this is the story I'm currently working on..and I've a bit of writer's block. I'm not really sure where to go from here. Any ideas?
Ch 1
House sat at the bar, sipping a glass of Jack Daniels, he’d been there for a few hours and he wasn’t in a very cheery mood, but then again he never was a cheery kind of person. House picked up his drink and finished it off. He then poured himself another drink from the bottle that was sitting next to the glass. He sighed and felt the alcohol burn his throat as it went down. House was pissed off at himself because he and the team had lost a patient today and he blamed himself for it. ‘If only I’d been able to figure out what was wrong! I could’ve saved ’em! Dammit!’ He slammed the drink down his throat again.
House had been there for a few hours, he drove here after work on his bike. He pulled out his wallet and placed a few bills on the bar table. He winced as he felt pain shoot up his leg. He absentmindedly reached for the bottle of Vicodin in his shirt pocket opened the bottle, palmed two, and dry swallowed them. He used his cane to get up from the bar stool and he swayed a bit as the alcohol and pills affected his body. He held onto the bar stool a few minutes until the swaying had subsided. A few moments later he hobbled his way outside and noticed it was raining, not hard but a light rain.
He swung his bad leg over the bike grimacing, he then positioned his cane in place and made sure it was secure. House then started the bike up and started on home to his apartment. Driving home, he wobbled and served as the alcohol, pills and rain added to his already horrible day. He soon comes up to his apartment garage, where the road met the pavement. Unknowingly to House, the speed at which he was going, the pills and alcohol in his system and the rain created a hazard for him as he served to avoid a cat that had wondered out in front of him and he hit a pot hole and was catapulted off his bike and onto the hard cement below.
Upon impact, he slammed his head hard into the pavement, allowing blood to come forth from the head wound. He scraped up his hands and knees. He was in a daze and pain from his head, hands, and feet and especially from his leg was the only thing he felt. Somehow he managed to get out the bottle of Vicodin, pop off the top and dry swallow three pills. He managed to get out his cell phone, and push the button the dial Wilson’s number. He then laid his head down on the pavement and let them do their magic as he drifted off into unconsciousness.
HOUSE MD HOUSE MD HOUSE MD HOUSE MD HOUSE MD HOUSE MD
Wilson was sitting in his office, catching up on paper work when his cell phone went off. He grabbed it and saw that it said “House”. He flipped it open and began to talk, when Wilson didn’t hear anyone responding. He knew that House would never not talk to him. The oncologist began to get worried. He quickly gathered his things and left the office, driving his car over the House’ apartment. Wilson drove his car into the apartment garage and noticed that House’ bike wasn’t in its usual place. As he shut off his car, got out and looked around he was shocked to see his best friend lying on the ground, bloody, unconscious and reeking of alcohol. Wilson got out his phone, dialed the number for PPTH and waited for the ambulance to arrive. He then sat there and comforted his friend the best he could.
CH 2
House opened his eyes and the first thing that registered in his was brain was pain. Pain in his head, hands and feet and especially his leg. The man with the steel blue eyes quickly shut them and fought off a wave of nausea that had overtaken him. The doctor opened his eyes and saw Wilson sitting in a chair next to his bed, sleeping.
“Hey Wilson” House whispered, just audible enough for the oncologist to hear. Wilson’s eyes snapped open and he smiled at his best friend. He got up and walked over to his bed, smiling at him. Wilson then said “How are you feeling House?” “Like I fell off a bike” the older man replied sarcastically. Wilson just grinned and told House the extent of his injuries. “You suffered a nasty concussion, cuts to your hands and feet, and we’re all worried about you House. I know you feel responsible for the death of that patient but you and your team did all you could…”
House just tuned him out as he lay there in his bed looking up at the ceiling. Wilson finally stopped talked and looked at him and saw he was staring at the ceiling. Wilson also knew that House was beating himself up because he felt guilty for the death of that patient. He turned and left the room and left House to his thoughts.
The older man lay in his bed thinking ‘What did I do wrong that I couldn’t save that patient?’ He sighed and pushed the button for the morphine drip as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Wilson, Cuddy, Chase, Foreman, and Cameron all stood outside his room looking in on their friend and colleague laying there in the bed.
Cuddy was the first to speak “I know you are all concerned about House as am I. We all know he’s taking the death of this patient upon himself. We need to help him.” They all nodded in agreement. Little did they know that their friend had been on a self-destructive path for quite some time. The recent death of this patient just pushed House over the edge.
Ch 3 Note: these next two chapters are very dark.
It was past 5 p.m. as James Wilson sat in his office. He should have gone home hours ago, but he couldn’t. He was too damn worried about his best friend House. Wilson sat at his desk, paperwork strewed about. The oncologist had started to work on some of it, when he got sidetracked and he let his mind wander. ‘Paper work is the last thing I want to do. What possessed House to go and do something as stupid as drinking, popping his Vicodin and getting into this accident? Was it intentional? Was it really just an accident?’
Sighing, Wilson collected all the paperwork and put it away in the appropriate files. After doing this, he walked over to his office door, locking it and walked back to his desk. Wilson loosened his tie and uncuffed his button down shirt, then he sat in his chair sighing once more and he let his mind drift back, thinking maybe Wilson could think of why else House was acting the way he was.
Flashback
Greg House sat in his office chair, his right leg, the horrible mangled leg-the essence of his pain, misery and the site of the infarction was stretched out straight before him. His left leg hugged the contours of his desk chair as he sat in it. House’ office was lit only by the desk lamp beside him, the blinds in his office were drawn so that no one could look in, his office door was locked, it was past 5 p.m. House knew that everyone had left for the day. House sat in his office chair, his mouth was dry and his skin was warm, both symptoms of someone who used heroin.
His heart pounded in his chest as House un-cuffed his dress shirt, rolling up his shirt sleeve past his elbow. The doctor turned addict looked at his arm, there on his arm were several yellow-purple and black colored bruises, injection sites. With shaky hands, the blue eyed doctor opened up his blue nylon backpack. After unzipping the nylon bag, he reached in and grabbed the plastic bag. In this bag, were a few hypodermic needles, a metal spoon, a lighter, a tourniquet, and a bag of white powder. He took out the materials and he wrapped the tourniquet around his arm, above his elbow wincing slightly as it tightened. The blue eyed doctor took out the spoon, opened the bag and placed some of the powder on the spoon. With his hands, he lit the bottom of the spoon and waited until the substance had turned into a liquid form. Greg House then took the liquid substance, and poured it into the hypodermic needle. With careful precision, he slid the needle into his arm and pushed down on the plunger, feeling the drug enter his system. He sighed and let the drug take affect.
After the initial rush of the drug wore off, h, then removed the needle from his arm, capped it and removed the tourniquet from his upper arm. He placed all of the items away in the plastic bag, then placed this in the duffel bag and zipped it closed. By this time his arms and legs had begun to feel heavy and he felt himself “going on the nods”-where he would nod his head in a drowsy but wakeful state of mind. The diagnostician laid his head on his desk and was soon feeling the full effects on the injected heroin into his body.
Just as he was closing his eyes, he heard a knock on his office door. His mind, still fuzzy from the drugs took a few second to process this action. House knew that it was Wilson-his one and only friend, his best friend, knocking on the door to see what was up and why he was still in his office. The tall lanky man slowly got up from his desk, buttoned up his dress shirt and put in his sport jacket before coming to the door. Using his cane, he hobbled toward the door. Unlocking and opening it, the older man winced slightly at the light that penetrated his office. His best friend Wilson stood there before him looking confused. Wilson had never seen House like his, his hair was messed up, like he had just woken up, his eyes sunken with dark circles beneath them. Wilson had failed to notice the bruising on House’ arm nor the glassy eyed look that his friend had.
Wilson was the first to speak, he could tell that House was getting annoyed with him standing there not saying anything. “House, what are you doing here so late and why is your office all dark?” House replied “I’m taking a nap, what the hell does it look like I’m doing? Having sex with an imaginary hooker? Don’t think so! Now leave so we can get back to doing it.” He replied snarkily as he pushed his friend outside of the office. As Wilson bid House goodnight, all he could hear was the door being locked and House shuffling back toward his desk. Wilson just thought that House was tired and needed sleep, after all House and his team had been working hard as of late and Wilson knew that it was taking his toll on him.
Wilson was jolted from his dream-like state as he heard knocking coming from his door and someone calling his name, it was the cleaning personnel. He gathered his thoughts and his jacket and everything else and proceeded to open the door, apologizing and saying he had been day dreaming. The worried man left his office and headed straight for House’ hospital room, where he opened the door and let himself in and he took a seat in the uncomfortable chair and watched his friend. Wilson closed his eyes and soon his mind was drifting back to the same thought before.
Ch 4
Wilson sat in his car, with the lights off, waiting for House to leave. Wilson suspected that something was wrong with House-not that he was just tired from the long, hard hours he and his Ducklings had put in. The oncologist didn’t have to wait very long for House to come out. He sighed and sat there and waited.
Back in his office:
House gingerly sat down at his desk, his mind still reeling from the drugs and the talk with Wilson. Slowly, after several minutes of just sitting, the doctor gathered up his cane, motorcycle jacket, and backpack and opened the door to his office. The diagnostician winced at the bright lights that lit the hall way and he made his way down it, and outside to the parking lot. House shuffled on over to his bike, he first swung his right leg over the bike and grimaced as pain shot up it. The drugged out man sat comfortably as he could, with his cane securely fastened to the bike, he started it up and quickly drove home to his apartment. Wilson followed House home and what he saw when he got there shocked him. The lean-framed brown haired oncologist, hid beneath the bushes near House’ front door and peered inward. Wilson wasn’t the kind of person to sneak around his friends’ back but if House knew what he was doing, he’d kick his butt for sure.
When House got there, and had put the bike in its HANDICAP parking space, he somehow managed to make it up to his apartment, unlock the door, open it and stumble in. The self-absorbed man managed to take off his leather jacket, sport jacket and hobble into the kitchen where he got a few beers. As he closed his refrigerator door, his right leg hit it and pain like fire shot up his leg and made him gasp and curse loudly. He opened a bottle of beer, setting it on the countertop, and then he reached into his shirt pocket and grabbed his bottle of Vicodin, which he opened and poured out two white pills. Putting the cap back on the bottle and then putting the bottle in his pocket, the lanky thin man popped the two pills in his mouth which he chased down with a swig of his beer.
After drinking the beer and taking the Vicodon, House holding the few beer bottles, shuffled on into his bedroom where he slid the backpack from his shoulders, as he sat down on his bed. He tossed his cane next to him on his bed. The cloudy eyed drugged out man, unzipped his blue backpack and retrieved the plastic bag from inside. Opening up the plastic bag, he gathered up its contents and smiled wryly. As they lay before him on his bed, he took a drink from his beer bottle. He could feel himself nodding off again-because of the heroin in his body. He took another long drink of his beer and set it down on the nightstand. Using the materials that were laid out on his bed, he was soon high not only from the heroin, but from the Vicodin and drunk from the two or three bottles of beer he had drunk. House soon passed out on his bed, the needle still in his arm, empty beer bottles strewn around his bedroom and a look of sadness, despair and loneliness in his eyes as they slowly shut and the man fell into a drug induced sleep.
The brown haired man, sat shocked at his best friend’s body as it lay across the bed. James Wilson tried to rationalize House’ actions in his mind, to try and convince himself that House was suffering from a too much hard work. After several minutes of trying to convince himself of this fact, he sighed and came to the only logical conclusion he could: Greg House was a heroin addict.
Wilson was awakened by Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. After opening his eyes, Wilson looked up at Cuddy, who looked as equally worried and tired as he did. They both looked at House who was still out cold from the morphine drip he had been given for the pain from the accident. The tired man stood up, grimaced at how his body had uncomfortably become accustom to the hard wooden hospital chairs. Cuddy handed Wilson a cup of coffee as she smiled a weak smile at him. He took a sip and then looked at her, giving her a forced smile. He then whispered “Cuddy, we need to talk, I know what’s wrong with Greg”
Lisa Cuddy knew that Wilson only used House’ first name when something very bad was going on. She motioned him to follow her out of the room, where they went to her office. After several minutes of silence, Wilson told Cuddy about the flashback/dream that he had had in his office earlier that night. Lisa Cuddy came to the same realization as Wilson had that Greg House was a heroin addict. She began to cry as Wilson got up from his chair, walked over and gave her a hug and let her cry on his shoulder.
Chapter 5
Meanwhile back in House’ room:
House was going thru heroin withdrawal, it had only been about 5 hours since his last injection, but in that time, the pain from his motorcycle accident had intensified, along with the pain in his bad right leg. He was sweating profusely from the withdrawal symptoms. Sweat poured off him, his graying hair matted to his forehead, he winced as the sweat stung his eyes and he quickly wiped it away. The hospital gown he was wearing stuck to his skin, like how you would feel in a sauna with a t-shirt on. His leg hurt with a vengeance now, his body tensed up as he tried to shift to a more comfortable position ‘If that’s even possible.’ thought House.
He laid himself done in a not as painful position and continued to feel his body hurt immensely because of the heroin withdrawal and motorcycle accident pain. His body was shaking, like he was having a seizure and in a sense he was. The sick man felt himself starting to have the urge to heave. Quickly, but what seemed like forever, he pushed the call button and a nurse came in. “Hand me the damn trashcan!” he yelled. The nurse, terrified of House, quickly scooped up the trashcan from the floor and handed it to him. The scared nurse, almost in tears asked “Do you need anything else Dr. House?” House whose head was practically in the trashcan, was heaving the contents of his stomach said nothing. When the sick man pulled his head out of the trashcan, and wiped his mouth with the hospital down, he yelled at her “What kind of nurse are you to watch a man puke his head off into a trashcan? I don’t need anything! Now get out and close the blinds before you leave!” he roared at her. The young scared nurse, quickly ran out the room but before she did, she closed the window blinds like he had asked, then she shut the door and left the sick man to lie on his bed.
House laid his head down on the uncomfortable hospital pillow and sighed. His body was still slick with sweat, his head hurt from yelling and his chest and stomach hurt from the little food he had in it that was now in the trashcan. The pale skinned man placed the smelly, small trashcan just in reach of his body and he reached up to where the morphine drip was and turned it up some more. His blue eyes were now dulled with the pain medication soon closed and succumbed to sleep Little did he know, that his two closest friends and comrades were watching his sleep.
As their friend lay sleeping in morphine induced sleep, Cuddy and Wilson watched sadly that even in sleep House couldn’t find peace from the pain that always plagued him-the pain from his addiction and his leg. They both knew that House was addicted to the Vicodin and now heroin and if they weren’t careful, soon he’d be addicted to the morphine.
Wilson was the first to speak “Cuddy, if we don’t do something soon House is going to kill himself. We need to help him and we both know that deep down inside House wants help too but he’s his stubborn, snarky, smart ass self that prevents him from asking for it.”
Through the tears, Cuddy answered “Wilson, I know you’re right. We have to help him. But let’s take this one step at a time. First we need to make sure he gets healed from his motorcycle accident injuries and in the process we’ll wean him off the morphine. I think we also need to let his ducklings know.”
They agreed and assured the other one that they’d go home, shower, eat and change and meet back at the hospital at 10 in the morning, after all it was almost midnight and they were both very tired. They bid each other good night and were soon off to their respective homes.
Chapter 6
At 10 a.m. the next morning, Wilson and Cuddy met Foreman, Cameron and Chase in the Diagnostics office. Hesitant to speak of the news, they each sat with their own cups of coffee, sipping the hot drink. The tension and nervousness of everyone filled the room.
Cuddy was the first to speak “House was in an accident last night. He has some broken bones, bruises and cuts. The bruises and cuts are healing nicely. The thing we’re most concerned about is his heroin withdrawal.” Her voice was choked with emotion, as she said the last few words. Cameron started crying immediately and both Chase and Foreman sat in their chairs feeling shocked but their faces stood expressionless. The room was silent except for Cameron’s crying and no one said a word for several minutes.
God and peace
Vanessa :)
I'll have more later, but for now I want to ask you a question? Just in a vague sense where do you see this going? I realize you're blocked, but just to get an idea of what to tell you to do next, I want to get an idea of what you already know.
Do you have a few scenes in your mind that range of the story, or possibly even the way you want it to end, and you're just working on connecting the dots? What I guess I'm getting at is what ignited the spark on this initially?
It is interesting, so don't give up, although I could point out a few technical and formatting things that could make it even better--and I promise I will, but it's the weekend and my brain has informed me that for the most part it plans to be off duty for anything besides TV, light reading and video gaming.
Then of course, sometimes you need to put something aside and work on something else to fool your subconscious into coming up with something. Most importantly dont' get stressed about it. Trust me, it never helps--even though I'm doing it as we speak over various blocks of my own.
Yeah, I've written quite a few stories, fan fiction and otherwise, that are also attempts to deal with my own hang ups.
I seem to suffer a lot of blocks myself so I'm probably not the one to ask for help, but here goes.
I don't know what your plans are in this regard, but how does House get on Heroin? I realize we've seen him use Morphine, which is in the same class, but as far as we know that was mostly an emerency measure. Granted with all the recent messing about with his Vicodin, he may have decided to indulge on a less emergent basis in that, but I don't know that it would be a direct jump for him to go from using the Morphine, to buying and shooting Heroin. Especially since, as he's a physician he does have some access to "safer" drugs at least initially. Please note I'm not saying that he couldn't get there eventually, it's entirely likely that he could, I'd just like to see how he gets there, rather than right now just hearing Oh, yeah he's on the serious stuff now. Maybe you'd already planned on showing us this later on in the story, but if you haven't planned on doing it, I think you should.
I think you could get some additional scenes out of answering those questions. I can't say for certain where you should insert them, you'll have a better idea of that because you're in touch with the flow of the story. Anway, I'd like to see his descent a bit more at some point. Also, I'm assuming by the scenes we see he's actually buying the stuff off the street. I see some tension coming in there too. We're somewhat divided on the question of House's prior history with drugs (FYI it all centers around the "drug user" in Three Stories his story is the one that belongs to the patient identified that way, but whether he continues to refer to that patient as a drug user because he really did have a drug problem at that point, or just because that's who that patient was in everyone's mind at that point, no one knows for sure; on one hand, House seems the type who wouldn't have been adverse to dabbling a little bit in college or high school, on the other I dont' know that I can believe him as a full-on junkie at that point), and you'll have to decide for yourself what it is exactly for the story you want to tell. The thing is what goes through his mind and what prompts his decision to go out there the first time and find a street dealer? How does he know where to find one? What's he thinking as he's going there, or standing and waiting for the dealer to show up? It probably gets easier for him each time it goes, and that may be a journey you're going to want to show us too, but the first time it couldn't have been easy.
I wouldn't neccessarily worry about it having been done before. I hate to say it, but everything has been done before. The key is you haven't done it before, so it's new in that way. Go ahead and tell the story the way you have to/want to tell it, and then decide if it's derivative later. It probably won't be so long as you watch out for the cliches.
Now for a few of the technical things.
the first is that since you can't indent for a new paragraph on this board, as far as I know, you'll want to leave a line of blank space between paragraphs. This makes it easier to read than when it just resembles a giant block of text.
the next has to do with the way you set up dialogue. Right now it's imbedded in the text, again, this is hard to read. You want it somewhat like this:
Wilson opened the door to House's refridgerator and inspected the contents with a sigh,
"You do realize there's nothing in here don't you", he asked.
"Is too, " said House.
"Ketchup and a head of wilted lettuce along with a half empty jar of peanut butter from the cabinets do not a meal make".
"Well, if it drives you so crazy, why don't you go to the story?"
etc.
Finally, and this is a mistake many writers make, you don't need to keep coming up with different names to refer to House, like "the blue eyed man", "the drugged out man", etc. House and/or Greg, and he/him should be fine. With some, such as the "drugged out man" just show us that he's drugged out, or if it's obvious already, don't mention it.
As a matter of fact, just in general, don't flat out tell the readers something when you can show it to us via the narrative. Instead of saying a character is tired for instance, show us the dark circles under his eyes, the way he keeps trying to rub the grit out of his eyes, the way his mind can't hold onto a though without effort, that sort of thing.
Like I said, I think you can get a decent story out of this, and, as i said, the last bits are more about craftmanship of the story anyway. I hope you break your block soon and that the heavy stuff in your own life lightens up soon too.
Always glad to help. Seriously.
I get what you're saying about changing things up. There are some rules people get caught up in that don't really hold, plus the pros. break the rules all the time--my advice of course is first learn the rules, and why they're there, so that when you break one it's intentional and for good reason, then once you've done that, you're good to break them as badly as you want; I'd even encourage it. Pick up a book or short story and you'll notice that for the most part the writer just alternates between the character's name and the pronoun (he/she/it). A lot of times if you see one of the pros doing it, then as long as you have a good reason you can too.
On the other hand if the comment you're getting after the pronoun are "who?"s, then what they're getting at is that every so often, not neccessarily every other sentence, but close, you need to reidentify who the he/she is. Like, House had always hated Mondays, even when he was a little kid. This morning he rolled over in bed and hit the snooze alarm. I'm a department head, I can come in late if I want, he thought. When it went off for the fourth time he decided he'd better get out of bed into the shower. House preferred long showers. . .
Instead of,
House had always hated Mondays, even when he was a little kid. This morning he rolled over in bed and hit the snooze alarm. I'm a department head I can come in late if I want to. When it went off for the fourth time he decided he'd better get out of bed and into the shower. He preferred long showers. . . .
That may not be quite long enough to demonstrate it, though I might have been wiser to reidentify a sentence earlier too, but you go with he too long, especially when multiple characters are involved, and the reader starts to wonder which one is this again, and that means they're not concentrating on your story anymore.