The invisible sequel

[Narratio]

Max, that's nothing. I live in Thailand and work all over the world, but carry a Brit passport. The Customs & Immigration guys think I'm into either drug smuggling or kiddie porn.

I left Tenghiz, Kazakhstan in January, had a month at home in Thailand then took the Bangkok-Narita-San Franciso flight to get to Houston, Texas to pick up my new assignment. The C&I guys at SF did everything but probe my butt. The questions were long and harrowing. They spent an hour going through the hard disk on my laptop. Found about 30 pictures of my 4 year old daughter and then when frenzied. The strip search and questions!

C&I: "Where are the rest of the memory sticks for your camera?"
Me: "Huh? The stick is in the camera."
C&I: "Where are the rest? This stick is empty."
Me: "Why should I have pictures on it? I download to my laptop."
C&I" "Who is this child?"
Me: (Look at Screen) "My daughter, that's her birthday party, it was 5 days ago. Why?"
C&I: "What relation are you to these children?"
Me: "Relation? None, they're my kids school friends. The party was at her kindergarten class... Look at the walls and background. There are her teachers and her classmates parents. There's one of me with her teacher."
C&I: "Why do you have these pictures?"
Me: "Huh? It's my daughter... I don't understand?"
C&I: "Sir, we are trying to keep undesirable elements (HE REALLY SAID THIS!) out of our country."

There was another 10 minutes of this. I then put my shoes, belt, jacket and glasses back on. Repacked my bags, loaded the laptop back into its case and left. Total time in C&I - 2hours and 12 minutes as near as I can figure.
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Age and cunning will always beat youth and talent.

[Max]

Yeah, those customs people are a major pain, especialy the american ones. I've got some accuaitances over the atlantic, so I know firsthand about how annoying the C'n'I (see and eye) can be. And they have all these quizzes that they give to croatian people when it's their first time in the US. Some of the questions include: Are you a member of a paramilitairy organisation? Did you serve in the army during '91-'95? Do you have a sexual affection towards animals? (the last one is from the canadian quiz).
The people I'm speaking about have a son on some college in the south of the United States of Apocalypse, and travel there once per year.

And after spending hours half dressed being interrogated by shady, trigger happy characters while your life is rolled out in front of your eyes, you realise that Galactic Customs is actualy a documentary.
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[Narratio]

My last stint of swanning in and out of teh USA was in 2001. Then, to get into the US, they handed out these big green hard card Immigration forms to those who were visa exempt, like the Brits. One of the questions on the back was "Prior to 1931, were you ever a member of the National Socialist Party of Germany? YES / NO".

There we were, 56 years after the end of WW2 and they're asking about this? That one always cracked me up.
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Age and cunning will always beat youth and talent.

[Max]

It seems like yanks are easy to get paranoid about things. I mean, it's not like international organised crime is going to come into the country through the customs office like ordinairy peole, is it?
Frankly, asking people questions like ''Are you a militiaman?'' is apsurd to the point of collective phobia. Notice that I avoid the term terrorist.

And on the point of timeless Goering-o-phobia, maybe the guy who wrote the question was a comic book buff? This does sound really weird, but what is the single, discernable feature appearing in every major graphic novel in the world? Yep, that's right - undying hitler clones, time travelling hitlers, alien hitlers, vimanic hitlers, mecha hitler, and the horror of horrors - hitlerish twins!

What else it there to say about a country that admits photoshopping the green areas of mars. No matter if this story is true or not, it makes the agency in question look like a bunch of monkeys with breathing equipment.
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[Max]

Speaking of americans and political incorrectness, here's something from the last episode of the vampire hunters:

Episode 20.

...
Capt Bulat: «Where am I ? I sure as hell hope it ain't hell.»
Lt Rice: «That's my line.» (smile)
The captain takes a look around the room. It is a low, gray, claustrophobic hospital room, completely unworth of describing.
Capt Bulat: «Where is that damn doctor?»
Dr Ziegel: «Right here. Good to see you back in one piece.»
Capt Bulat: «Why are you all so surprised I'm alive? There's something fishy in here...»
Dr Ziegel: «Nothing, I assure you. I just removed the shrapnel and reconstructed some of those nasty scars. And my collegue fixed up that wound below your neck.»
Capt Bulat: «Reconstructed? You mean like plastic surgery?»
Dr Ziegel: «Yes.»
Capt Bulat: «If I look like Michael Jackson I'm gonna kill you with a piece of mirror!»
Lt Rice: «Well yer more like king Ramsey right now.»
...

It sounded funnier when I wrote it than now that I read it for the n-th time. Adding some emotions and facial expressions into the scene could do a lot for it.

Like for instance:
When Bulat realised the full weight of the situation, he felt like he suddenly woke up in the middle of the Jerry Springer studio, ready to be beat into pulp by members of at least ten different rights groups, as well as a brass knuckled by a few odd members of kkk.
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[Narratio]

I agree. Straight text doesn't carry emotions. You need the textual equivalent of body language and expression.

Would King Ramsey be King Ramses? Which number? The one who accidentally destroyed Syria?
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Age and cunning will always beat youth and talent.

[Max]

[quote="Narratio"]
Would King Ramsey be King Ramses? Which number? The one who accidentally destroyed Syria?[/quote]

As far as the Anne Rice character is concerned, any Ramses. She's a half-literate hick, she wouldn't know a mummy even if it hit her in the head yelling BRAAAAAAINS!.

Ah, sorry, that's zombies. I don't have the slightest idea what would a living mummy yell.
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[TechnoAtheist]

I believe that Mummys tend to either just groan or mumble something about asking your father first.

Ok, back from the east coast and looked over things. I won't really defend our fine, newly acquired over-paranoid "security" (other than to note that things that can be killed can be over-killed, and that most folks tend to believe that the only good reaction is an over-reaction), but I will add that it's best to write from some limited sense of experience.

I've got a fair amount of experience dealing with the types of folks who think about asking the current traveller if they were an active member of the Spanish-American wars or play word association games with "Kaiser" and "Wilhelm". I tend to write things in America because, well, it's the place I know the best. It might be worth it to do the same with yours. You know Europe far better than I do. You can still use America as a destination, but you may find yourself doing goofy things like having the team drive from New York to Dallas in a few hours.

I'd also suggest writing the initial draft in the language you're strongest in first. Most jokes translate pretty darn well (puns don't, but we should be thankful for that). Once you've got the scenes and timing done, then worry about translating it. No need to make this harder than neccessary, right?

And finally, I'm really not one to say this, but doing dialog humor is something best left for the professionals. I read a ton of old Marx Brothers scripts and love to listen to old radio shows. When you do dialog humor, you have to do a lot of work to convey things that normally are spelled out, so you get a lot of characters stating the obvious and doing more banter than you'd normally have. It's hard to describe really, but the best thing to do is to imagine someone over-hearing the conversation.

Once again, Narratio has provided some great feedback. Sorry that mine took so long.

Hope that helps!
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The Grayhound Chronicles
"TGC is less like a web serial and more like the Al Azif in bite-size form."
--~Steve-o

[Max]

It does, but I'm keeping the whole american schtick in the story, for both conceptual and story-related reasons. The difference in culture (or lack of culture in some cases) between american main characters and british/undead/colonial side characters is a major source of humor. Also, the 'shoot first and ask questions later' modus operandi Bulat and Rice use often leads to surprising and plot twisting results. In vampire hunters the only good kill is an overkill. Otherwise it comes back from the dead. Again.

As for geography related issues, I have yet to make a climate-based or distance-based plothole in a story. I try to use locations that I know of, or get information from the internet. I also tend to have a bunch of maps nearby whenever the characters move to a new location.
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[TechnoAtheist]

Ah, cool! Sounds like you've got everything handled then.
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The Grayhound Chronicles
"TGC is less like a web serial and more like the Al Azif in bite-size form."
--~Steve-o

[Max]

Not exactly. I just need a godzillion of hours or so to re-write the whole thing and make the humor actualy funny. Also, I've got a plothole or two big enough to squese a family of wereswine through.

Which may not be such a bad idea, wereswine are a pretty unused part of mythological folklore. And they'd give me a lot of opportunities to use toilet humor, too.
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[Maracus]

Good news, if they manage to hook me into wireless internet here I can actually post that GC story that I've almost finished writing.

Yay!

Should know by the end of the month.
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Those who ask themselves "why?", to the same questions are lacking in creativity. Make something up.

[Narratio]

YAAAAYYYY!!
*Waves sparkler in the air... tries to write name and fails...*
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Age and cunning will always beat youth and talent.

[Max]

Yeeehaw!

(bunch of hicks shooting in the air in undescribeable joy)
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Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

[Ghostbear]