War Story

 

Sorry, that's Battlezone, not War Zone.

Trying to see if I can push through and finish the New Mexico book over this holiday's break. That break is short, though. A lot shorter than it was when I first joined the company. 

Anyhow, I got through the Duel sequence and now the outline calls to go back to Albuquerque.

But I got hung up on the best way to present the idea of what locals call the War Zone. Some locals disagree with that name, although they aren't willing to go as far as the city, which rebranded it as the International District. Point is, crime got so bad there by the '90s the city put up barricades. As of the period of the story, it is still one of the most violent places in America.

Of course I want to paint a more nuanced picture than some depraved hive of scum and villainy. 

Up until this morning, I figured "Michael Rennie" would warn her about it before she went...and she wouldn't run into any trouble. (Penny runs into a lot of people she never gets a name for. This guy, she imagined a resemblance to the actor and lead of The Day the Earth Stood Still.) 

Before that, I was tempted for her to actually run into trouble.

Now I'm tempted to have the cops pull her over for suspiciously driving slowly around the kind of place that, in their words, a nice girl like her had no business being. I like this because she's in her mind on the run (she did flee the scene of an accident) and having to interact with the police makes a good dramatic moment.

But other than that, I don't like it. So I'm thrown back into watching videos shot by various visitors and locals (like Peter Santenello, a stalwart for this sort of thing), gathering up any kind of interesting whatever that will make having this as a location have a point. Since her next stop is near Roswell, not here.