Misplaced Baroness - Ep 4

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Episode Four - "Breakfast With The Rozzers"

by Camille LaGuire

The bath was wondrous.  She soaked away the fuzz and confusion until the steaming water turned cold.  Her poor abused feet felt much better, though the scratches on her skin from that tumble down the embankment stung a bit.  A few bruises, but only small ones.  No major damage.

It wasn't until she was seated in her boudoir, clad in lounging pajamas and a pair of very soft slippers, scarfing down a pile of toast and pastries like a starved puma (if pumas ate toast and pastries), that her mind began to function properly.

"Lister!" she said.  "You are right.  We should call the police.  Oh! Is that the rest of my breakfast?"

Though she had eaten sufficient bread to feed a small village, she looked with great eagerness on the tray which Lister had just brought in.  It was piled with sausages, bacon, ham, an omelette, grilled tomatoes and a lovely large dish of creamed kippers.

"I've already called them," said Lister.

"Mmmffh?" said Plink, her mouth already full of kippers.

"The police, your ladyship," said Lister.  "I know it was against your orders, but the aunts called.  I might have put off Lady Hortense, but your Aunt Amelia was in a dreadful state and I couldn't help but reveal that you are safe and sound. Then, since the cat was out of the bag, I considered your fear that the villains would find out that you were alive and well, so I thought it would be best to ring up the police right away so they could protect you."

"Excellent!"

"They are waiting downstairs in the morning room."

"Well, call them up!" said Plink. "My feet have had enough traveling today.  And someone tried to squish me with a train, Lister.  We should not delay the pursuit of the malefactors."

She then attacked her sausages, as Lister went out with a look of disapproval.  It was fond disapproval, though, for if Lister really disapproved, she'd never have taken the  position. She knew Plink from early childhood.

Soon she heard the exceptionally heavy tread of the law on the stair, so heavy that when the door opened, she half expected to see a police horse enter the room. Instead it was no less than four policemen, three in plain clothes, and one uniformed constable.

They filed in, all correct and grave, and the one in the lead, who looked more like a politician than a policeman, bowed.

"Your ladyship," he said.  "I am Chief Superintendent Darling. This is Detective Inspector Pfaffle, and Detective Sergeant MacGreevey."

The constable apparently had no name.

Plink waved a sausage in greeting and said, "Thank you for coming so quickly, gentlemen.  Can you tell me what happened last night?"

The superintendent paused in surprise.

"We're here to ask that of you, your ladyship."

"I haven't any idea," said Plink. "I was largely unconscious, and now I'm eating sausages.  So why don't you start.  I'm sure you have gathered some information?"

The superintendent turned to the inspector. The inspector turned to the sergeant.  The sergeant did not turn the the constable but instead raised his chin and recited a report.  Plink had, apparently, declared she was running off with Antonio, stolen Lady Blinkersley's cloak, driven her car into a ditch, caught a train, lost a shoe on said train, and was never seen again.

"It's nonsense," said Plink, as he finished his report and she finished her sausage.  "All except the bit about Antonio, which was a joke.  I did not leave the party or drive anywhere or get on a train. I was drugged into unconsciousness."

"And how are you sure of that, your ladyship?" asked the superintendent.

"Because I was perfectly conscious and having a wonderful time, and then suddenly I was lying on a train track, wrapped in a strange robe, with a train bearing down on me."  She briefly related her escape, and return home, complete with her impression of the Grim Reaper's Attack Goose.

The police were not impressed.

"So you never saw your ... assailants," said the superintendent in a tone which dripped with doubt.

"No," said Plink.  "I was, as I said, unconscious."

"What is the last thing you remember before you woke up on the tracks?"

"We had just finished playing charades and I called for a cocktail, and then... nothing."

"That is, unfortunately, a common effect of cocktails."

"Not just one," said Plink.

"Oh, just one can have a powerful effect on a genteel young lady," said the superintendent, knowingly.

"Not on me," said Plink.  "And regardless, I don't drink so quickly or heavily that I can go from cold sober to unconscious in an instant.  And it offends me that you assume that I do."

There was a moment of silence.  The superintendent clearly didn't like being corrected by a slip of a girl, but he was a gentleman and had to be aware that she ranked him.

The silence was finally broken by the inspector, a fluffy little round man with a curly mustache.

"But the fall!" he said.  "It can all be explained by the fall from the train. She hit her head, and that caused amnesia.  No need to explain it with drink. You see?"

The superintendent sat back and looked mollified.  "Of course," he said.  "That would explain a lady's loss of memory..."

"Yes," said Plink.  "That would explain it quite nicely, except for the fact that I don't have a bump on my head."

She raised both hands to her head and poked and prodded at her scalp to illustrate.

"Not a scratch on the noggin," she said.  "As a matter of fact, I don't have any injuries that would be compatible with falling off the back of a train, even a stationary one."

It was at this point that the sergeant, who had been silently scowling behind the inspector spoke up.

"Of course not," he said.  "That's because you didn't fall.  You jumped!"

---

Stay Tuned For Episode 5 - "MacGreevey's Theory" 

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---

Support the writing of this serial!  You can donate directly, or you can buy the first book in the series, The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or donate via Paypal

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 3

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Episode 3 - "Barefoot in the Big City"

by Camille LaGuire

It was a long long walk.

The one shoe Plink had left had been useful for feeling her way along when she went from the track to the road, but it was more trouble than help in walking, so she took it of and walked barefoot along the road toward the city and her second home in north Thronden.

The pain in her feet made it impossible to think, or to count time, but at least it made her less aware of the pain in her head.  And her back.  And her knees.

Thoughts swirled in Plink's mind as to who might want to kill her, but she was so weary that it was more like a bad dream of fractured images and idea, flitting by like angry flies.

She walked on, through muddy pools of what she hoped was water. She walked over sharp stones. She was barked at by dogs, and still never saw any place she'd like to stop for help. Or any place she thought there might be someone who could help.

But presently the streets became more narrow and buildings more crowded.  She was too numb to really look at them. It still seemed silent and dead, but soon, perhaps she'd see a policeman or a place to call for help.

As she passed the dark specter of one more abandoned factory, its open door like a gaping maw of hell, two figures stepped out of that darkness.  Unsavory men, lurking.  Their voices were thin and reedy in the echoing night, but she could hear them well enough.

"Here, this looks like a bit of interest," said one of them.

They moved closer and the other, with a nasty sounding voice, called out, and not at all kindly: "Where you from, missy?"

Plink looked at them, decided they were not the sort of person she should speak to without introduction (a rule she normally did not follow, but here seemed appropriate).  She saw a glint and realized one of them had a knife.  They separated slightly as though to trap her.

She couldn't run away.  They'd have her in a second.  But she'd be blasted if she'd just faint on them. The honor of the Beethinghams demanded some reaction.  So she let out scream and ran straight at them, raising her arms as far as the heavy cloak would allow, which wasn't far.

She imagined she looked rather like an angry goose, with her flapping arms and waddling uncertain gait.  She hadn't the lung power to give a good solid highpitched scream, so it came out a deep ghostly howl.

The men turned tail and fled into the darkness whence they came. Plink staggered a few more steps and wrapped herself around a lamppost.

"Honk, honk," she said after them, in rather the same tone of voice you'd say take that!

She figured they might come back if she stayed too long and looked too weak, so she pushed herself away from that post and continued on her journey.   The incident gave her a new surge of energy and she focused her mind on the nice hot bath she had waiting at home.  And breakfast... yes, breakfast!  She was starving.

The sky was quite bright by the time she staggered into Kerrington Lane, dreaming of bacon and sausages and grilled tomatoes, and toast and jam and kippers in that lovely cream sauce that only Mrs. Lister could make....

Mrs. Lister answered the door very quickly like she was waiting for the knock.  She was fully dressed in her black housekeeper's habit.  She wore it like a priest wore his vestements or a butler his waistcoat.  But to be wearing it at this time of morning, she must have been waiting.

"Oh, your ladyship!" she cried, before Plink could say a thing.  "We've all been so worried about you.  They thought you had an accident!"

"It was no accident, Lister," said Plink and she staggered inside.

"We should get you to bed, your ladyship," said Lister.

"A bath," she said in reply.  "A hot bath and then breakfast."

"I'll draw your bath and then call your aunts--"

"No!" said Plink.  "No, I don't want anyone to know where I am."

"But they'll be worried, ma'm."

"Lister, someone tried to kill me.  I don't know who, and I don't want them to know they failed.  I don't want to tell anyone until I've had a chance to think."

Lister was silent. She was an old-school servant and did not like to contradict her betters, but she also had the backbone to do it anyway.

"Miss," she said, using the term of address she'd used when Plink was a child.  "You can't just hide while everyone worries.  And if someone is looking to harm you, how safe will you be here on your own?  Let me call the police at least. And a doctor."

"I'll be better able to receive tham after a bath," said Plink.  Lister made a slight harrumphing sound but accepted that.

Lister helped her upstairs and drew the bath while Plink dumped the cloak and peeled off her hat and dress and the remains of her stockings.  The dress was a beaded, clinging affair, and its weight had become unbearable. Next party, she's wear silk chiffon, regardless of how scandalous it might be.

"What would you like for breakfast, ma'm?" asked Lister.

"Everything," said Plink, in a deep, haunted sort of voice.  Mrs. Lister took her arm and helped her into the bath.

"Then you shall have everything, little miss."

It was GOOD to be home.

And she could always think better in the bath.  If she didn't fall asleep.

---

Stay Tuned For Episode 4 - "Breakfast with the Rozzers"
(Available after 8am EST, Thursday)

First Episode | Previous Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Next Episode

---

Support the writing of this serial!  You can donate directly, or you can buy the first book in the series, The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or donate via Paypal

Update - a Reboot, Experiment, and Story Notes

It took a bit to extricate myself from the Tsunami of Kerfuffle that swept me away recently.  We shall not speak of it.

Instead, we shall look forward to a good old-fashioned reboot:  power down, sweep the decks, unplug everything, count to ten, and start back up again. Brrrrring! (That's a Mac start up chime.)

The very best way to effect a reboot, imho, is to find a barrier and kick it down.  To do something which, a polite English bobby would tell you, is "not recommended."  (Or as Will Rogers might say, it's time to pee on the electric fence for yourself.)

Therefore, for the next four weeks I am going to indulge an experiment:

Writing As A Get Rich Quick Scheme
("Rich" and "quick" being relative terms....)

I was inspired, directly and indirectly, by Dean Wesley Smith's talk a year or two ago about the income you could potentially get by writing short story after short story.  That interested me, intellectually, but the fact is, the idea of writing short story after short story doesn't fill my soul with glee.  I enjoy writing them once in a while, but it tends to be slow going.

But the idea of writing novelettes?  That actually does interest me.  Novelettes and novellas are different than either shorts or novels.  They are, in fact, screenplay lengths, with similar structure and pacing.  I use a whole different part of my brain for that.  It's more like, well, hack work.   Screenplays and especially TV shows have strict criteria -- length, act structure, budget, locations, cast size, sometimes weird things like you need to put in a role for producer's girlfriend.

(Irony time -- DWS recommends that you not use the cold logical "inner editor" part of your brain for writing. But for me, the cold logical part of my brain loves that kind of writing, and is surprisingly good at it.  If my inner editor had a human form, it would probably look like Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer.)

Writing this way is not something I would want to do all the time, but it is a great way to reboot. It is easy on the imagination (while still giving it a nice workout) so it's a great way to meet the first goal of this experiment: to build new and better habits.  At some point my creative side will get sick of it and kick Mr. Warner out, but I'll have a new more focused work pattern set.

The other goal of this experiment is a "proof of concept" for things we believe about writing:  Is a book really the best promotion for another book? Does the author's name have to be known at all?  Is 2.99 too high of a price for a novelette?  Do people even read novelettes?  KDP Selects - good idea or bad idea?  Etc.

I'll be writing these under a pseudonym, both to help unleash my inner shameless movie mogul, AND because of those marketing questions.  I will not tell anyone the name.  But I will talk about how it's going, and the issues involved, each Sunday in an update post.

In the meantime, those who like what I do under my own name will have to make do with The Serial for a while (which will continue every Monday and Thursday).  In some ways, The Serial has also been a kind of "reboot."  I write it for fun, off the cuff.

And speaking of The Serial.....

Story Notes for Episode 2

Yeah, I admit it.  Episode 2 is a lump of exposition.

As I stumbled beyond the end of the first episode, I realized that I really don't want to spend episode after episode with Plink thinking through everything she knows.  She knows lots of things that could be relevant, and can't remember or doesn't know a lot of things which are actually relevant.

Furthermore, as I mulled over the 49 episodes and 20 characters it would take to illuminate the events of the party in flash back, I thought: this story isn't a fair-play whodunnit, and it won't be solved by parsing out exactly where the butler really was when the kumquats disappeared. This is a bounce-and-go adventure.  Future events will resolve it, and very few of the party characters will enter the story again, because we're going to get out of town and head across the continent soon.

So, since neither Plink nor her party guests can tell us efficiently the few relevant facts, I guess I should bring in the professionals whose job it is to gather those facts and sort them:

Meet Pfaffle and MacGreevey of Thronden C.I.D. (Special Greek Chorus Branch)

One method of exposition is the "Greek chorus" method.  You interject scenes of someone outside the story who comments on what's going on.  This is a common trope in spy stories.  The hero is running around blowing things up and stealing things, and meanwhile back at the CIA, the suits are scowling at the trail of evidence he leaves behind, while they explain and comment on what it means.  And it's a particularly fun trope in comedies, where outsiders are perplexed by what the audience knows first hand.

So that's what I decided to try here.  It isn't quite what I wanted. (I wrote it at the last second before posting, and I'll certainly rewrite it for the ebook.)  But I can see that I could really have fun with this.

Will I?  I don't know.  The story will eventually leave the jurisdiction of Pfaffle and MacGreevey, and I doubt it will come back to them within this particular story.

In the meantime, I think I'll make Pfaffle's first name "Robert".  Then MacGreevey can say: "As you (should) know, Bob, (if you had bothered to pay attention)...."

(For the uninitiated, this is a writer joke.  Bad dialog that just exists to give information to the reader is sometimes called "As you know, Bob..." dialog.)

As for the characters: MacGreevey actually has a bigger part to play in later stories. He's Plink's nemesis. (In kind of the same way Sylvester Puddytat is Tweety Bird's nemesis.)  He's bad tempered and arrogant which means he will always be destined for a pie in the face, no matter how diligent he is.  (However, he is destined for his own story too.  He's not really the sort of person you can stop with a pie in the face, and he has honor.)

Inspector Pfaffle is more secondary, but there is more to him than it seems.  He has a certain amount of wisdom and an instinct about people.  He can see their hearts, you could say.  This makes me wonder if he too has a bigger part in the future.

But for tomorrow, we shall return to Plink (a.k.a. Lady Pauline) who is treading barefoot through a bad part of town in the wee hours of the morning, and she's just about to do her impression of The Grim Reaper's Goose.   Stay tuned.  (You can start at the beginning with the introduction to The Case of hte Misplaced Baroness.)

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 2

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Episode 2 - "Meanwhile at Beethingham Hall...."

by Camille LaGuire

The dawn was breaking over the vast expanse of Beethingham Hall.  Some of the lights were still lit, but most of the denizens had finally tottered off to bed. Servants scurried about cleaning up the shambles that was left of the great party.  Too bad the guest of honor had taken a powder.

Out on the damp and dewy lawn, Detective Inspector Pfaffle and Detective Sergeant MacGreevey stood looking over their notes. Or at least, Pfaffle was.  He always took voluminous notes, especially when dealing with important people. It impressed them and made them think he was listening.

Unfortunately, he didn't actually listen or take notes very well, so his notes were a confused mess of doodles and disjointed phrases.  This whole case was a mad confusion of misplaced facts, suppositions and witnesses who were drunk, hung over, hysterical, or uncooperative.

He glanced over at MacGreevey.  The sergeant was writing furiously -- furious being his demeanour, not his writing speed -- in his notebook, in neat careful marked lines.  Unlike Pfaffle, MacGreevey listened well and never took notes until later, after he had it all ordered in his mind and ready to be turned into a report. 

MacGreevey was smart, brave, talented and ambitious, and should have promoted above Pfaffle a long time ago... except for the fact that he was also stubborn, naive, arrogant, rude and insubordinate.  He was constantly on the edge of being dismissed.   Pfaffle had won the man's loyalty with a persistent application of patience and a steadfast refusal to take offense.   He needed MacGreevey to do things like think, and MacGreevey needed Pfaffle to keep their superiors from dismissing him.

"Well, MacG?" said Pfaffle, as the sergeant flipped his notebook shut.

"Waste of our time," grunted MacGreevey.

"Oh!" said Pfaffle, looking at his notes.  "Are you ... sure?"

"You don't agree?"  The sergeant looked at him narrowly.

"Well, I thought, at least we should do a sum up.  Shouldn't we?"

MacGreevey knew full well that Pfaffle wanted him to explain it all, but he was clearly in a mood this morning.  Pfaffle squirmed and looked helplessly at his notes.  As hoped, that satisfied his subordinate, who gave a small, superior smile and put away his notebook, just to show he didn't need it.

"The subject, Lady Beethingham, is a known prankster."

"Ah, but she's a peeress now," interjected Pfaffle.  "Responsibility sobers a person up."

"She was hardly sober last night," said MacGreevey, then he went on reciting the facts.  "Last night was her twenty-first birthday party.  There was crowning ceremony, like she was a queen, and then a dignified dinner with lots of dignified people who are above talking to us.  The subject then led the younger members of the party on a wild game of cat-and-mouse through this barn--" MacGreevey here paused to glance distainfully at the manor house behind him.  "--which is larger than some whole countries."

"Yes, very fine. Very large," said Pfaffle. "It makes it all more confusing.  So many things going on."

"Not really," said MacGreevey.  "The only possibly relevant thing is the bit about Antonio Maurinos."

"Yes, the foreigner!"  Pfaffle looked down with satisfaction the exclamation point he'd made in his notes, right next to the word _foreigner__.  "A magician or something."

"Dance instructor," said MacGreevey with derision.  "Paid party host and entertainer.  According to some rather hazy witnesses, Lady Beethingham declared she was already bored with being lady of the manor, and she planned to run off with this Maurinos.  Soon after that, Maurinos left the party, presumably fleeing a fate worse than death.  Lady Beethingham then was seen to pass out on a settee in a small drawing room of some sort."

"The west wing, yellow sub-drawing room," said Pfaffle, who tended to remember that sort of detail, though not its significance.

"Next relevant moment was when Lady Blinkersley left and found that her peacock cloak was missing, whereupon several witnesses, again hazy, recalled that they had seen Lady Beethingham stumbling across the patio wrapped in it.  She called out that she was headed toward Thronden and freedom.  Concerned about her safety, the servants called the local constabulary, who found her roadster in a ditch near the railway station.  The ticket agent remembered a young woman in a large peacock cloak, who bought a ticket and got on the midnight train to Thronden. At which point the local constabulary called us down in Thronden to see if she had arrived safely."

"And we found her shoe!"

"Yes, one of our constables found the subject's right shoe caught in the scroll work on the observation platform at the back of the train."

"So she fell or jumped off the train."

"Or she put her shoe there as a prank, threw away the peacock cloak, and ran off with poor Maurinos."

"She could be injured. Or dead!" said Pfaffle.

"The local chaps are searching the tracks, now that it's light."

"You should get on to them.  You should---"

"I should find Maurinos and then get some sleep."

They compromised on breakfast in town. By the time they were finished, the local constabulary reported back. No body found on the tracks, but they did find some peacock feathers, and also some suspicious tire tracks in a spot in the last bit of woods before Thronden.

"So she jumped," said MacGreevey, "and Maurinos, or someone else, picked her up."

---

Stay Tuned For Episode 3 - "Barefoot in the Big City"
(Available after 8am EST, Monday)

First Episode | Previous Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Next Episode

---

Support the writing of this serial!  You can donate directly, or you can buy the first book in the series, The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or donate via Paypal

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 1

Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Next Episode

Episode 1 - "Plink's First Peril"

by Camille LaGuire

For a fraction of a second, when Plink drifted awake, she was quite cozy.  She was well wrapped in her blanket, her arms wrapped around her too, and so utterly unconsciously relaxed that her body seemed molded into whatever was beneath it.

It was that cozy feeling you have when you are a child with a cold, and you are tucked into bed, and people are hovering to take care of you, and bring you soup and treats and read you stories....

But after that fraction of a second passed, Plink realized she was not lying on a bed.  She was not wrapped in a blanket, and her feet were cold -- one foot more cold than the other, because she was wearing only one shoe.

Her head throbbed, and she felt nauseated.  Her twenty-first birthday party must have been quite the shin-dig, though she hardly remembered it just now.

But it wasn't actually her head that was throbbing.... No, it was the pillow.  A hard cold, wretched pillow which forced her head at an odd angle was vibrating at some painful frequency.

It was only then that she realized that she laying across a railroad track.

And there was clearly a train coming.

She opened her eyes and tried to sit up, but she could not.  She was wrapped up in some sort of cloak that smelled faintly of gardenias.  She wriggled, but could not get loose of it.  As far as she could tell, she was not tied, merely so well wrapped that she could hardly move.

The engine was now clearly audible, and not far.  The vibration of the track was nearly unbearable.  She lifted her head and tried to roll, hoping to unwrap the cloak, but it did nothing for her.

It was dark, but she could make out the shape of trees and tracks in the moonlight, and now the light of the train shone down on the tracks, picking up details of the gravel and ties.  It was coming fast, perhaps an express.  No sound of the horn. No squeal of breaks.  No indication that they could see her.

The sound and vibration was now overwhelming, and no logic could fight the sudden, immediate urge to get out.

She curled her body up and then rocked back, so she could kick her feet up in the air and make a backwards somersault.  It didn't move her entirely off the tracks, but she was in a better position to flop and gyrate like an acrobatic inch worm.

By now the noise was so loud it was disorienting. She didn't know which way was up, or which direction to roll.  For a moment she thought she'd been struck by the train, as he felt her body tossed and bumped and thrown about.

... But it was merely that she'd made it off the tracks and tumbled down a rather steep embankment.

The train roared by overhead, and she lay breathless and shaken for several minutes.

She was now free of the cloak.  It had caught on a stump halfway down the embankment and she had rolled free of it.

The train was now gone.  She could still hear the engine in the distance, but by contrast to its passing, the earth seemed suddenly still.  She propped herself up, hands braced behind her.

"That, my dear, was a very close call," she said.

Her shaken voice sounded thin and reedy in the hollow darkness around her, though loud enough that she wished she hadn't spoken aloud.  That perhaps she didn't want to be heard.  Which was nonsense.  She should be screaming for help...

Except for that nagging question: How on earth had she come to be laying on a train track, unconscious and helplessly wrapped in that cloak?

A thousand romantic scenarios flitted through Plink's head, most of them involving burly men with nefarious intentions.  She didn't know any such men, certainly none with a motive to murder her.  She knew no one with a motive to murder her, except perhaps for Freddie, her cousin and heir and would-be fiance -- who was neither burly nor imaginative.  If he'd had a plot to kill her, it would be by smothering her in boring declarations of his insipid opinions.

The other scenarios were of poor, helpless, amnesiac women, wandering helplessly and hopelessly in the wood, who become entangled in their own tattered cloak and fall unconscious into some perilous situation, like onto a high ledge or railroad track.

And that was ridiculous because she had no reason whatsoever to be wandering helpless in the wood, and she certainly didn't have amnesia. She knew exactly who she was.

Reading from top to bottom, she was: Lady Pauline Anne Marie Tritt-Woolsey Beethingham Smythe, the eighteenth Baron of Beethingham.  (Or the third Baroness of Beethingham, if you wanted to be very literal.)

She had just turned twenty-one, and come into her full fortune and title that very day.  She had no reason whatsoever to wander helplessly in the wood, tripping pathetically in her cloak.  She was not abandonned, or deceived, nor did she have a love child or dread disease.

And besides, the cloak had been too well wrapped around her for it to have been an accidental entanglement.

Burly men with nefarious intentions it was, then.

Well, they were gone now -- because surely, if they were waiting around in the cold and dark to be sure their deed was done, they would have checked on her by now.  All the same, they might come back.

It was time, she thought, to make a hasty exit.

---

Stay Tuned For Episode 2 - "Meanwhile, Back at Beethingham Hall...."
(To Appear after 8am EST Thursday, May 9)

Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Next Episode

---

Note!  This story is currently unfinished. I hope to get back to it in 2014.

Support the writing of this serial!  You can donate directly, or you can buy the first book in the series, The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or donate via Paypal

Introduction - The Case of the Misplaced Baroness

Go straight to: Episode 1 - The First Peril of Plink

The Case of the Misplaced Baroness
Series: The Perils of Plink

Published Twice a Week: Mondays and Thursdays, beginning May 6, 2013.  (To end... when it's done.  Sometime in September or October, most likely.)

You could say this story is a prequel to last summer's serial The Case of the Misplaced Hero.  Or you could call it a  "paraquel": It starts before that story began, and may well end after -- lightly crossing paths in the middle.  You shouldn't have to read Misplaced Hero before reading this, though it might help you a bit with the world of the story. (Also, this story will contain spoilers for that one.)

Genre: old-time adventure, alternative universe -- based on the unrealistic reality of silent movie serials and pulp fiction of the same period.  (The previous story had a fantasy element, but this one does not, other than the "alternative universe" thing.)

Premise: After escaping a near encounter with death, Plink (also known as Lady Pauline Anne Marie Tritt-Woolsey Beethingham Smythe, Baroness of Beethingham) goes on the run, dodging police, spies, friends and family alike -- because any of them might be her would-be killer.

Episode 1 - The First Peril of Plink
Episode 2 - Meanwhile at Beethingham Hall...
Episode 3 - Barefoot in the Big City
Episode 4 - Breakfast With the Rozzers
Episode 5 - MacGreevey's Theory
Episode 6 - Making Use of a Reputation 

(NOTE: this page will change and update, with a table of contents and links to pages about the series and world.)

For now, for more information, you can see the rather rambling introduction to The Case of the Misplaced Hero.

See you in the funny papers.

April, Go She Will

Not that April didn't have its bright spots, but...well... we shall draw a veil over April, knock on wood, and look forward to a brighter May.

Most of the things I planned to do in April got steamrollered by ducks.  (You know that saying about being nibbled to death by ducks? Well, my ducks were tiny merganser "saw-toothed" ducks, who came equipped with steamrollers.)

Some of the things I meant to do can be rescheduled, but I am greatly annoyed that I never got the chance to get the new artwork style settled for The Case of the Misplaced Baroness. I needs to be consistent with the Misplaced Hero illos, but I wanted to take it to a new level. I was thinking of adding line to it, not just shape.  Also thinking of changing the color palette.

I was hoping to start off with the style already figured out, but alas, like Test of Freedom, or even the Misplaced Hero, the first few illustrations will suck, or at least not be what the series style will end up as.  Maybe I'll get lucky. I have all weekend.

Thursday I will post the intro post of The Case of the Misplaced Baroness.  I have decided, this time, not to do a webpage for the intro posts, but rather make the first blog post into an "anchor" post for the series -- with a TOC and links to related items.  And as such, I'll be changing it and editing it and adding to it over time. (In other words, treating it like a webpage, even though it's a blog post.)

In the meantime, The Man Who Stepped Up has made some great strides toward being an active manuscript.  Though the serial is the WiP for the time being.  I will be doing Sunday Updates starting this Sunday.  I have no guarantee that they will be interesting.  (One can hope....)

In the meantime, I shall take Lawrence Block's advice and try to remember to say "Rabbits, rabbits," when I wake up on May Day.

See you in the funny papers.

Escaping Awful April - a Postponement

Seriously, last month may have been the month from heck, but April has been even heckier -- and the month is not over yet.

We're going to hope for a better May, and to that end, I am postponing the start of The Case of the Misplaced Baroness until May.  I'll do the intro post on Thursday, May 2nd, and the first episode on May 6th.

I'm also going to start posting some kind of updates again.  I'll start with an update on April at the end of the month, but thereafter I'll probably do Sunday updates.

Characters at Breakfast: Alex and Friends - Worldbuilding and Food

This is the third and final post in my series on Characters at Breakfast.  I've talked about the limitations of writing food in an historical series with Mick and Casey at breakfast, and about the relative freedom to use food for characterization in a contemporary setting with George and Karla at breakfast.

This time I'm going to talk about the third option: food in a made up world.

Cuisine is an important part of world-building for fantasy writers.  It's limited by the culture and geography of your location.  Of course, most fantasy writers base cuisine on some model in real history.  Western high fantasy is often based on Medieval Europe, for instance.  On the other hand, some science fiction writers will construct a very detailed and unique cuisine based on the other elements of the world they create.

Last summer's serial story, The Case of the Misplaced Hero (and the upcoming The Case of the Misplaced Baroness) is an Alternate Universe story.  In this case, though, the alternate world is not an intentionally built world. It's more a "dreamed" world -- based mainly on the often inconsistent way the real world is depicted in old silent movie serials and adventure stories of around 1910-1925.  It's a world that's been with me for a long time, and borrows from a whole lot of other sources.

So in some ways, this made up world gives me the same freedom as a contemporary story.  Furthermore, with that first story I wrote last summer, I added a connection between that world and this: a pair of characters from modern-day Michigan.

As a result, I have all three approaches to food going on in the story.  The nation of "Awarshawa" is made up, and though it has a certain Balkan feel to it, I can do what I want with the geography since it stands in for all those "exotic foreign lands" in adventure fiction of a hundred years ago.  And since Imperia is really a stand in for the more familiar England, I can use period appropriate cuisine there.  And for my travelers from Michigan, I have real modern cuisine.

At Breakfast in Awarshawa, Michigan and Imperia

Character Name: Captain Akio "Kosha" Rozinshura
Book or series: The Perils of Plink (The Case of the Misplaced Hero)

Location/Setting: Awarshawa, an alternate universe, cartoony country, which is always in a state of revolution. The current government is an Anarcho-Bureaucracy (a form of socialism...sorta).

Captain Rozinshura is a "District Faciliator," which means he is a bureaucrat in charge of redistributing the wealth -- a good position for eating well. He is something of an avuncular trickster, who looks after his district and his people. (Unlike many officials, he represents both the Anarcho and the Bureaucracy sides of his revolutionary beliefs.  He knows all the rules, and is very good at breaking them.)

Usual breakfast: Whatever is being served at the canteen, or made for him by his cook -- which would usually be some sort of gruel or solid mush (like polenta), cheese and fermented goat's milk to drink. Sausages if there are any (which there usually are for him - he's inmportant).  And probably some form of blootchkes, which are the national food of Awarshawa, and consist of something wrapped up in something else.  For breakfast, this would most likely resemble a tamale. (I.e. mush wrapped in a leaf.)

Oh... and beer.

What he'd make for himself: Rozinshura would never make breakfast for himself.  If he were on his own, he'd seek someone to make breakfast for him. (A more accurate description: he would help himself to someone else's breakfast ... but only in the most polite way.)

Fancy or special breakfast, Restaurant: It's a special meal if it involves chocolate or a quantity of meat.  But more often: "skillet blootchkes," which are like crepes, would be a special treat. His cook is very good at skillet blootchkes.

Breakfast on the Run:  Probably an apple. He is fond of apples. But if there were no apples available, whatever can be stuffed in a pocket.

==========

Character Name: Professor Artemis Thornton, aka "Old Thorny"
Book or series: The Perils of Plink (The Case of the Misplaced Hero)

Location/Setting: Thorny is from Michigan, but he makes an accidental trip to Awarshawa.

Thorny is a burnt-out old professor who's just going through the motions these days.  Also a bit of a drunk. (We don't see him eat breakfast -- or anything else -- within the story, which takes place in one afternoon/evening. These answers are what he would eat in Michigan.)

Usual breakfast: Egg McMuffin.
(NOTE: this assumes he is actually awake for breakfast, which he won't be if he doesn't have to be.)

What he'd make for himself: left-over Egg McMuffin and beer. Also, Doritos. Maybe a donut.

Fancy or special breakfast, Restaurant: It depends on who is picking up the tab.  If he's paying, he'll order the cheapest meal. If someone else is paying, the most expensive.  He likes rich and unhealthy foods, so Eggs Benedict would probably be his favorite.

Breakfast on the Run: Egg McMuffin.

==========

Character Name: Alex Nichols (actually Nikolinshe)
Book or series: The Perils of Plink (The Case of the Mispaced Hero)

Location/Setting:  Alex is a college student from modern day Michigan, who also makes an unexpected trip to Awarshawa.

In Michigan -- and this world in general -- Alex is incredibly bored with everything.  He doesn't much care about what he eats.  (He is the "misplaced hero" and doesn't really belong in Michigan.)

Usual breakfast: Whatever the dorm serves.  None of it tastes particularly good, so if he's not that hungry, just toast and coffee. If he's hungrier, scrambled eggs.

What he'd make for himself:  Cocoa Wheats.  Cooked thick, so that a spoon stands up in it.  With a little extra sugar and goat's milk.  It's one of the few foods he really likes, because that's what is Aunt Flavia used to make. 

Fancy or special breakfast, Restaurant:  Meh.  Whatever.  Well, okay, he does kinda like fancy pancakes, you know, crepes.

Breakfast on the Run: Maybe an apple.  Granola bar.  Muffin. Whatever.

(You'll note that what Alex prefers to eat has some resemblance to Awarshi food.  There is a reason for that.)

==========

We don't really see much of Lady Pauline in  The Case of the Misplaced Hero.  But she is the central character of the main series and of the next serial, which will begin at the end of the month.

Character Name: Lady Pauline, AKA "Plink" (More formally: Lady Pauline Anne Marie Tritt-Woolsey Beethingham Smythe, the Baroness of Beethingham.)
Book or series: The Perils of Plink (The Case of the Misplaced Baroness)

Location: Pauline is from Imperia, a rival country to Awarshawa -- more or less a cartoon version of England.

Pauline has just come of age, 21, and also has just come into her hereditary title: the Baroness of Beethingham, a title she holds in her own right.

Usual breakfast: Generally the servants put out a big buffet of what we would call an "English breakfast" (an "Imprish breakfast"?).  Though she is a bit of a partier who stays up late and often wanders in late for breakfast, she is a hearty eater.  She will likely have something of everything the servants put out, but she is especially fond of the breakfast meats, and also of jam.

What she'd make for herself: Make it herself?  How jolly exciting!  She'd make...um... well ... she'd make... bread and jam!  (It's the only thing she knows how to make, but she also happens to like it very much.)

Fancy or special breakfast, Restaurant: There is nothing particularly "special" about eating at a restaurant.  It's never as good as at home .  However, she is more likely to have poached eggs.  For some reason they never have poached eggs at Beethingham Hall.  She's never asked why. (It's actually because her great great grandfather hated them, and nobody has ever questioned tradition.)

Breakfast on the Run: She's never heard of such a thing.  If you're running, how can you eat?  Perhaps some biscuits?


This post was more fun to write than the rest -- maybe because it was more speculative.  The serials here are often "bump and go" and I don't always have time to play with full details like this.  Also, since the characters are more cartoony and outrageous, that gives more room for playing with their eating habits.

This was fun. I hope you'll consider answering the Characters at Breakfast Challenge with a blog post of your own -- about your own characters or characters from favorite books you've read.   A few others ahve written posts.  Be sure to check them out: Kyra's Breakfast Post 1, and Breakfast Post 2.  James D's Breakfast Post. Watch the comments for others.

(The Case of the Misplaced Baroness is now running on this blog -- you can see the first episode here.)

See you in the funny papers.

Characters at Breakfast: George and Karla - contemporary characterization

Last time for the Characters at Breakfast post, we talked about food in historical settings with my young gunslingers Mick and Casey McKee's breakfast habits. 

This time we're talking about a contemporary story.  And of all the stories I'll talk about, the cozy mystery series about George Starling and Karla Marquette is the one where food is the most revealing of character.

And that makes sense: With a contemporary story you the most leeway for your characters to like just about anything.  These days, even in a small, isolated town -- such as Potewa -- the residents will get The Food Channel on cable TV, and they can order pretty much anything through the internet.  And many formerly exotic foods are routinely distributed to remote locations.

Food plays a very important role in this series.  First, the local culture of Potewa County is hospitality oriented: it's a northern lower Michigan beach town.  While it's not a "destination" attraction, most of the economy is based on people coming to visit -- whether it's a hotel or resort stay, or more likely a cabin in the woods.  And when they come to that cabin, they are probably there to acquire food: hunting, fishing, mushrooming, or coming for a cherry festival.

But beyond that, food is key to showing how the characters think:

In the very first chapter, we meet George's girlfriend Gwen, who suffers from anxiety disorders (and PTSD) and who eats only childish comfort foods -- particularly cheese burgers (no pickles).  And while George has come to despise cheeseburgers, he still hovers and loyally supplies all the burgers she could possibly want.  Furthermore, when Karla first meets George, and believes him to be a secret agent, she sneeks a peek into his briefcase, and her very first concern is that he hadn't packed a lunch -- which she believes one should do if one is going to stalk and spy on others.

As you'll notice, both George and Karla see food as nurturing as well as nutriment.  Although they are very different characters with very different tastes, they are immediately on the same wavelength with food.  That's why much of the scene where they first start working together is choreographed around the making of a snack.

Karla Marquette and George Starling

Character Name: Karla Marquette.
Series Title, Book Title: Starling and Marquette Mysteries: The Man Who Did Too Much
Location: Modern Day Michigan, rural/tourism area.

Karla is a middle-aged, small town spinster, who lives a hand-to-mouth lifestyle -- she gardens and barters and does odd jobs.  But she enjoys cooking and feeds herself well.

Usual breakfast: Karla, given her druthers, would mostly skip breakfast.  She might have some cold cereal, or some leftovers, or just a glass of milk.  Or a brownie.  She'd rather just start in on lunch after she wakes up.  (We see her nuke herself some hot chocolate in Chapter 19.)

What she'd prepare for herself: As mentioned above, she generally skips breakfast.  However, if she feels she has to have breakfast -- like she's going to have a busy day, or might have to skip lunch -- she would make waffles or maybe hot cereal. Or she'd make lunch and just eat it early.

Fancy or special breakfast, restaurant breakfast:  Buttermilk pancakes with extra bacon and orange juice.  (Which is what she orders in Chapter 13, when her uncle, Sheriff Rosie, takes her out to breakfast so he can question her.  Rosie himself has "mostly everything on the menu.")

If she were out of town at an event, and needed to load up calories, she'd probably add scrambled eggs, but not because she likes them.

Breakfast on the run: Donut.  Chocolate frosting, no sprinkles. But only if you could get them someplace that makes real homemade cake donuts, fresh.

====

Character Name: George Starling
Series Title, Book Title: Starling and Marquette Mysteries: The Man Who Did Too Much
Location: Modern Day Michigan, rural/tourism area.

George is a wealthy globe-trotter who lives everywhere in the world, but we only see him when he's in Michigan.  Though George is an action hero, he is also somewhat neurotic. (He has a compulsive need to rescue people, which is mostly under control.)  He was raised in Asia and tends to have a preference for Asian foods.

Usual breakfast: Whatever you're having.

No, seriously.  George is a social chameleon.  Aside from being a sophisticated traveler who adapts to local customs, he's always seeking to blend in and please people.

So normally, if he's with somebody, he'll eat approximately as they do.  However, he is also a closet gourmet and secretly fussy as hell, so he'd probably adjust his order subtly to upgrade it.  He is also happy to be a "food guide" to anyone who is unfamiliar with a cuisine.

What he'd make for himself: Left to his own devices, he'd make himself a bowl of Juk (rice gruel) or noodles, Asian style.

Fancy or special breakfast, restaurant breakfast: His mother was an anglophile, and so he considers a "proper" breakfast to be an English breakfast.  He would never make it himself, but that's what he'd order in a hotel restaurant -- but it isn't his idea of a fancy meal out. (A fancy meal is not something you have at breakfast.)

Breakfast on the run: He would prefer whatever the local equivalent is to jian bing -- which is a Chinese version of a breakfast burrito. He likes street food, but he'd rather go hungry than eat packaged fast food.


As you'll note: breakfast isn't really a favored meal of either of these characters, but as I said above they both enjoy food.  It's a form of self-expression for both of them.  But food is kind of a symbol of life -- and George really doesn't know how to enjoy his life -- except in the area of food, and even there he is a little inhibited.  Karla, on the other hand, knows exactly how to enjoy life, and she becomes George's "Happiness Coach."  George is happy to return the favor by mentoring her appreciation of exotic fare.


Next time we'll talk about four characters from the summer serial her on the blog - last year's The Case of the Misplaced Hero, and the upcoming The Case of the Misplaced Baroness. Alex, Professor Thorny, Captain Rozinshura, and introducing Lady Pauline, the young Baroness of Beethingham -- around whom the overall series revolves. (The series title, I fear, will be called The Perils of Lady Pauline, or perhaps just The Perils of Plink, as that is her nickname.)

That series takes place in an alternate universe -- but one based on a fictional version of this universe.  That allows a blend of fantasy world-building (and food can be the most fun part of that!) and historical and modern diet.


Meanwhile, you can check out the first Starling and Marquette Mystery, The Man Who Did Too Much, at:

Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Deisel, Apple iBookstore, Sony eReader, or get it in all formats without DRM at Smashwords.

(There is also a very short flash story featuring George and Karla in the collection Pink Snowbunnies In Hell.  It's called "Revenge of the Peeps" and it's available from most of the  above vendors.)

Buying books not only encourages me to write more of them, but it also supports the blog.

See you in the funny papers.

Characters At Breakfast: Mick and Casey - Historical

For my first Characters at Breakfast post, I'll be talking about Mick and Casey McKee, a pair of young gunslinger detectives. 

When the story is set in an historical period (even a generic version of one) the characters are often constrained by the period and location.  And an author is also constrained by what we know of the period (as well as what most people know of the period -- accurate or not).

For instance, while yogurt certainly existed in the 1870s, most readers would be upset if your young saddle bum in the American west had yogurt for breakfast.  And even if you created the more likely scenario where he comes across a visiting Turkish pasha who came with his own chef who made yogurt for him, it's really unlikely that they would sprinkle granola on the top.

Unless, of course, it was an intentional "wink wink" satire, in which the pasha was sharing his yogurt with a young John Harvey Kellogg, who was experimenting with his special healthy diet of toasted nuts and grains....

But that's not the kind of thing I do in the Mick and Casey series.  (A pasha with yogurt might someday appear, but no winking references to the present.  Except in chapter titles.)

Mick and Casey At Breakfast

Character Name: Mick and Casey McKee.
Series title, Book title: Mick and Casey Mysteries; Have Gun, Will Play
Location: American West (generic), 1876-ish.

For Mick and Casey the setting and the situation almost always dictates the food. They are saddle tramps.  They have no home or kitchen, and for the most part, they do not travel with a pack animal.  (They would in situations that call for it.)  They might carry some cornmeal or old hard biscuits -- to get them through to the next town.  But they mostly eat in town, or what a farmer is willing to sell them.

So Mick and Casey are opportunistic eaters. They eat what is given to them. or what they find or can buy, or what Casey shoots.

As a result, they have a surprising amount of variety, given the culture.  In Have Gun, Will Play, for instance, they get some rice porridge for breakfast from a Chinese grocer who has befriended them.  Later in the same book, they have a full hotel breakfast -- steak, eggs, beans, bread and flapjacks.

Usual breakfast: whatever is available (which is usually some form of  ham or steak, beans and biscuits).  And normally they'd eat at the cheapest digs in town that is also clean. Preferably a place that has pie.

What they make for themselves: When forced to rely on their own devices, corn dodgers can be cooked on a metal plate, and Casey will shoot something they can roast.

Fancy or special breakfast: Pie. (And also everything else on the menu.)  Mick is partial to pie, and will eat it any time of the day or night.  Any variety, sweet or savory, it doesn't matter.  Casey considers it kinda sissy to be fussy about food, but she'll go for some kind of steak for a treat.  And, okay, maybe some pie.

Breakfast on the run:  when you're running you ain't got time for breakfast! (They tend to interpret "on the run" literally.)  When you stop running, you eat what you find nearby, or what you got in your saddlebags.

Another note about Mick and Casey, and about much of the eating habits of the frontier: what they have for breakfast, lunch and dinner are highly likely to be the same things.  The fancier and more formal the restaurant (or the more civilized the homestead) the more likely the offerings would differ.  But many places you'd find food would be highly limited in terms of menu. They'd make what they make.

I have so many fun books on food in the west, though, I hope to talk about food again later.  It's a great subject.  (It seems to me that folks in the west were either in a phenomenal hurry... or in no hurry at all.  It made for interesting eating patterns.)

Next up: Contemporary breakfasts with George and Karla.

(NOTE: this is a blog challenge inspired by an article in The Guardian -- write about your favorite characters and what they do or would eat for breakfast. It can be your own characters, or famous characters you love in literature and film.)


If you want to check out the first Mick and Casey Mystery, you can get it in paper and ebook form at:

Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Deisel, Apple iBookstore, Sony eReader, or get it in all formats without DRM at Smashwords.

Shorter stories are also available at the same vendors: The Curse of Scattershale Gulch (a novelette) and Waiter! There's a Clue in my Soup! (a collection which contains two Mick and Casey short stories).  Soon a new novelette A Fistful of Divas will be available too.

Buying books not only encourages me to write more of them, but it also supports the blog.

See you in the funny papers.

Characters At Breakfast, and a Challenge

"Wienies, the Breakfast of Fandom"

Back when I was a button dealer at science fiction conventions, the phrase above was one of my best selling buttons.

The kind of conventions I attended did not have the razzle-dazzle of the professional convention, such as Comic-con.  These were fan conventions.  There were few stars (maybe a midlist author or two, and a champion gamer) and no corporate presence at all. For many fans, conventions were a lifestyle.  The fen would pack themselves in, sometimes eight to a double room, and party, and argue, and play all weekend.

And very often the only food available for breakfast, for those who were crashing on the floor of the hotel room of a distant acquaintance, was whatever was left over in the "con suite" (the hospitality room of the convention).  This often consisted of chips, pretzels and hot dogs.

Hence the button "Wienies, the Breakfast of Fandom."

Some of these people might very well eat hot dogs for breakfast at home, but most of them were just eating what was available.  (I suspect that Pop Tarts was a common meal back home.)  And yes some people brought their own Pop Tarts, and some went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, and some would pack themselves in, a dozen to a car like clowns, and head off to find the nearest Denny's or Waffle House. Many slept through breakfast and started their day with lunch.

And all of them probably ate something different at home than what they ate at the con.

I bring this up, because I think what a person eats for breakfast -- often the most opportunistic meal of the day -- is an intersection between their character and their situation.

And these two elements -- character and situation -- are the foundation of all fiction.

What a person chooses to eat for breakfast tells you something about them.  What they choose when they can't have what they normally have can tell you more.  (And what they choose when somebody else is buying tells you more also.)  Food relates to culture as well as taste, and a person's choice will be influenced not only by the culture they are currently surrounded by, but also the culture they were raised in.

Breakfast Blog Challenge

For the next two weeks, I'm going to be blogging about what various of my characters eat for breakfast in different situations.  I'd like to challenge other bloggers out there -- both writers and readers -- to write a post about the breakfasting habits of their favorite characters.

You can write about your own characters or a famous character created by someone else.  (And you can extrapolate what you imagine the famous character would eat. You don't have to stick to the text.)

Consider these questions:

*What is a usual breakfast for this character?

*What's different in these circumstances (some of these may be the "usual," some not):

• What sort of breakfast does a character make for himself, on his own?
• What's a quick breakfast on the run?
• What breakfast would the character order when away from home, in a restaurant?
• What's a special "treat" breakfast?

You could also consider things like whether you character skips breakfast, or whether they'll eat differently if someone else is paying. Does the character see breakfast as a social occasion? Or a "health" activity? Do they see breakfast more as an ending to The Night Before, or a preparation for The Day Ahead?  How does the character relate to unfamiliar things -- a change in schedule, foreign food, social pressure? Also, are there cultural or world-building considerations from the greater story?

If you write such a post, please let me know: post a link in the comments here, or maybe tweet with the hashtag #characterbreakfasts . 

I'll be posting about my characters on the following schedule:

Thursday, April 11: Mick and Casey, whose "on the trail" lifestyle in a western setting puts some limits on what they can choose.

Monday, April 15: George and Karla of the Starling and Marquette Mysteries. Their eating habits reflect both their very different personalities and backgrounds (neurotic man of the world, and quirky small town spinster), but also the similarities which make them so compatible.

Thursday, April 18: Alex, Thorny, Captain Rozinshura, from The Case of the Misplaced Hero.  And introducing Lady Pauline whose prequel story, The Case of the Misplaced Baroness begins the week after.  These characters illustrate a little about blending made up cultures with real ones -- and how an imaginary culture influences a real one.

See you in the funny papers.

Story Notes: A Fistful of Divas

The Mick and Casey saga began when I decided to sit down and teach myself to write a screenplay.  To make it easy on myself, I decided to write something standard -- and old-time western.  (Of course, being me, I couldn't write to just ONE standard, I also had to mix it with a second formula of a coming-of-age tomboy story.)

That script was originally called "The Legend of Casey McKee" (later I considered calling it "Girl Gunslinger") and it got me some nice attention, including a "just missed" the quarter finals in the Nichol Fellowships.  It was about a teenaged Casey, a wild and apparently orphaned girl who was determined to join a posse led by the legendary law man, Harry Lowe.  Harry, who is as ornery as Casey, will have none of it, but the necessity of the situation and Casey's stubbornness win out in the end.

Mick was a secondary character: Harry's good-natured young sidekick. He actually did for Harry what he does for Casey - he provides the smiling and talking whenever that is needed.  Harry was no more able to tolerate social amenities than Casey is.

However, once I'd finished the screenplay, I had a problem: when you sell a screenplay, you sell the rights to the characters.  It's very hard for a screenwriter to get what is called "separated rights."  That's when you keep the rights to the character and world, and the production company just buys rights to that particular story.

And I wanted to write more about these characters.  I didn't know what, I just did.  I had some ideas of a Maverick-like TV series, where Mick and Casey ride into town, get in trouble, get out of trouble, and then ride out again.

But I couldn't help but think about writing it as fiction rather than scripts.  After all, the writers most likely to actually get separated rights are fiction writers who have an established, published series.  So if I established the series, even in short fiction....

There aren't many western markets out there, but what I really wanted to write, always, was mystery.
And that's when the series clicked too: When I decided to let Mick narrate, I realized that I had a real detective on my hands.  Mick may seem a bit of a doofus, but he's actually an observer and a thinker.  That's why Harry tolerated him, and why Casey sticks with him.  And his job is to talk - to ask the questions before his partner starts shooting.

A Fistful of Divas was one of the first story ideas I had.  Their search for opera comes from a line in the original screenplay, in which Casey's father bemoans the fact that she married Mick, and will spend her life seeing the inside of saloons, but will never see the inside of an opera house.

The Advantage of Serialization

As I mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I never finished A Fistful of Divas. It was about 3/4 done as a short story, and I had a screenplay version done, but it was just hanging out in my trunk.

I started the serial here mainly to force myself to finish it. Little did I suspect that I would rewrite the whole thing from scratch.  It turned out to be a lot more work than I expected. I kept the plot, and some of the dialog and a few good lines with Mick's interior dialog.

But what you saw here was what I call a "rough draft with benefit of rehearsal."

And that got done because a serial demands that it get done.  On time.  One way or the other.

The Disadvantage of Serialization

I feel as though a number of threads got short shrift in this version of the story, because with a serial, you have to make the individual episodes work.  And that means you have to focus in tight, and some of the larger arcs get neglected. Or at least disjointed.

For this reason, I'm going to pause to rewrite before I publish the ebook version of this.

I feel that two things need attention: one is the thread of Casey's bad day.  I think that was somewhat lost after Rufus' body is found.  The story becomes complicated and both Mick and Casey are concentrating on other things.  But for me, this story is about Mick trying to live up to being a good husband. I don't think that it's clear in this version: but Mick thinks this obsession with opera houses is coming from himself.  He's trying to prove that Casey didn't lose anything by marrying him. He doesn't realize how much it means to Casey until halfway through the story.  And that, of course, raises the stakes and gives him a shot at redemption for screwing up.

The other element that I think needs more work is, ironically, the mystery itself.  I kind of reined in the "Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Wrench" aspect because I didn't want to get too far from the central story.  But this is that kind of story. It requires more subtle and more overt cluing, and better timing of cogitation. 

So both of these important elements interfered with the other.  I think next time I do a Mick and Casey as a serial, I'll choose a more straight mystery, with less of a tangled subplot.  (Something more like "The Hoosegow Strangler.")

In the meantime, I'll rewrite this one to be a cohesive story that does what I want it to do.  Eventually, I will write the events of that original screenplay into a novel.  I just have to re-frame the background plot into a mystery.

For those of you new to the Mick and Casey Mysteries, there are several ebooks available:

Have Gun, Will Play (novel) available in both ebook and paper at: Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, as well as these ebook dealers: Kobo, Deisel, Apple iBookstore, Sony eReader, or get it in all formats without DRM at Smashwords.

Waiter, There's a Clue in My Soup! contains two Mick and Casey mystery shorts.  Available as an ebook  at: Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, as well as these ebook dealers: Kobo, Deisel, Apple iBookstore, Sony eReader, or get it in all formats without DRM at Smashwords.

The Curse of Scattershale Gulch, a Halloween novelette.  Available as an ebook  at: Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, as well as these ebook dealers: Kobo, Deisel, Apple iBookstore, Sony eReader, or get it in all formats without DRM at Smashwords.

And on Monday, I'll start a blog series about breakfast and characterization.  Both our habits, and how we break our habits, says a lot about a character.

See you in the funny papers.

Update - Month of Living Heck

Every single person in my circle of friends seems to be having their life go to hell in a handbasket.  Dying parents, major health issues, transportation issues.  Employment issues.  Disability issues.  And while several people are either available, or can drive, OR have two working legs, I am the only one in the group who actually has all three.  At least so far.

So me?  I got sick this weekend and I can't tell if it's A) a reaction to a rabies shot, or B) a sinus infection or C) because the same day as the rabies shot I spent all night in the ER with a friend.

This all after a whole week of sleep deprivation due to minor and miscellaneous causes.

And my lips are numb, which may be a symptom of a dreaded side effect of the rabies shots... or just because when I am stressed I suck on my lips and make them numb and chapped.  Probably the latter, because there is no "progression" but....

It would be really nice if Scruffy the Feral Cat would show up for brunch tomorrow to display one more time that he really and truly is not showing any signs of rabies a full two weeks after he objected so strenuously to being taken to the vet to get his own bite marks checked out.  He was in the pink on Day 11, which should be good enough, but I would really rather see some confirmation before I discuss whether I can forgo the second booster shot.

(And yes, these are boosters. I've had rabies shots before, because of bats in the belfry. And no, this is not an April Fools post.  Sigh.)

This is just one way of saying... there will be no "Story Notes" for A Fistful of Divas until Thursday.

For the rest of April, I'll be doing some light blogging - once or twice a week - before getting on with the next serial.  In particular I will be talking about Fictional Characters and their Relationships with Breakfast.

I was inspired to write about breakfast because of an article in The Guardian, about what various famous fictional characters eat for breakfast.  (The Sexiest Meal)  That article is from a reader's point of view -- finding clues about the character within the story.  And that's plenty fun.

But it's a fun thing for writers to talk about too, for two reasons:  One is that we don't always tell the reader everything we know about a character, and it's fun to reveal little "extras", such as how a character relates to food. The other reason is that considering a character's eating habits can be a great way to develop a character.

So next Monday, I'll introduce the subject, and challenge those of you who are bloggers (both readers and writers) to write about your favorite characters and their breakfasts, (or other food).  Then I'll have a series of posts about the characters from each of my series.

Then, on April 29, (make that May 2) I'll post an introduction to The Case of the Misplaced Baroness, and we'll be off to the races again with another serial.

See you in the funny papers.