammer and Lilly escape via the boat, and the fusion device is safely returned.
The First Page
Prologue
Seven
miles from North Korean territorial waters, western shore.
0130 hours (+8 hours GMT) April 21st
Commander Park Chul-Moo watched
from the safety of the special operations speedboat as the damaged Sang-O II
class submarine carrying his team for the past six hours slipped under the
surface of the Yellow Sea toward a watery grave. The
nighttime emergency transfer of his five-man squad, along with the device
they’d stolen from a secret science conference in Nagasaki,
Japan, was unscheduled. Since
escaping just outside the harbor of Nagasaki,
the eight naval crewmen, part of North Korea’s
Maritime Unit submarine squadron, and the five Second Bureau Reconnaissance
Special Forces operatives played a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with Japanese
and South Korean naval vessels. American air power joined the chase, all in an
effort to recover what Commander Park
now possessed.
The electric motors on the
clandestine submarine ran silent but with limited range. On several occasions, the
vessel was forced to surface to regenerate the batteries by switching to its
diesel engine. Twice the commandos approached within only a few nautical miles
of North Korean territorial waters along the country’s western shores, but both
times forced northwest to avoid detection. During the last resurface under a
partial moon, catastrophic engine failure doomed the craft. Park risked a radio
Mayday to the west coast maritime headquarters based in Nampo,
North Korea, and a
high-speed boat, disguised as a fishing trawler, was dispatched.
Interview:
Great to be here! Thanks, so much. Cole Haufner is of Chinese-German heritage and a mixed-martial-arts professional fighter living in the U.S. Despite his Shaolin monk upbringing, and his disdain for fighting, his lack of ego and attention seeking only adds to his public appeal. At the peak of his success, he suffers a tragic, family loss. When his brother, a Delta Force team leader, and Cole’s only living blood relative, doesn’t show for the funeral, his worry only deepens when two mysterious men indicate something went wrong on a mission. Cole follows a clue and returns to his childhood home in southeastern China and the monastery where he lived and trained in his youth. As he searches for his brother, he unwittingly becomes embroiled in a desperate fight between North Korean agents and an American special forces team battling for possession of a miniaturized fusion device capable of producing unlimited clean energy. This suitcase-sized invention is theoretically capable of uncontrolled energy release on par with a nuclear explosion many times greater in magnitude. Cole’s mission is in direct odds with the American’s own, and we see his efforts hampering the surviving remnants of the American team. Old history of when he lived in China increases the tension and adds to the interactions of friends and foes as both sides vie for the object. The two stories—his search for his brother, and the grapple for ultimate control of a world-changing device—collide and come to a head.
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
I focused on introducing the action of foul-play as the catalyst for the character’s motivations. I grew up on Tom Clancy and found his method of starting the book on a single point in time showing why the rest of the pages occur. Though the characters often follow differing paths in their storyline, that first moment in the book pulls the disparate sub-stories toward a shared point late in the manuscript. Bad guys are very useful.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
I actually wrote the first page in two, completely different starting points. In the published version, we see the main antagonist with all his ugliness and personal motivation. I wrote a second version describing the initial theft of an invention. I found the published version more intimate, and the main antagonist’s personality and motivation was much clearer and descriptive. Rather than focus on the action, I focused on the character formation. My Beta readers agreed with the decision.
Was there ever a time after the book was published that you wished you had changed something on the first page?
I did obsess over the first page. As you point out, I knew the importance of those first few paragraphs—particularly as a new author. I had the sense of being labeled based on a few hundred words. I feared being classified as “okay” or “crap” for a 30-second read from others. Would that first impression follow me as I tried creating a space in the industry for myself. Looking back, once I decided on the ‘how’ of my intro, I never looked back, and I never wished I’d started the book any other way. That time spent obsessing paid off when I won an award for my manuscript and subsequently earned an offer from a publisher after the president read that first page. Commit and execute.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
First, believe the hype that the first page is a critical vehicle—particularly if you’re just starting out. You WILL be judged by others when you don’t have any other platform. Rightfully, or otherwise.Second, there is no one ‘best’ way to write your first page. A lot of ways to skin that bird, and you must decide what works best for your work. There are as many opinions as there are readers. If you allow 10 people to critique it, and a common theme hits 3 or more responses, you must listen because something isn’t working despite what you might think is excellent writing.Third, don’t write bullshit passages based on flamboyant or haughty word choices. We all know what that looks like. If someone spends too much time trying to impress with wordy sentence structures like a college literary thesis paper, you’re going to create a negative vibe of your work. Don’t write like you’re trying to impress people. The real trick is graceful, easy, and flowing prose that creates a mood—even an emotional tone. You must make the reader FEEL something. Creating writing that instills an EMOTION in your reader will take you a long way.How do you do that in your first page? Go to your bookshelf and pull out some of your very favorite authors. Now open that book up and read the first page. Of all that you read, pick the winner. Why was that one better than the others? I’ll bet you your #1 choice made you feel something the others didn’t quite grasp—even among the very best in the business. Study that first page, tear it down into pieces, and use that structure for your own book. Now, finish what you started.
About the Author
He lives at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
His latest book is the thriller/international/action novel, Dark Spiral Down.
Website: www.mikehoutz.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelhoutz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/author.mikehoutz/
https://www.facebook.com/mike.houtz.77
No comments:
Post a Comment