Blind Luck
by Scott Carter

If you were lucky, really lucky, would you know it? Not the kind of luck we all feel we find every now and then, such as catching all green lights on the way to work. Rather the type of luck when you just can’t lose, at anything, day after day. Would you notice it, or would it be like everything else good in life, we just start to take it all for granted? This is the basic underlying premise of Scott Carter’s outstanding debut novel, “Blind Luck”. Dave Bolden is an unassuming type of guy. He’s your typical cube rat in your typical dead end job. One morning, suffering a hangover after a night of drinking, his entire world changes. He is left the lone survivor of his tiny company after a truck crashes through the building front. He is left with the questions one would expect, such as “why was I spared?” He comes to view his survival as a curse, instead of the good luck it was.  Somebody else, however, doesn’t see it that way. In walks Grayson, assistant to a wealthy man, Mr. Thorrin, who views Dave as lucky in everything in life. From that point on, Thorrin hires Dave to test his luck in one twisted game after another. All the while, he is falling in love with Grayson’s sister, who is the polar opposite of Dave.
Scott Carter has delivered a wonderful debut novel, one that is fresh and original. The book weaves between what is happening and flashbacks in Dave’s life that shows how lucky he is. The flashbacks are done in such a way that we can see why Dave doesn’t view himself as lucky. These segments add a depth to the tale and a nice backing to make his non-belief in his luck that much more understandable. The book moves quick, is incredibly well written and exciting in a subtle way. I highly recommend this one.

Reviewed by Carl Isonhart for Suspense Magazine ?

http://www.beachmetro.com/news4.1.html

Scott Carter
Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya!? Dave Bolden doesn’t. Even after a catastrophe at work leaves him unscathed, Dave still refuses to believe that he is blessed with that quality, blind luck. Others, however, think that Dave drips luck, want to take advantage of his luck, and ensnare him in ever-escalating tests to prove their theory that Dave Bolden is one exceptionally lucky guy.

Blind Luck is the title of Leslieville writer Scott Carter’s debut novel. Carter grew up in the Beach, and the novel is set in Toronto. Dave Bolden is a young accountant with, as his profession might indicate, an aversion to taking risks. Blind Luck is part compelling story, part treatise on the nature of luck, chance, and risk.

Dave’s father, Jack, in an inveterate gambler who made Dave’s childhood edgy, and sometimes scary, by his gambling activities. Jack is an analytic gambler who, although not against taking risks, prefers them to be calculated ones. Mr. Thorrin, on the other hand, believes Dave is possessed of the quality of blind luck, and wants to take advantage of it to make lots of money. Already a successful businessman, Thorrin manipulates Dave into situations where his luck is tested, and rewards the young man with more money than he has ever seen before. The trouble is that Dave realizes that his luck may soon run out, and doesn’t want to risk the consequences of disappointing Mr. Thorrin.

Along the way Dave meets Amy, a young waif paralyzed by her apparent life-long run of bad luck. Dave takes a liking to her, and is determined to prove to Amy that luck has absolutely nothing to do with life’s occurrences. As Thorrin does with Dave, so does Dave set Amy a series of challenges to coax her out of her cocoon.

Blind Luck is an extremely engaging novel. Carter, who is also a screenwriter (and English teacher), has crafted a book that craves to be made into a film. The action never flags, the characters are sharply drawn (especially Dave, whom I imagine played by John Cusak), and the scene shifts from Dave’s past to present are smoothly handled. Only one short scene feels thrown in simply to make a point.

“You can’t win if you don’t play.” “You’ve got to be lucky to be good, and good to be lucky.” “It’s ten percent luck, ninety percent hard work.” No matter what your cliché, luck is something we all wish we had. Dave Bolden has it in spades, but refuses to believe in it. Scott Carter has it as well in crafting his excellent first novel.

Blind Luck is published by Darkstar Fiction and is available at most bookstores for $18.95. For more information visit www.napoleonandcompany.com.

Renee Miller

http://www.examiner.com/publishing-in-toronto/elements-of-plot-beginning

The beginning or introduction of your story is one of the most important parts of your book. This is where you hook your reader. Many readers say they decide whether or not to fork over their hard earned cash for a book based on the first page; some of them read only the first lines. So, if you hope to sell said book, you need to carefully consider how you open the story.

A while back I reviewed Canadian Author Scott Carter’s novel Blind Luck.The introduction or beginning of this story makes a great example of what you should strive for when writing the first pages of your novel:

When Dave Bolden’s eyes finally opened that morning, it took him a moment to remember the night before. He had eaten a sushi dinner, drunk tequila, played pool, had more tequila, and kissed a redhead with high cheekbones and a perfect smile. He worked past the dull ache pulsating up his neck, through his brain and into his eyes, which felt so dehydrated, they hurt until his memory admitted it: a redhead with jowls and crooked teeth. (from Page 1 of Blind Luck by Scott Carter)

Why does this work? Well, Carter establishes the tone and voice of the story as well as the main character in the first lines. In fact, the hook is there too, as it should be. A night of tequila, sushi and jowly women catches the reader’s interest, intriguing them, possibly forcing a similar memory to the surface. Haven’t we all had a tequila night or three? So, it’s just me, eh?

Now, some authors prefer to put their hook further in, and are willing to gamble on whether the reader will give them a full page or not. That’s fine, but I strongly recommend that your hook, or at least part of it, is in the first paragraph.

Once you’ve got the reader, reel them in and keep them dangling from the line. You don’t want them wiggling away to another hook. The literary term for this next phase is rising action. This is where conflict (which we’ll look at more closely in the next article) comes into play. Avoid using your first chapters for backstory, explanations, overly descriptive narrative or setting the story. True, you have to do some of this at some point, but dumping this stuff in large chunks slows the pace and that’s not a good way to hang on to your reader. Sprinkle these things throughout your story, in small doses, in order to keep the pace moving along and avoiding a sagging story arc. Of course, this is entirely up to the writer, but if you’re hoping to pen a page-turner, slow isn’t what you want to aim for.

In Blind Luck, after Carter sets his hook, he gently pulls you along, giving a feel for the protagonist, Dave Bolden, and the story in the first pages. He drops little clues, bits of backstory setting without dumping. For example, page five has a little bit of internal dialogue from Bolden:

Thirty-five-year-olds should be married. Thirty-five-year-olds should make breakfast for their families and drop their kids off at daycare. Thirty-five-year-olds should not be scrambling to get to work with one of the worst hangovers in history. (Page 5, Blind Luck by Scott Carter)

In this short passage, Carter gives the reader a wealth of information about the protagonist as well as another taste of the story’s tone. Bolden is 35, unmarried, no kids, and dissatisfied with his life. Possibly he hates hangovers. Okay, he does. But the reader can speculate whether he is bitter, or perhaps he’s hopeless and does this every time he’s sick and frustrated because he’s late for work and having to endure nosy cabdrivers. Carter’s prose is light, not getting too much into setting, but giving enough that the reader is able to get a good feel for where he is. Conflicts arise throughout the first pages; minor and easily overcome, but steadily becoming more and more annoying for Bolden. By the end of page seven a major event happens, throwing Bolden head first into a huge conflict, (both external and internal) where he stays until the climax of the story.

This is how a beginning should flow. The first part of your story, (the protagonist’s journey) should move steadily forward. Conflicts should arise, action should increase, and questions should pop into the reader’s mind, heightening the intensity and causing the reader to turn the pages so fast, he becomes perilously close to a mittful of paper cuts, until you reach the climax, which we’ll discuss soon.

Riverdale author luckily writes his first book. Award-winning Riverdale author Scott Carter has penned his first novel, ‘Blind Luck’, officially released on April 22. Photo/COURTESY

Award-winning Riverdale author Scott Carter has penned his first novel on a topic we all wish we had more of: luck.

A high school English teacher by day, Carter said his belief in good fortune and chance has grown as a result of writing his book, which tells the story of a man named Dave Bolden and his extreme tests of luck.

“I do believe life serves you up a lot of circumstances that can give you fodder to believe,” said the Broadview/Danforth resident.

Carter, who runs his own film production company, Sad But True Entertainment, said Blind Luck was a labour of love having spent nearly two years writing the book and completing all of the necessary revisions.

He anticipates the book will be turned into a film at some point in the not-so-distant future.

“It’s a privilege to have put some literature out there for people to enjoy,” said Carter, adding a second novel is currently in the infant stages.

Published by Napoleon&Company, Blind Luck was officially launched April 22 at the Turf Lounge in downtown Toronto. Visit www.blindluck.ca for more details.

Carter, who was raised in the Beach and attended Balmy Beach Public School and Malvern Collegiate, has been writing film scripts, short stories, and poems for more than a decade.

After completing his post-secondary education at the University of Toronto, he worked in publishing interning at ECW Press as well as working as an editorial assistant for several publishing houses, notably Nelson and Canadian Scholar’s Press.

The father of a one-year-old daughter said he now spends the majority of his free time writing.

“I really love teaching and starting work as a writer at 5 p.m. works for me. The type of writer I am, it wouldn’t be good for me to be locked up in a room for any length of time,” Carter laughed, adding he gets inspiration for his writing from the interesting people he meets and experiences he has on a daily basis as an educator.