Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot
Casting Characters by Auditions, Creating the Story World for Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot … by Stephen Bly with Janet Chester Bly
The call for casting characters for the fiction project, Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot, came as a fun challenge to me and my three sons. My husband, award-winning western author Stephen Bly, dictated these sketchy notes in the hospital … before he passed away a few weeks later:
Willamette Valley orphan farm
Lair Apishamore, a character in Hawthorne Miller dime novel
Romal Vug, a character in Hawthorne Miller dime novel
Bluff Tarrabee, a character in Hawthorne Miller dime novel
Jinette, a young singer, a character in Hawthorne Miller dime novel
Hawthorne H. Miller, author of Wild West dime novels, is in Portland.
Tally Rebozo, Brannon’s new partner, searches for Tom Wiseman. But is Rebozo a Serbian spy?
Only lead is a man called Sully.
They find Sully at the Black Duck Saloon.
There’s a Turkish diamond merchant.
President Theodore Roosevelt
Tom Wiseman, U.S. Marshal friend of Brannon’s, last seen near Gearhart, Oregon, a week before.
T.R., Teddy Roosevelt, wants whole disappearance mystery cleared up before he gets there.
Lax Wanigan, a former outlaw connected to the First National Bank robbery in Globe, Arizona.
Sylvia Wiseman, Tom Wiseman’s daughter who is head bookkeeper for Consolidated Mining in Goldfield, Nevada. Consolidated Mining sponsors a huge Taj Mahal shaped pavillion at the Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland. She gets off train in Portland and hasn’t been seen since.
Do either of the disappearances have to do with the big ditch, which means the Panama Canal, an important poject of T.R.’s?
Then he handed me two more pages of potential casting characters with just their names. We auditioned them all for acting jobs in this adventure story set in Oregon 1905. Some made the cut. Others didn’t. Edwin Fletcher won by unanimous vote. Here’s one of the screen tests for him . . .
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A DIALOGUE BETWEEN (LORD) EDWIN FLETCHER AND STUART BRANNON:
Stuart: “When we first met, you were half-frozen and looking for gold at the Little Yellowjacket. Before that, you told me you’d been in northern India trying to keep the Monguls and Hindus from killing each other.”
Edwin: “Yes, quite right.” His eyes misted over in a faraway gaze. “Just doing my duty.”
Stuart: ”Ah, yes, to decency. To mankind. To God. So, you think you can move about like you did back there at Broken Arrow Crossing days? What have you been doing the last ten years?”
Edwin: “Mostly I sit around English gardens sipping tea and managing world affairs. Dreadfully boring. How about you, Brannon?”
Stuart: “I’ve been ranching and trying to be a father and grandpa.”
Edwin: “You miss the old days?”
Stuart: “I don’t miss the backbreaking work of single-handed keeping bad guys under control. But I do miss the sense that we lived in momentous, history making times.”
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Here’s some casting characters with their unique monikers on Stephen’s list we didn’t use: Apishamore, Dabster, Flasharity, and Squat. If you’re working on a fiction story and casting characters of your own that will bring spice and humor, you’re welcome to hire one of them.
Some of the names on his casting characters list that stayed:
Lax Wanigan, although we changed it to Wax Lanigan and determined he somehow needed to have a meltdown. He had run-ins with both Stuart Brannon and Tom Wiseman. Is seen as an upstanding citizen by most all the other characters. He is on Willamette Orphan Farm board of directors and pursues Sylvia Wiseman as a love interest.
Tally Rezobo, claims to be an agent for the government, under special orders from President Theodore Roosevelt. Is an inveterate ladies’ man.
Potential character in Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot reading 1905 Oregonian newspaper.
Knows crime detection and a crude sort of forensics, 1905 style.
Quintus ‘Q.’ Sully, a partner in the Consolidated Mining Company of Goldfield, Nevada with Sylvia Wiseman and is very protective of her.
Argentiferous Jones, a street thug who seems like an actor Jack Elam type. He is known in the Wild West dime novels as “the man who killed Stuart Brannon.”
Slash Barranco, a train robber and street thug.
Sylvia Wiseman travels to Exposition on behalf of the mine and to meet up with her father, Tom Wiseman, at Gearhart, Oregon for her 40th birthday. Helps Brannon search for him.
Tom Wiseman is the missing U.S. Marshal friend of Brannon’s. Attended Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition on orders from President Theodore Roosevelt. Recent widower with three daughters. One of the most challenging characters for us to develop as we knew so little about him, yet he’s the central figure in the story.
Additional challenge for the Bly family writing team in the whole process: to get the casting characters to talk to each other and discover surprises about them that pushed the story forward.
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Go to this link to find the rest of the story about writing the novel Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot: https://www.blybooks.com/category/finishing-dads-novel/
Go here to order Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot and The Stuart Brannon Series: https://www.blybooks.com/product_category/historical-western-novels/
For writers, more information on casting characters for your own novels: http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/casting.html
Casting characters for a novel is little different from casting roles for a motion picture. Check it out here at Venture Galleries Blog for Readers & Writers: http://bit.ly/11lEatR
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YouTube video book trailer for the western novel series, Book #7 Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/ZZqu6iaObhY[/youtube]
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