Writing Equation

Hunters of the Dark Moon I struggled to write the Vampire Story for months. I wrote some notes, but most of the ideas were still in my head. I needed a “writer” to help me flesh the ideas out and put them down on paper. I looked around in the Coronado library and something told me “that is a writer”. I was so dead on the money correct. However I was not expecting the rather inappropriate action/reaction I received from her and her friend Hank. Our first writing meeting was mostly John Cox and I playing Vampire with me trying to be serious but I had a very small amount of maturity to actually put the ideas forward. In my head I was being a good writer, acting out the scenes, in reality it was nothing more than a 15-year-old playing vampire and vampire hunter. Dawn brought Hank and my story changed close to instantly. Months and months later Dawn came up with the “Hunters of the Dark Moon”, although hunters had been part of the concept ideas for the title. Is a title created by Dawn Smit  Hunters was semi my name. However, the Dark Moon is all Dawn Smit, the character of Nancy is mostly hers based on her own personality schema. The character of Gregory is her and Hank Snider  ; Gregory is all Hank it is not a reflection of Hank it is almost entirely him, which close to perfectly transferred to the screen by David. Two people who were in my life in good and hell ways. More details about our violent and mostly inappropriate (in a very true way cuckolding power dynamic) experiences over several separate interactions over the course of our late teens early 20s and a bit in our late 20s, each time ended with huge verbal arguments and cutting contact with each other entirely. Hoping maturity would have some affect I allowed a return to contact 3 times after I left Colorado the first time. I learned wonderful things and was also betrayed in solid ways on a couple occasions. But I did learn life lessons from them. My original Vampire story and original character was altered by a, at the time, far better writer and more confident person Hank. My Shaffer character was altered from being the Vampire as he sprang from my imagination and had been for the previous couple months; he morphed into how Hank saw me at 15. In his own words he described me through the character which took on the name Schaffer after a teacher at Coronado High school science department. The newly named Shaffer which I instantly named sitting in my science class at Coronado and Mr. Schaffer walked in to the class to interact with my actual teacher. I later asked Mr. Shaffer if I could use his surname, he agreed. The  character Punk from Escape from New York. Which is how Hank saw me, not how I saw Shaffer. But I was too weak and timid at the time to stand up for myself. I also did not have the writing skills needed to push what I wanted. Shaffer became a caricature of that the named Punk from said movie which is how Hank and I presume Dawn saw me. Which is fine, how people perceive you is a reflect of their own good or bad stuff. One of the few things about Dr Phil McGrew I like is this quote “I what about me do I dislike I see reflected in you”. Meaning on a caricature has little to do with who someone actually is, and everything to do with how someone sees you. If they see a good person, than no matter what the person does they still see good till the evidence is beyond overwhelming. If they see a bad person, no amount of good will ever convince them the person is good. Which is the central plot to more than a few movies, but a big one is “Who Shot Liberty Valence”. The guy who the community forced to take the credit, did not shoot, the guy who actually did the shot was a person the town did not like much at all. Well acted by Henry Fonda and John Wayne respectively. The two of them wrote the story based on their budding romance fictionalized between Gregory and Nancy. How intimate Hank and Dawn became is a “how cares; most definitely not me”. Once they assaulted me for the second or third time, I seriously stopped caring. How intimate Gregory and Nancy became, I refused to read dawn’s script so I have no idea. But how that I think about it, I am a bit annoyed. Buffy is the character Dawn Smit came up with. which is not all that different from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and … Buffy is clearly Dawn Smit’s schema character of Nancy. The characters minus the cheerleader high school thing are identical. Although Dawn’s Nancy was more of a seductress, going into in effect vampire bars, isolating “new vampires” to kill them while they try to bite her in the alleyway. Gregory is close to identical in most ways up to and in Although Lothoes is close to my character of Shaffer, very old and very European upper class, not like Lestat who pretended he was upper class. I did not have the ability to fill in the details of what Shaffer was like. Angel is dead on the money to Hank’s character of Gregory. Like almost dead on the money, pulled straight from Hank’s mind onto the performance of David Boreanaz. But since Hank owned Gregory, and Dawn created Nancy, they had the rights to do what they wanted. My back up group of the 3 brothers and the wife of the oldest became after thinking about it for a few minutes. It appears my original notes of the core 5 characters And the 2 additional characters Plus, the character of Yvonne (Darla who is all but directly from my notes my character of Evonne is Gregory/Angels Sire. Again, I have zero belief that Joss has or had any knowledge these characters very likely came from me. I do have complete belief that Hank could have provided the idea and my characters to a sequence of people which ended with Joss.) Somehow went from my head to Hank and somehow more than 80% of my ideas and characters came off of Joss Whedon computer about 8 years later to create Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have less than zero doubt Mr. Whedon did absolutely anything wrong at all in effect copying my work of 10 years previous. How he created the idea or came up with the tv series characters I am sure on his side is 110% innocent in all ways. However, I have a huge doubt whether Hank might have in some way, shape, or form created some type of bridge of information from his writer’s groups to LA people where Joss might have heard of it on the grape vine. I can explain the timeline exactly of my vampire story from first synapse fire up till I had to stop working on the idea for family and other reasons. However, the 4 members who came out of the elevator in that first flash of the story are give or take the following characters, legally created more than 10 years later by someone else.   I outlined the elevator scene in very rough Vampire Story My Robert became Wesley Windom-Pryce Roberts wife became Winifred Buerkle / Illyria Middle brother became Xander Harris/ Riley Finn.  I had two scenes with the standard plot outlined before I met Dawn. Hank and Dawn created the “Have a Heart” Scene where they kill Shaffer. My Evonne became almost from my mind onto the tv as the character of Darla; played too close to perfection by Julie Benz. Hank I guess might have had a hand in selling his character of Gregory to Paramount which name changed to Angel. Dawn’s character of Nancy became Buffy the Vampire slayer. My original characters came into play with the tv series. zz zz zz zz zz zz zz

References

TR Welling