Month: February 2020

keeping a plot summary of your novel

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-gg9c2-d4d8c8

The Plot of Street Dreams by Ken David Stewart December 22, 2019 

Harold Peyton suffers from severe bouts of clinical depression as well as writer’s block. 

Harold Peyton is physically healthy. 

Location Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Elmwood. year 2019. 

Harold had been divorced from his ex-wife Clarissa for nearly five years now. 

A man named Tony Barrows had pushed a young woman named Whisper who is in her early twenties out of his truck and on to an ice- covered road. 

Harold invited Whisper into his home. 

One year ago, in 2018, Harold’s daughter Erica had been killed in a car accident by an inebriated driver. 

Whisper suggests that Harold write about a strange young woman that arrives at his door. 

Whisper has a criminal record for shoplifting and is presently homeless. 

Harold drives Whisper to a local EIA office. 

Harold has a stepson named Richard. 

Harold has a younger brother who suffers from schizophrenia. 

Tony Barrows lives on Spence Street in downtown Winnipeg.  Tony is very macho. 

Tony Barrows has one friend who is a nerd.  He is called Herbie Schultz. 

Tony has no problem picking up women as he has the persona of a tough guy. 

Herbie Schultz is forever grateful and is fiercely loyal to Tony, as Tony once saved Herbie from taking a terrible beating from two elementary school bullies. 

Whisper finds out how many medications that Harold Peyton takes daily in order to function. 

Harold does not know how to cook for himself. 

Harold suffers from severe arthritis. 

Whisper offers to cook meals for Harold. During that time, she offers to teach Harold how to cook healthy meals for himself. 

Harold allows Whisper to live with him for an indefinite time period. 

Whisper learns that Harold has an extremely painful arthritic condition. 

Whisper notices how many Bibles and Christian audiobooks Harold owns. 

Harold is enjoying smoking the cannabis that Whisper has given him to try. 

Harold tells Whisper that some of his friends worry about Harold’s spiritual condition. 

Harold receives a phone call from his stepson, Ricky Kramer. Ricky asks if his stepdad, Harold, if he can pick him up when he is released from jail in a couple of weeks. Ricky also asks his dad if he can live with him on a temporary basis. 

Harold admits to himself that he enjoys Whisper’s company. She is able to ease the pain of the loss of his deceased daughter, Erica. 

During the last year, Whisper was a heavy crystal meth user. 

Harold and Whisper go to the Grunge headshot/coffee shop. Harold buys a bootleg Bob Dylan concert album. While they are at the Grunge they listened to a musical set by a male who performed a Bob Dylan tribute set. 

Harold reveals the dysfunctional nature of his relationships with his family. He is divorced from Clarissa, his stepson, Ricky is just getting out of jail, his two biological children, Jasmine and Derek, detest Ricky, their stepbrother. Jasmine and Derek are very much estranged from Harold. They live in two different cities in the United States with their families. Tim Kramer, Ricky’s biological father he is the violent and abusive man. 

Harold bought himself a beautiful wooden walking stick with a black lab’s head as the handle carving. 

Herbie Schultz’ back story. He has ADHD is 33 years old is live with foster parents in group homes for most of his life. Herbie is a high school dropout. He has been fired  from several jobs where his supervisor and coworkers think that Herbie is acting too weird. 

He suffers from schizophrenia and had a recent psychotic break. The police had to be called and they took him to the hospital ER. 

Herbie lies to his apartment superintendent and tells him that he had a grand mal seizure, not a psychotic break. 

Clarissa Peyton, Harold’s ex-wife’s back story. She is a Christian legalist. Clarissa is avery strong -willed person who despises weakness of any kind in others. Clarissa is a staunch conservative Baptist. She derides Harold for checking out a charismatic Pentecostal church. 

Tony Barrows takes Whisper with him to a wild party on Beliveau Road. At the party Tony assaults a man then he Whisper and Pixie, a female guest at the party, flee the scene when the police are called. Pixie tells Tony that she needs a ride home. She says that she lives in Fort Rouge with her boyfriend, Ricky, who is Harold’s stepson. 

Two police constables, Bill Noble and Melissa Parks drive to the house to investigate a report that a young man inside the house is badly injured. The two police officers search the house, but just see a lot of blood. The injured man has somehow been removed from the house. 

Pixie Lambert is the young girl at the party that Tony and Whisper agree to give a ride home. 

Pixie claims to have murdered her mother’s boyfriend in self- defence. Pixie killed Stan with repeated blows to his head from a hammer she found in his workstation. Pixie escaped by taking a Greyhound bus from Fargo, North Dakota to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. On the Greyhound bus Pixie meets Ricky Kramer. Pixie and  Ricky share a common interest in the Charles Manson story and true crime stories in general. 

Aleister Richter is the name of the young man that Tony Barrows viciously assaulted. 

Hartley and Kerry Popovich bullied Herbie Schultz in  elementary school. They fled from the house party and put Aleister in Kerry’s old car. Kerry and Hartley met Aliester at a downtown pool hall. boys wanted to score somdrugs and Aleister had the supply drugs that they wanted. Aleister had been both their drug dealer and friend ever since. 

Aleister Richter’s back story. Aleister’s parents separated just after his fourteenth birthday. Aleister hated school and skipped his regular glasses to go to the library and stay in one of the library’s private rooms until a staff member found him and kicked him out. While in school Aleister committed several acts of vandalism. 

Hartley and Kerry drove along Bishop Grandin Boulevard. Their car skidded off the road and ended up on the shoulder. It was a cold winter night. Harold and Whisper stopped for them to see if the people in the stranded car needed help. Hartley’s glove compartment contained the drugs they had just bought. Constables Noble and Parks arrived shortly after. Hartley tried to push Constables Noble out of the way and tried to start the car to get away. He was tackled and handcuffed by Constable Parks. 

The Plot of Street Dreams by Ken David Stewart December 22, 2019  Harold Peyton suffers from severe bouts of clinical depression as well as writer’s block.  Harold Peyton is physically healthy.  Location Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Elmwood. year 2019.  Harold had been divorced from his ex-wife Clarissa for … Continue reading

Roswell 1947 part three

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-cbvau-d49990

Act Five Scene Two: 

 

Narrator: Zeke, the hospital custodian, runs up to General Kane. 

 

Zeke: General, the guy I locked up in the store room broke the window and escaped!  

General Kane: Enns get in the truck. We’ve got to catch that rancher before he starts shooting his mouth off again.  

Narrator: Enns and Kane start driving down the back lane. They stop when they see   two dogcatchers climbing out of the dumpster. 

Private Enns: Look, General. The city makes those poor dogcatchers hunt for dogs in the dumpster. 

General Kane: I doubt that Enns. Roswell city employees have a union. 

Private Enns: Maybe the dog catchers aren’t included in the union contract. 

General Kane: What the heck are you guys doing in the dumpster? Just look at you guys all covered in garbage. You’re a disgrace to the uniform! 

Private Enns: I thought city employees made good money. You guys shouldn’t have to scrounge around for food in the dumpster. 

Hoss: We’re not looking for food. A large Rottweiler chased us into the dumpster.                                                     

  

General Kane: Men, it’s your job to catch dogs, not run away from them! 

 

 

 

Harvey: Well there’s a whole other side to this story. You tell them what happened, Hoss. 

Hoss: Well, it’s kind of a strange story. We were sitting in the truck having our smoke break when we saw this guy stumbling down the back lane. 

Harvey: Yeah, this guy tells us this goofy story about escaping from the hospital. He said two military guys kidnapped him and threw him in the back of a truck with a bunch of aliens. 

Hoss: Ha! ha! ha! And then he says something about a nurse giving him a shot of horse tranquilizer in the backside. 

Private Enns: They’re talking about Mick, General. 

General Kane: I know! So where’s this guy now? 

Private Enns: Yeah. And don’t you guys have a truck or something to put the dogs in after you catch them? 

 

General Kane: They don’t need one. The dogs chase them into the dumpster. Ha! Ha! Ha! 

Harvey: Look General, this is no laughing matter. The guy drove off with our truck. 

Private Enns: I don’t get it. There’s two of you against one of him. 

Hoss: Well, it’s kind of a long story. You tell them, Harvey.  

 

 

Harvey: Well, while Hoss and I were trying to pull this guy into the truck, the keys fall out of Hoss’s pants The guy grabbed the keys and let the Rottweiler out the back of the truck. 

General Kane: Now let me guess, and then the dog chased you guys into the dumpster. 

Hoss: Yeah, that’s pretty much the way it happened.  

Private Enns: You guys are hilarious. You’re funnier than Lloyd the Barber on the Andy Griffin Show. You guys should go tell your story on Rick and Dwight’s radio show. 

General Kane: I have a feeling that’s where Mick is right now. 

 

Podcast Version #1 of Episode 1 of Roswell 1947 Play

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-vg5w7-d42c3c

Roswell 1947 an original play by Ken David Stewart 

 

This is a fictional play that has some historical basis in the Roswell Incident of 1947.   Its genre is a combination of comedy and science fiction. Mr. Stewart has fully fictionalized this account of the Roswell Incident so that none of what he has written is to be interpreted as historical fact. The characters in this play are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people either living or dead is purely coincidental. 

 

Act I Scene One: 

 

Narrator:  As our play opens a group of old men are sitting on rocking chairs outside the Roswell General Store. It’s getting late in the evening and the temperature is dropping rapidly. 

The men are suddenly startled by an unusual sight in the sky. 

 

Dewey: Look up yonder! What the heck is that in the sky? 

 

Buford: I don’t know. Looks like a silver disc with bright flashing lights. 

 

Clem: Whatever it is, it’s losing elevation real fast. 

 

Dewey: I can’t see it anymore it’s just disappeared behind yonder hill. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                      

Narrator:  In a few seconds the men hear a loud crash that sounded like thunder. The crash seemed to come from behind the hill. As they hear the sound the sky lights up like a huge orange yellow flame. 

 

Act One Scene Two: 

 

Narrator: We are now at the ranch of Mick Russell. His ranch is not far from the city of Roswell. It is 5 AM and Mick is suddenly stirred from a sound sleep by the unsettling noise created by his animals. 

 

Mick: Those damn animals! It’s too early for them to be up. I better get up and check out what all the commotion is all about. 

                                                                                                                   

Narrator: Mick quickly puts on his jeans and a T-shirt and walks down the hall on his way to his son’s bedroom. 

                                                                          

Mick: Rob, Get up! The animals are all freaking out about something.  

 

Rob: Ah come on Dad. I was up until three in the morning partying with my friends. 

 

Mick: That’s tough. Put on your clothes and come help your dad. 

 

Rob: All right I’m coming. Don’t get your shirt in a knot. 

 

Narrator: As soon as Mick and Rob walk about one hundred yards out into the field they find out what rattled the animals. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Mick: What the heck? Look at all those shiny pieces of metal. 

                                                                               

Rob: Yeah, there must be hundreds of jagged pieces. The glare reflecting off the sun is almost blinding. 

 

Mick: Where do you think all this metal came from? 

 

Rob: It looks like something very large crashed here last night. 

 

Mick: It’s that damned Air Force Base. They’re always testing some top-secret stuff over there. 

 

Narrator: Rob picks up a few of the metal pieces and starts to examine them. 

 

Rob: This stuff is weird Dad. It’s giving me the creeps. Its so flexible it’s unreal. Look Dad, I can roll a piece of this metal up until it’s a ball and it straightens itself right out again. 

 

Narrator: Mick moves closer to Rob to get a closer look. 

 

Mick: Look at the strange markings on this piece. 

 

Rob It looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mick: You’re talking way over my head son. I only went up to grade eight. Don’t worry though. Let’s put some of this stuff in a bag. I’ll take it  to the sheriff tomorrow morning and see what he makes of it, but you can be sure I’m also going to ask him who’s going to clean up this mess on my ranch. 

                                                                          

Rob: I forgot to tell you Dad. Last night we were sitting outside 

Dwight’s place drinking beer when we saw this amazing flash of bright orange light in the sky. Then boom! We heard this deafening crash.  

                                                                             

Mick: What you guys probably heard and saw was the light show from the Pink Floyd concert. They were playing in Albuquerque last night. 

 

Rob: Dad this is 1947! Rock ‘n roll hasn’t even been invented yet. 

 

Mick: Oh yeah, you’re right. 

 

Narrator: Mick climbs into his old rusted pickup truck and heads for town. While he’s driving Rob turns on the radio and they start listening to Rick Black’s morning show. 

 

Act One Scene Three: 

 

Rick Black: Good morning, Roswell. I just got a call from Buford, one of the old guys we see sitting outside the general store every day. He said something about seeing some weird bright lights in the sky last night. Dewey also said something about a loud crash behind a hill. 

 

 

 

Dwight Miller, Rick’s co-host: Well Rick, we all know that all those good old boys like to sit around and tell each other stories to pass the time. Let’s face it. They don’t have much else to do. I mean how many Carters Little Liver pills can you take in a day? 

 

Rick: Right, or how many times can you rub Ben Gay on your old decrepit aching joints? But all the same, Buford sounded awful scared on the phone. 

 

Dwight: Yeah, let’s not forget that secret base the Air Force has in the desert. 

 

Rick: Area 51, you mean. Yeah , I’ve been hearing all kinds of rumors about weird experiments that they do there. 

 

Act One Scene Four: 

                                                                                   

Narrator: After approximately a half hour’s ride, Mick Russell arrives at the sheriff’s office in the town of Roswell. He walks in and knocks on the door of Sheriff Elmer Pyle. 

 

Sheriff Pyle: Howdy Nick? Watch a got in the bag there? 

 

Mick: That’s the thing. I don’t know. That’s why I’m bringing it in to you. I only know that my ranch is covered with this stuff. 

                                                                             

Narrator: Mick empties the bag on the Sheriff’s desk. 

 

Sheriff Pyle: Wow, you weren’t kidding Mick. This stuff is weird. It looks and feels mighty creepy. 

 

 

 

Narrator: The phone on the sheriff’s desk rings loudly. 

 

 

    

                                                       

Act Two Scene One: 

 

Narrator: About 30 miles northwest of Corona, New Mexico an archeology professor and his students are out in the desert looking for dinosaur bones. 

 

Michael: Professor, some harsh light is reflecting right in my eyes. 

 

Prof. Stone: It’s probably coming from that silver object embedded in the hill about fifty yards away. 

 

Robert: Can we go see what it is, sir? 

 

Prof. Stone: Of course. From here it looks like some kind of aircraft that’s crashed. Let’s check if any passengers are injured. 

 

Narrator: The professor and his young charges jog out to the hill. 

 

Chris: Wow, what a weird looking aircraft. It’s shaped like a triangle. 

 

Howie: This is getting too creepy for me, man.  Let’s get out of here. 

 

Professor Stone: Not until we check for injured passengers. Howie, if you ever expect to make it as an archaeologist you can’t keep wimping out like this. 

 

   

 

 

Howie: Sorry sir, I forgot all about my civic duty. 

 

Prof. Stone: It’s okay son. We all have our weak moments. 

  

Michael: Over here guys. Check out what’s on the other side of this craft. 

                                                                      

Chris: I don’t believe it. There’s two little men in silver suits just outside the craft. 

 

Prof. Stone: I’m not so sure they’re human. Look at their unusually large heads and tiny bodies. 

 

Howard: Whatever they are, they’re not doing too good right now. I can’t get a pulse on either one of these guys. 

  

 

Michael: We probably can’t help those two, but let’s see if there’s anyone still alive inside the craft. 

 

Narrator: Robert pries open the door of the cockpit with a crowbar. When he looks inside he sees two little creatures slumped into their seats. Chris gives one of the strange creatures in the silver suit a shake. 

 

Chris: This little guys is as dead as the two outside the spacecraft. 

 

Howie: Not this one though. Look his arm is trembling. 

 

 

Robert: Howie is right. He’s still alive but he’s struggling to breathe. 

 

Narrator: It isn’t long before a fire truck and ambulance arrive from behind the hill. A firefighter and paramedic get out of their vehicles. 

 

Otis: You’re right Frank. It‘s a plane crash all right. 

 

Frank: Wow! What a mess. Hello boys. Did you find any survivors? 

 

Prof. Stone: There appears to be only one survivor. Robert and Howie are both trying to get him out of the cockpit right now. 

                                                                         

Chris: Wow! Two trained professionals to the rescue. 

 

Otis: Well now, we’re not real firefighters and paramedics. We’re only volunteers. The mayor is too cheap to hire real professionals. 

 

Frank: Don’t worry boys. Otis here is real good with a fire hose. And me, I watch medical shows like ER on TV all the time. I’ll go over to the ambulance and get the poor creature an oxygen tank. 

 

Narrator: As Frank gets the oxygen tank and a mask for the surviving alien, the men hear the sound of a jeep pulling up to the crash site. General Kane and his assistant Private Enns get out to inspect the site of the crash. 

 

General Kane: You boys can all leave now. The military will take charge from here. Private Enns put the oxygen equipment on the alien and help him walk to the jeep. 

 

 

Prof. Stone: Now hold on, General. This poor creature is not your prisoner. He needs immediate medical attention.  

 

Gen. Kane: Is that so? Hey, I know you. You’re that goofy professor I saw on the Discovery Channel last night. You’re the old geezer who went out hunting for dinosaur bones. Now listen up, egghead. You and your students didn’t see anything unusual out here today. You saw nothing and you heard nothing. In fact, as far as you’re concerned today never happened. If you people tell anyone about the crashed spacecraft or these aliens, they’ll be looking for your bones in the desert by morning. Do I make myself perfectly clear? 

 

Professor Stone: Perfectly clear, sir. Your secret is safe with us.