Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,111

his jowls and he starts panting like the happiest dog on Planet Earth.

“You bad guys got it real good right now. You have all the power. But that’s over. Done. For you, it doesn’t get better. In fact, from here on out?

“It gets a whole lot worse.”

Whitey licks her face.

She nods at the camera, then hits the space bar again.

The red light goes away. Recording, over.

“We good?” she asks Shane.

He comes, checks the laptop, gives her a thumbs-up. “We got it. You nailed it. I’ll get that on YouTube by the end of the week. Just in time for the new school year.”

“Cool. Want a celebration cookie?” she asks, pointing to the plate on the bed.

Shane makes a face like he just ate a lemon rubbed in dog dirt.

They both laugh, and Whitey lays his head on Atlanta’s shoulder.

Everything feels a little bit all right.

For now.

Author’s Notes

This was a hard one to write.

The difficulty is many-headed with a book like this; a hydra with a number of unanticipated (and decidedly bitey) heads.

First, the subject matter. Dogs, I love. Dog fights, not so much. Dogs fighting mean dogs getting hurt. Dogs getting hurt is a helluva lot harder to write than people getting hurt. Maybe that’s because I possess the assumption that dogs are generally innocent and people are—what? As bad as they are good? I have no idea. But dogs and children, both very hard to hurt in fiction. And yet, therein lies the authorial truth—that which hurts us to write is, at least in theory, effective to read.

Second, the format. The entire Atlanta Burns series offers a somewhat curious journey toward its birth. Atlanta Burns was a character name that lived inside my head, and so was the title Shotgun Gravy. And, for that matter, so was the title Bait Dog alongside the rough plot of this book (at one time I’d charted a novel with Bird as a protagonist). The first two elements (character and title) crashed together one day and that first novella sprung like a fully-formed creature from my shattered eggshell skull, and ended up as the novella you (hopefully) read. I then started to rethink the original Bait Dog story, seeing how it fit better in Atlanta’s world—Atlanta’s story is very much one about bullies and people exerting power over others, and dog fighting is that precisely. Pushing around a child or kicking a dog is an act of mistreatment no matter how you slice it.

Bait Dog, though, created for me a problem. Originally the plan was to write a series of novellas and work ‘em like television episodes. Each independent from the other, but each also carrying forward a major central plotline which, for a while, plays the B-plot to the independent story’s A-plot. So, in this way it’s episodic first, but serialized second. (If you watch a show like Burn Notice or Leverage, you grok my lingo on this.)

The first novella, Shotgun Gravy, sold well enough, and during a free promotion I gave away thousands of copies the book. But novellas don’t see a long life and, further, it’s not like they’re ever going to rake in fat stacks of sweet cash. Plus, I’d gone ahead and outlined three novellas and the next in line was Bait Dog. Even without addressing the Chris Coyne “murder” all that much, the outline was beyond what a novella should really be in terms of length. I was looking at bare minimum 40,000 words of story.

I knew I didn’t want the Chris murder to be the initial “A-plot” of the book, but I wanted it in there more robustly than it already was (and of course now that we’re at the end of the book I can say that the dog fight plotline dovetails and becomes the Chris-murder plot by the end, both tangled together like two fornicating eagles as they drop toward the earth). So, I re-outlined the whole damn thing as a novel. And it worked, at least in my head (it’s up to you to tell me if it didn’t work in practice).

Third difficulty was just trying to sort out what this book needed to be. Even before the Kickstarter there was some talk about maybe shopping this around, but that necessitated making some concessions I didn’t want to make in terms of “keeping it YA” (and more on that in a moment).

Plus, was it a standalone novel? A first book? A second? It had to be a sequel to Shotgun Gravy, but was it also supposed to be able to live on its own as a separate story? It couldn’t, not really, not unless it either a) pulled out the entire Chris plotline or b) reintroduced a number of elements, which threatened redundancy. In the end, I decided that the people who backed this puppy on Kickstarter did so because they liked the novella, and because they want a sequel to that. As such, I chose to clearly and without reticence make this a “second in the series,” connecting the novel directly to the novella (which is why for the electronic version both will exist in the same text, so you can, if you want, read SG and move straight into BD).

Fourth difficulty was the fact that I didn’t—and still don’t—know where this book falls, exactly. It’s YA-esque. It’s got a YA-protagonist who deals with YA-like things (other kids, bullying, drugs, school). But it’s also a dark-edged crime-flavored detective-scented tale of a girl doing things she should not do in pursuit of revenge against the awful sumbitches present in this world of hers. As such, I’m still willing to call it YA, or “YA-with-a-twist-of-A,” but I don’t know that I’ll categorize it as such at, say, Amazon.

The good news was (is?), Atlanta Burns is a character I had no trouble slipping back into. None at all. Some characters are like that for me. Miriam Black of my Blackbirds series is similar—it’s like a skin I wear, a voice I inhabit. It’s positively voodou-like, where I am the horse and the character is the spirit that rides me. I’ve got a little Atlanta Burns in me, and it takes nothing at all to tease her out.

Hopefully you enjoy her enough, because another book will be incoming in the next year sometime (first half of 2013). I have some ideas and outlines tumbling around, but more on that later. Let’s just get through this one, first.

Thanks, everybody, for supporting me, supporting her, and for helping bring stories to life.

Donate

If you are so inclined, please donate to your favorite animal charity.

Or rescue a shelter dog.

Charities could include: ASPCA, Dogs for the Deaf, Guide Dogs of America, HALO Animal Rescue, or the Millan Foundation. I do not include PETA, as they are generally an enemy of the pit bull breed. I find their ethics and practices questionable. YMMV.

Now, go hug your pets.

And support gay marriage!

And be awesome to people.

Etc. etc.

Thanks!

Thanks To These Following Awesome Human Beings For Making This Book Happen:

Adam Maxwell

Adam Rains

Amber Hansford

Amber Keller

Amy Blume

Anders Smith

Andrea Phillips

Andy Vann

Ann Lemay

Becky Kroll

Benoit J. Girard

Bill Cameron

Bree Bridges

Brendan Gannon

Brian Engard

Brian Ruth

Brian White

Bronwyn Emery Ashbaker

Cara Peterson

Carl Rigney

Carl S. Park III

Chad Kallauner

Chris Hyde

Christopher Gronlund

Christopher Meyer

Christopher Staskel

Craig Payne

Damien Walter

Dan Conley

Darcey Wunker

Dave Versace

David Turner

Deanna Ogle

Denise Lhamon

Derrick Eaves

Douglas Fasching

Ed Kurtz

Eddy Webb

Edward Moore

Elisabeth Zimmerman

Eliza Rose

Eric Zimmerman

Erik DeBill

Ethan Ralph

Eva Therese Ebert

Fabio Fernandes

Fred Hicks

Fred Kiesche

Gareth-Michael Skarka

Holly Kraft

Ian Brown

Ian Mehr

Imelda Evans

J.C. Hutchins

James Alley

James Burbidge

James Galloway

James Melzer

Jeanne Bowerman

Jeff Rutherford

Jennie Spotila

Jeremy Kostiew

Joel Gerhold

John D. Adamus

John Johnson

John Vekar

John Vise

Jonathan Bray

Jonathan Schafer

Jordan Gibson

Joseph O'Toole

Joshua Loomis

Julie E. Stratton

Katharine McNerney

Katherine Ressman

Kelly Barnes

Kelly J. Cooper

Ken Preston

Kerry Freeman

Kevin Chauncey

Kevin Veale

Kimberly Horne

Kristin Hayworth

Kristina VanHeeswijk

Laura Anderson

Lauren Roy

Leslie Berry

Liana Weiland

Lisa Janice Cohen

Lora Hibbard

Lucas Johnson

Lydia Ondrusek

Marguerite Kenner

Maria C.

Mark O'Shea

Mary Alice Kropp

Matt Forbeck

Matthew Funk

Matthew White

Meg Merwart

Melissa Harkness

Merry Mahaffey

Michael Andersen

Michael May

Michael Montoure

Michael Wolfe

Mike de Jong

Mike Young

Mitch Dyer

Monica Palladino

Morgan Collins

Morgan Ellis

Name

Naomi Alderman

Nick Olivo

Nicole Lindroos

Nina Bargiel

Nina Niskanen

Paul Barrett

Peter Friedrichsen

Peter Hentges

Peter Sturdee

Poppy Arakelian

Priscilla Spencer

Rachel Sasseen

Rob Sharp

Robert Donoghue

Robert Skutinsky

Rowan Cota

Ryan Jassil

Ryan Olson

Ryan Williamson

Sabrina Ogden

Sam DeFabbia-Kane

Sara Wolkov

Scott Rawlings

Sean Chercover

Shannon squire

Shawn Ingram

Shawn McGee

Shoshana Kessock

Stephen Blackmoore

Teesa Alaniz

Tom Hunter

Tom Mink

Tracy Collie

Will Hindmarch

William Pepper

Zack Walters

Table of Contents

Praise For Blackbirds

Praise For Shotgun Gravy

Praise For Double Dead

Praise For Irregular Creatures

Other Work by Chuck Wendig

Copyright

Dedication

A Note

Novella: Shotgun Gravy

Bait Dog

Prologue: The Boy in the Pear Tree

Part One: Withers Quicker Than the Rose

Part Two: The Farm

Part Three: Kissing Fire

Part Four: Bait Girl

Epilogue: The Message

Author’s Notes

Donate

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

Praise For Blackbirds

Praise For Shotgun Gravy

Praise For Double Dead

Praise For Irregular Creatures

Other Work by Chuck Wendig

Copyright

Dedication

A Note

Novella: Shotgun Gravy

Bait Dog Prologue: The Boy in the Pear Tree

Part One: Withers Quicker Than the Rose

Part Two: The Farm

Part Three: Kissing Fire

Part Four: Bait Girl

Epilogue: The Message

Author’s Notes

Donate

Acknowledgments