Brian J. N. Davis ✈︎ A Metropolitan Guide

Execution Style

You can tell me a story, suffocate the page
Get into the bloodstream annihilate the veins
Cause a little damage cause a little pain
Blow away your narrator execution, close range
Don't let the dust settle before you're on your way
strategies and tactics don't matter in the fray
When the vipers come a snapping, let the venom flow
it doesn't matter without a narrator no one's going to know
When you introduce the characters let 'em scream and shout
So when you put them in the gutter you'll know what silence is about
When you think they're gone forever, bam let 'em reappear
and once you're getting comfortable make 'em disappear
And when one unexpectedly turns into a pest
No one will give a second thought when he's murdered by the rest
Make two more fall in love and then let them fall away
then they can kill each other, that's the best way
You can add in some betrayal but that's a little overdone
but if you do it do it quick with a crossbow or a gun

Have a few walk away into the great beyond
Then everyone can contemplate if they're truly gone
You'll need to go and add a few scattered bartenders
You know, someone to listen to the rest of your characters
And as for the setting you're gonna need their inn
Because that's pretty much where every single journey begins
At some point the hero will have to travel to grow
To find a teacher with knowledge that only they know
It's probably an old man or a female spirit tree
Or some mystic creature like a fox or coyote
Then add in a love interest who's after his heart
She's probably going to be terrible, at least at the start
Probably safe to assume they'll end up in bed
And then eventually she's gonna end up dead
At the hands of a villain, who used to be a friend
Whose loyalty somewhere was allowed to bend
And if you find the plot starting to wear a little thin, that's when you introduce someone's long lost twin
Maybe ones evil, maybe ones good
I'm not saying to kill one, but I'm saying you could
Make sure and leave the one who everybody likes
Definitely quotable but doesn't have to fight
Put them through the wringer, kill their friends too, then everyone will sympathize with their point of view

Your cast of characters is going to constantly expand that's why you got to kill him off while you got the chance
Perhaps you're gonna have the villain die in the end
that's an easy one to have the hero murder his friend
You can even have the hero die of old age
long after the story has move past the page
If there's a character lingering around
and you find them in the way dragging your story down
you can set one up with a dramatic trial
then you can put them down, execution-style
Your audience will scream and your audience will shout
But it's that raw emotion that what it's really all about
Whether it's blood or tears dripping from the text
It's only purpose is to set up what's going to happen next
With all these characters dropping kind of hard figure out
What exactly if anything the story is all about
But if you can't wrap it up and don't know what to do
That's all right it means you're ready for story number 2