Story of “Gauntlet”

by Scott Harper
(New Port Richey, FL, USA)

Gauntlet

Genre: Action/Adventure

I’m 33-years-old. I’ve been a comic book fan/reader/collector for most of my life. I’m also an novelist/screenwriter. So, it’s only natural, I suppose, that I ended up writing something along those lines. “Gauntlet” is essentially an action/adventure comic book bereft of illustrations. I was watching a comic book-based film years ago when the inspiration for “Gauntlet” struck me. Soon after, I began to work on the first draft. That’s what it was - the FIRST draft. The first of quite a few!

At the time, I’d not yet learned my lesson about trying to handwrite projects. So, out came the spiral-bound notebooks and an ink pen. I began to write. And write. And write. My hand would cramp. I’d take a break and then write some more. I’m left-handed, which means that my hand drags across the page from left to right as I work. This leads to an ink-stained hand and smudged ink, which is hard to read. And my handwriting is plenty hard to read on it’s own! I’ve been told that I should have become a doctor - that I already have the penmanship for it and only lack the medical training. Eventually, I broke myself of the habit of trying to write projects out longhand and to type them. Once past that landmark moment, I was faced with my first draft of “Gauntlet” in all it’s smudged, messy glory.

That draft simply set in a desk for a while. When I finally pulled it out to do something with it, it underwent a rewrite. However, I’d always intended “Gauntlet” to be for a far more adult audience than my first two novels, which were aimed at teens/young adults. “Gauntlet” still had that same teen/young adult feel to it. After a couple more drafts with same results, back it went into the desk, exiled to darkness. I sometimes wonder if I may have been subconsciously hoping that some of that darkness would rub off onto the manuscript and give it the feel I kept failing to obtain!

Another failing I kept running into was that, unlike projects which I wanted to be only a stand-alone work that turned into more, I wanted “Gauntlet” to be a series of novels. How could I pull off a series when I wasn’t able to capture the feel I was trying for in what was meant as the first installment?

In 1998 I moved to Florida with my parents. The previous drafts of “Gauntlet” had all been written while I was living in Ohio.

After the move, I continued to write, working on various projects. I didn’t truly forget about “Gauntlet”, but I did my best to ignore it for a period of years because I was so frustrated with it. Finally, I heeded its silent summons and brought it out once more. I read my previous draft of the manuscript. My talents and abilities as an author has grown considerably since writing that draft, so I thought what I was reading was pretty awful. So, once more, I sat down to update the manuscript to the best of my abilities. Then I hesitated. Why just rewrite the same book basically? It wasn’t working. I’d been fighting with it on and off for several years without being able to hammer it into the shape and form I wanted. At that point “Gauntlet” underwent a major revamp.

I ripped the entire story apart at the seams. The main character’s name was changed. His occupation changed. His relationship with his girlfriend changed. In all of the previous drafts, there had been two villains in the story who ended up, after separate dealings with the hero, teaming up to try and eliminate him. Both of those villains vanished, as if they had never existed. They were replaced with a single, darker, more realistic villain with a more personal link to the hero. The whole focus of the story changed. I was happier with this newest draft than any of the others I’d written.

For a while, I was with a writer’s critique group. The group was having problems and was falling apart. I felt as if I’d learned as much from the group as I was going to. I was giving serious thought to leaving when I began to read “Gauntlet” to the group. They heard the first few chapters of it. Even after I left the group, I kept their input in mind and wrote yet another draft of “Gauntlet”.

“Gauntlet” was self-published in 2007. It was my third novel. All three had been self-published and all after I left the writer’s group. Promoting “Gauntlet” and my other novels has led to a fairly new publishing company taking notice of my work. My fourth novel, “Predators or Prey?” will be released three days from the writing of this article. “Predators or Prey?” is Book 1 of a new series of horror novels for adults. So, it looks as if I’ll be working on that series for a while as the publisher wants the entire series. Yet I’ve not forgotten “Gauntlet”. Book 2, “Gauntlet: Frigid Excision”, has been outlined and rough drafted. It’s only a matter of time, I think, before the adventures of Elloitt Cronholm continue.

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