The original DTB Cousins book

     In the Narrows Escape, it refers to a book that the DTB Cousins are in the process of writing. We did in fact write at least three "complete" books and several partials. Since we were between the ages of 9-12 when we wrote them, the books were quite juvinile with very simple character developments and plots. In retrospect, their greatest value is that they inspired me to write the modern version. They are also quite humorous without meaning to be.
     In an early version of the Narrows Escape, I tried to capture the flavor of the first book, "The Case of the Sneaky Robber," by portraying the DTBs as they wrote it. The method used in the clip is indeed the method we used to write it - each writing a chapter each, and then passing it on to the next in line. We even mailed the "manuscripts" back and forth through the mail.
    Eventually I decided to trim down the original clip significantly since it was more sentimental than significant in furthering the plot or developing the characters. Still, the clip has great sentimental value for me and anyone associated with the original story. It was this experience that kindled in me a lifelong dream to become an author. I just didn't think it would take this long to happen. Enjoy the clip:

 

“Well, I finished Chapter One,” announced Brady after working for half an hour.

“That was fast,” said Trey. “It must not be very long.”

“It’s a page and a half,” Brady informed them proudly. He then proceeded to read it aloud to them.

"Why do you have us riding our motorcycles on the sidewalk?" Trey asked as Brady finished reading the thrilling account of a bike chase.

"My mom won't let me ride my bike in the street," Brady explained. "She says it's too dangerous."

That made sense, but Devin wanted to know why Brady’s character was the one finding all the clues.

"Well someone had to," Brady defended himself. "And since I was writing, I figured it might as well be me."

"Well I get to write next," Trey declared. "Besides, I've already finished the ID cards."

He held up the newly colored, mostly-red cards with their code names neatly inscribed on them. Devin and Brady promptly voiced their approval. But Brady took the cards and added stars and lightning bolts, to make them look more exciting, while Trey began writing more adventures of the DTBs.

Devin, meanwhile, was still working on the flag. It was taking a lot of time, but it was awesome! It had blue fields flanking the yellow zigzags that ran from top to bottom about a third of the way in on each side. The top and bottom of the middle section were red. The middle was left white with the words “CLUB FLAG” underneath the large “DTB” symbol.

“How do you like my flag?” asked Devin as he scribbled in the last bit of color.

“It looks pretty good except that last section,” noted Trey. “It looks like you started rushing.”

“That’s cause my marker was running out of ink,” said Devin with a frown.

“What about the back?” asked Trey.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that,” admitted Devin as he flipped the flag over. Some of the ink had bled through forming unseemly inkblots amid the field of blue lines on the white notebook paper. From this angle it didn’t look so cool after all.

“Don’t worry about it,” advised Trey. “I’m finished writing my chapter. How about if we switch? You can write, and I’ll work on the back of the flag.”

“These markers are still good,” announced Brady, holding up the ones that he used to touch up the ID cards. He scooted over next to Trey, and the two of them worked on finishing the flag together.

While they worked, Devin read Trey’s chapter. Chapter two was even shorter than chapter one. Naturally, Trey had himself discovering the robber's hideout and organizing a stakeout with the police. It wasn’t bad except for the fact that Devin’s character had yet to make an important contribution to the team.

Devin made sure to rectify the situation by making himself the hero. Right in the middle of the most exciting part yet, Trey said, “There. How’s that?”

Devin looked up and was impressed with how much better the flag looked. “Hey wow! That looks really good!” he exclaimed.

“That’s because we filled in all the gaps you left,” said Trey.

A movement outside the window caught Devin’s attention, and he noticed that it had stopped raining. He quickly ended his chapter and triumphantly announced that he had finished.

Brady grabbed the notebook and read Trey and Devin’s additions. Devin was anxious to go outside, but he also wanted to see how well his cousins liked the ending.

"We can't have the robber get captured yet," Brady sighed as he finished reading. "The book is only four pages long! No one's going to want to buy a book that short."

"Maybe we could write bigger," suggested Devin.

"That wouldn't do much good once it's typed," pointed out Trey. "We're just going to have to make it longer."

"But we trapped him," argued Devin. "We can't just let him get away; we would look dumb. Besides, it stopped raining, and I want to go outside and play."

"How about if we have the robber escape from jail?" suggested Trey. "Then we can add more chapters later."

"Okay," agreed Brady excitedly. "It's my turn, so I'll work on it tonight."

Devin's missed championship

In my previous post, I included a clip from an earlier alternate chapter one. In addition to the coded letter, that chapter had a scene in which Devin faced what he considered one of the toughest decisions of his life. The purpose of the scene was to introduce the rivalry between Devin and Shane, and to produce some conflict that would be created by the flood - forcing a delay that would keep them in the canyon overnight. I was hoping that this would provide a compelling reason for the group to resume their hike earlier than they would under other circumstances. When I hit upon the idea of Shane's disappearance, this less compelling reason became superfluous. In any case, here is the clip:

“We won our game!” shouted Devin as soon as his dad opened the door. “Two more wins and we’re state champs!”

“That’s great!” answered Dad. “Did you pitch well?”

“I threw a shutout! And I also got two hits and three RBIs!”

“Well, I’m sorry I missed it,” sighed Dad.

“That’s okay,” said Devin, knowing his dad would have been there if he’d been in town. “How did your interviews go?”

“Really well. So when is your next game?” asked Dad.

“If we win on Thursday, we we’ll play for the state championship Tuesday evening.” Of course if they lost, they’d have to play again on Saturday – but Devin wasn’t planning on losing.

“You do realize that we have the family reunion this weekend,” Dad reminded him with a grimace.

“Can’t we go after my game on Thursday?”

“I suppose. That means we won’t get there until late Thursday night, but that’s okay. I’m more concerned about the Tuesday game. That’s the day we’re hiking the Narrows.”

“I thought we were doing that on Monday,” said Devin. He and his cousins had been looking forward to hiking the Virgin Narrows ever since they’d seen Uncle Darrell’s slides the previous summer.

“It’s a two day hike, remember? Monday we hike in halfway, spend the night in a cave inside the canyon, and Tuesday we hike out,” explained Dad.

“Can’t we just start really early Monday morning and hike the whole thing?” implored Devin.

“Uncle Darrell thinks that’s way too much for one day,” answered Dad, shaking his head. “I’ll talk to him, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to be one or the other. Either we go on the hike as planned, or we come back for your game. I’ll let you decide.”

“Hey wait a minute! What about me?” asked Shane, who was listening in on the conversation. “I’m not missing the hike just cause he has a baseball game.”

“We’ll figure out a way for you to go,” promised Dad. “Even if we have to take two cars.”

“But I want to go too!” declared Devin.

“Then you miss the game.” Dad shrugged. “I’ll talk to Uncle Darrell, but I can’t promise anything.”

Devin bit his lip, then turned and ran into his room. He plopped onto his bed and slammed his fist into the mattress. It wasn’t fair! This was supposed to be the greatest summer ever; but now he was being forced to make the toughest decision of his life: miss out on the adventure of a lifetime or miss out on a chance to be crowned state champs.

He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the trophy shelf above his brother’s bed. It was jammed full of trophies and plaques Shane had earned over the years. Shining brightly amidst them all stood Shane’s state championship trophy from two years before. Although he couldn’t read the placard from that distance, Devin knew that it proclaimed his brother as MVP of the championship game.

Twisting his head to look at his own shelf, Devin stared glumly at the four minor trophies that stood there. None of them meant much – they’d been handed out to anyone who participated. And although he knew that he’d get a nice one for being city champs, it still wouldn’t even come close to Shane’s collection unless he was able to win the state championship too.

He had to go to the game – as long as his team made it that far. He couldn’t let his teammates down. But the thought of missing the hike made him sick to his stomach. For months, he and his cousins had been writing letters back and forth about how awesome it was going to be – their first real DTB Cousin adventure.

“It’s not fair!” he shouted in frustration.

DTB Codes

As mentioned in a previous post, my cousins and I used to send coded letters back and forth in the mail. Usually a code would last for a couple of letters back and forth before we gave up because it took too long to write and translate. Then one of us would invent a new code that revived our interest for a while before that code too lost its luster. We probably had three different codes that we used in real life. Two of them were featured in the "DTB Prologue" post - using numbers in place of letters, and spelling everything backwards. Of course, anyone with any imagination could have cracked those codes in less than a minute. A third code that we used was slightly more inventive. I featured it in one of my earlier versions of Chapter One of the Narrows Escape. Eventually it was cut as the story took a different turn. Like most of my "cuts," I saved it in case I wanted to go back to it. I thought I'd share it with you now so that you could get a flavor of what our letters looked like:

“Brady, you got a letter!”

Brady Allred jumped up from his bed and hurried down the hall to where his mother stood sorting through the stack of bills and junk mail. He hoped it was from one of his cousins. Since they were the only ones who ever wrote him, he wasn’t disappointed.

“It’s from Devin!” Brady exclaimed joyfully as he tore open the envelope. He pulled out the letter and scanned it over. Just as he suspected, it was in code:

Wvzi Yizwb,

Sld ziv blf wlrmt? R’n wlrmt tllw. Rm uzxg, R’ev tlg hlnv tivzg mvdh! Nb wzw qfhg tlg z qly zh z xlfmhvoli zg Sroohrwv Srts, hl dv’ev tlrmt gl nlev gl Xzorulimrz! R xzm’g dzrg! Rg’h tlrmt gl yv zdvhlnv. Dv xzm tl gl gsv yvzxs, zmw tl hdrnnrmt zg Givb’h slfhv, zmw tl gl yzhvyzoo tznvh, zmw szev dvvpvmw kzigrvh zmw kozb Zgzir zoo mrtsg. Rg’h tlrmt gl yv hl xllo. Zmbdzbh, dv’iv tlrmt gl yv wldm gsviv uli gsv 7gs lu Qfob hl dv xzm ollp uli z slfhv hl R tfvhh R’oo hvv blf zg Givb’h slfhv uli gsv yrt kzigb. Dvoo, R tlggz tl. R szev gl dirgv Givb zmw gvoo srn, vevm gslfts sv kilyzyob zoivzwb pmldh xzfhv Fmxov Nzierm svokvw nb wzw tvg gsv qly zmw zmbdzbh, R’oo gzop gl blf ozgvi.

Hrmxvivob, Wverm

Luckily, Brady had invented the code himself. He had sent a secret decoder to each of his cousins so that they could write to each other back and forth without anybody knowing what they were saying. This was particularly important when you had three younger siblings as Brady did. And since he shared a room with his brother Jared, he had to be especially careful not to leave the decoder lying around where Jared could find it.

Brady quickly shut the door to his room so that nobody could see him pull out and open the secret box he kept hidden in the back of his underwear drawer. He sat down at the desk, opened the box and pulled out the decoder. It read:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

Brady diligently translated the letter, word for word. After a few lines, he shouted, “All right!” He excitedly translated the next few words before his bedroom door burst open.

“What are you yelling about?” asked Lindsey, his nine-year old sister.

“Hey, get out of here! You didn’t knock!” accused Brady, quickly hiding his decoder so that she couldn’t see it.

“I just wanted to see what you’re yelling for,” pouted Lindsey.

“Devin’s family’s moving to California!” exclaimed Brady, momentarily forgetting that he was upset at her for barging in.

P.S. I put the translation in the comments section.

The Hitchcock factor

I was told one time that Alfred Hitchcock was in each of the movies he produced - never in a prominent role, but rather as an "extra," making a brief cameo, and then disappearing. I hear one time, in a film that didn't have extras, his "appearance" was in a fotograph. It was his trademark.
In any case, when I started writing, I wondered what my trademark should be. I decided that I would insert the name of one of my friends into the text as a minor character - not playing their real life counterpart, but rather as a minor character who just happens to have the same name. Several readers of the Narrows Escape, noticed that the name of one of my friends was indeed inserted into the final draft of the book. This friend wasn't aware that his name was in it until he came across it as he was reading his copy of the novel. He informed me afterwards that when he arrived at that point in the story, he "started laughing out loud." Luckily, he said he was honored to be part of the book.
I hope to continue the tradition in future books. Of course, if anyone would prefer not to be so honored, I will obviously honor any such request. Otherwise, be on the lookout. You never know who's name will show up next.

Allred family Guide of Characters

In order to help me keep track of who was who in the fictional Allred family I created, I needed to create a guide of characters. That way, I would avoid inconsistencies in names, ages, and number of children, etc. from one book to the next. After creating the guide of characters, I made a personal profile (see "Brady Allred" post) for any character who was featured in the first novel - the Narrows Escape.

I considered adding a complete guide of characters at the beginning of the book, but decided against it after adding the mystery subplot in one of the later drafts. It would have compromised one of the twists at the end of the book. In any case, I decided to add this "Allred family" version here for those who are interested:

Allred family Guide of characters

Devin Allred - The oldest of the three DTB cousins, age 12

Trey Allred - The middle cousin of the DTBs, age 12

Brady Allred - The youngest of the three DTB cousins, age 11

Gil Allred - Grandfather of Devin, Trey, and Brady

Edna Burk Allred - Grandmother of the DTBs

Darrell Allred - Brady's father, the oldest of Gil and Edna Allred's five children

Doris Allred - Brady's mother

Lindsey Allred - Brady's sister, age 9

Jared Allred - Brady's brother, age 7

Christina Allred - Brady's youngest sister, age 2

Marvin Allred - Trey's father, the second of Gil and Edna's children

Sandy Allred - Trey's mother

Amber Allred - Trey's older sister, age 15

Liz Allred - Trey's younger sister, age 10

Arthur Allred - Devin's father, the third of Gil and Edna's children

Jen Allred - Devin's mother

Shane Allred - Devin's older brother, turns 14 (7/20)

Kendal Allred – Devin’s younger sister, age 8

Olivia and Emily Allred – Devin’s twin sisters, age 3

Shannon Clark - Fourth child of Gil and Edna

Rob Clark – Shannon's husband

Chantal Clark – Rob and Shannon's daughter, age 6

Wesley Clark – Rob and Shannon's son, age 4

Jimmy Clark – Rob and Shannon's son, age 7 mo.

Randy Allred - Fifth, and youngest child of Gil and Edna

Angie Allred – Randy’s wife

Melissa Allred – Randy and Angie's daughter, age 23 mo.

The Narrows Escape epilogue

Most people don't realize that early versions of the Narrows Escape had an epilogue. At some point in the last ten years, I removed it. I can't remember the reasons why, but it was one of the many revisions that I've made to the book. In any case, I saved it in my "DTB clips" file (which is actually longer than the current novel), and decided to share it with you now:

Epilogue

September 1983

Brady sat in his English class on the first day of Junior High, listening to the teacher go over the class rules. But instead of going over them all period like some of the teachers had done, she reserved the last fifteen minutes to give them their first homework assignment.

“I want you to write a two-page essay on your summer vacations,” she said. “You can devote both pages to one event, or talk about the summer as a whole.”

Everyone groaned, but she continued to detail the specifics of the assignment, and answer questions from those conscientious students who needed to hear the same thing three times just to make sure they got it right.

But while most of the students were loudly complaining about the essay, Brady started getting excited. He had recorded the details of the Narrows hike in his journal upon returning home. But this would be an opportunity to actually write it in story form. And whereas all his stories to present had been created by his imagination, this one was real! It was one of those life-changing events and needed to be recorded in the annals of DTB history for his kids and grandkids to enjoy someday. The hard part was going to be keeping it to two pages.

Brady sat down with his journal and reread what he’d written about the trip. He had been worried that his fear of water would make his cousins think he was a wimp and alienate him from the club. But the whole experience had strengthened club unity more than anything they’d ever experienced. By putting others’ needs before their own, they’d survived what could have been a disaster!

It took a while for Brady to decide on a starting point; but once he did, the words seemed to flow onto the page. He couldn’t stop after two pages, and extended it to five. Even then he couldn’t give many details of the adventure. He had to stick just to the facts.

##

When Brady got his paper back, he was pleased with the “A,” but not surprised. The paper had been some of the best work of his life. At the end, the teacher had added a note: “P.S. Is this true? Wow! I’m impressed. You might want to consider fleshing it out and rewriting it as a full length novel.”

That’s a good idea, thought Brady. He went to his desk drawer and pulled out the hidden folder that contained all his DTB memorabilia – his top secret ID card and several coded letters from his cousins. Underneath was a worn notebook containing the DTB mystery book they’d actually completed – The Case of the Sneaky Robber. He thumbed through it a bit, wondering when he’d get it published.

Then he remembered that the Dodgers’ game had already started. He quickly stuck his English paper inside the folder with his other DTB stuff. Someday he’d write it into a novel, he decided. He stuck the folder back in the drawer to wait until that “someday” arrived.

Narrows plots and subplots

Several people have asked me about how I came up with the plots for the Narrows Escape. Obviously, the hike itself came from my personal experience 20 years ago. It was easily the scariest experience of my life, which made it a natural starting point for the DTB Cousins series. Since it occured when we were adults, I had to move it up almost a decade to start the series at the point where I wanted it to begin. As I did some background research on the summer of 1983, I realized that it was one of the worst flood years in the history of Utah, which inspired my prologue with the mudslide destroying Devin's family's home.
With the main conflict of Man vs. Nature established, I started looking for subplots that each of the DTBs could face. This was essential since I didn't just want to write exciting adventure books; I wanted to teach values that I've learned from my own life's experiences.
Devin's rivalry with Shane developed slowly over several early drafts of the book. In real life, my cousin Darin always seemed to get along with his brothers, at least from my long-distance observations. Yet, I know from my own experiences how competitive brothers can be, so I decided to make that Devin's main struggle - since he was the one with a brother close in age. By building up that rivalry over the course of the book, I was able to make it's resolution one of the key values taught by the book: that no matter how conflicted we feel towards one of our family members, we need to love them unconditionally.
Trey's conflict was struggling to fit in. In creating my character bios, Trey's interests varied more than the other two, so I thought it would be interesting to see how it would affect the club dynamics if he felt isolated from his cousins during the one time of year when the three of them got to spend together. Therefore I used an injury to accomplish that. Although it didn't cause any real rifts between the cousins, it did allow me to develop and differentiate my characters more. It also created some additional tension during the hike, and allowed me to split the DTBs up leading up to the climax. The subtle message here is that it is okay for best friends to be different, and pursue unique interests independent of their best friends. We'll see how this theme continues to affect the DTBs over the course of the series.
Brady's main conflict is dealing with his fear of water on a hike where he is forced to confront it constantly. Phobias are real, and can seriously cripple someone emotionally if they allow the fear to reign supreme. One of my grandmothers had clausterphobia, and I once had the occasion to observe her confront it directly on a trip back East. As we were climbing the Statue of Liberty, she started to feel panicked in the tight stairwell. She realized however that she couldn't allow her fear to overcome her, for her own safety as well as that of her grandchildren who were crowded around her. As I heard her evaluate this experience after the fact, I was impressed by the power of her inner struggle and how she dealt with it in this critical situation. When having Brady confront his fear, I originally had him rescue a family member. However, I thought it might be even more powerful if he had to overcome his fear in order to rescue a total stranger, particularly one who might pose a threat.
The other main plot line deals with the mystery surrounding the bank robbers. This was the last major subplot to be added to the book. After years of rejection letters, I decided that my book needed something more, particularly at the end to keep the conflict going to the very end. I decided that adding a mystery might be the best way to accomplish that. Using bank robbers allowed me to tie this book in with the DTB books we wrote as kids.
There may be other minor subplots, but these are the major plot lines I tried to develop. I hope that the end result is both a fun read and provides some food for thought.
Brad Allred