The Daring Novelist

Plotting Game - Movie-of-the-Week Plot Structure

2013-06-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

A reminder -- this week the blog is on hiatus. The Case of the Misplaced Baroness blogstory will continue June 24th.

In the meantime, Tanja asked for more info about my Potting Game project, in particular the Movie-of-the-Week plotting structure.

Since I decided to give you more info on the various parts of the game and theory behind in my Sunday updates anyway, I decided to start now in answer to her question;

Where I Got This Movie-of-the-Week Structure

Back in the day, a movie-of-the-week had a pretty rigid structure. It's exactly two hours long, it's split up into seven parts by standard two-minute ad breaks. The ad breaks and credits take up about 15 minutes of the two hours. That leaves a 105 minute script. The average length of a scene in that kind of writing is about a minute and a half. That's about 70 scenes per story, split up into seven acts -- or 10 scenes per act.

Oy, that's a lot of math, but it's also convenient for developing a production. A TV production HAS to fit its time slot, so you need to develop it with the criteria in mind from the start. It's not really meant for anything else. However....

One of my mentors, who worked for a MOW producer, found that the company's scene breakdown sheet was a really great tool to use to study other movies.

Note, I didn't say it was a great for writing from. It is great for writing Movies of the Week, but it's too restrictive for writing much else. But those tiny, micromanaging restrictions (in particular the tiny 1.5 minute increments) are great to use as a ruler to study any kind of movie.

So she made copies of the 70-line scene breakdown form and gave it to us, and told us to go watch movies and write down what happens every 1.5 minutes. Circle the important things, like character entrances and major revelations and plot turns.

Now, in the form she gave us, there were seven defined plot points -- one for the end of each act. I don't know if she got these from the producer, or added them herself. They are mostly variations on well-known plot theory in the industry. (Everything from Syd Field to The Hero's Journey.)

In studying films against the beat sheet herself, she found that no matter what kind of story it was, those seven plot points seemed to apply. And I have found she is right. You can find something like these points even in the weirdest art house film. It applies to books if you are flexible about the timing.

But that's for studying a plot.

If you're going to use it to help write something, it works best for your more commercial type story. (However, it is a good springboard to develop tools for other kinds of stories. I may get to that later on.)

The 7-Plot Points of a MOW Story

NOTE: I have seriously adapted this for myself. I found a couple of the spots to be vague or unhelpful, so I filled in with some great information from Blake Snyder's excellent Save the Cat book. I still haven't finished my version to my complete satisfaction.

Act 1 - The Protagonist's life is thrown out of balance.
Set up the character and setting -- end the act with the Inciting Incident, where things go wrong.

Act 2 - The Protagonist commits to the Quest
The Protagonist reacts to the Inciting Incident, realizes it's an ongoing problem, and commits to dealing with it. (NOTE: this "quest" is the central idea of the story -- it's what you describe in the logline or blurb. It's The Premise.)

Act 3 - The Promise of the Premise
This is a Blake Snyder thing. He also calls it "Fun and Games" -- this is where the central idea of your story first blossoms. (The old MOW form called this "A Hint of Things To Come" -- and dictated that at the end of this section, the Protagonist would show a hint of the transormation he or she would make by the end.)

Act 4 - The Point of No Return
While the fun and games continue, the stakes start to rise until at the end of this section it's no longer fun and games. Something greater is at stake. Something more important. (Note, if the whole world is at stake up to now, here is where it becomes personal. Or if it's been personal, it becomes global.) Blake Snyder points out that this moment that ends the sequence can be a major triumph or a major failure for the character. Both can be a point of no return.

Act 5 - The Secret is Revealed
The character is mopping up after the Act 4 finale. Whatever happened there it's big enough to need follow up. There's some chaos, a mess, reversals. But at the end of this sequence is a major revelation, which will throw the Protagonist for a loop.

Act 6 - Dark Night of the Soul
Another Snyder plot point. This is where the protagonist questions what he is doing, what he can do about the problem. But he pulls it together, and realizes that he has the tools or knowledge now to go after the source of the problem.

Act 7 - Confrontation
The Protagonist takes the conflict to the source, and stays on it until it is settled.

I should pause here to point out that, even though you can hold up this structure to just about any story and it fits, I don't use this structure for most of my writing. With most things I might think in terms of four acts -- four different directions for the story to take --and scatter the plot points where they are most useful.

The serial deviates even further: it's not meant to be experienced as a whole, but rather one bit at a time. So all of those plot points end up happening all the time, all the way through. I don't really plan them so much as let one spring from the other, with some idea of bigger changes of direction later on. In the end, the story will probably resemble this structure in some way or other, but I seldom see it or think of it.

This game is for doing things quickly and easily. It's an exercise. Therefore the more detailed and proscribed it is, the better. (Especially since I make the rules and I can decide to ditch any of them at any time.)

I'll cover the MOW plot in more detail in a series of posts later. (Also talk about variations on it, and how to write your own structure.) But for next week, I'll start talking about what comes before this. The plot structure is not the story. It's useless without your Situation -- the characters, setting, premise/problem.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 12

2013-06-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

First Episode | Previous Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Next Episode

Episode 12 - "MacGreevey Digs Deeper"

by Camille LaGuire

Inspector Pfaffle was so relieved to hear the news: That pretty young Baroness of Beethingham had run off with her dancing instructor. It was a prank after all! MacGreevey was right!

It had been hell for Pfaffle after that interview with her. The chief superintendent, the superintendent and the chief inspector, in sequence, had all given MacGreevey a solid dressing down, and there was talk of dismissal.

Pfaffle was in a sweat about it, but MacG only seemed half interested. He grunted his apologies and promises of more respectful behavior, and then hurried right down to the evidence room to sulk, leaving Pfaffle to fend for himself.

Ah, but then word came, just in time, that she had run off with that foreign fellow after all! It was a prank, just like MacG had said!

Pfaffle went down to the evidence room to give the sergeant the good news, but the man was not there.

"He went up to Beethingham Hall a few hours ago," said the sergeant in charge of the evidence room.

"When will he be back?"

"He didn't say."

It was two hours before MacGreevey came back, all full of bulldog energy. Perhaps someone had told him the good news already? Or perhaps he had just found someone to take it out on -- that always cheered him up.

"MacG!" said Pfaffle. "Did you hear? You were right! It was all a prank after all. She did it to cover the fact that she was running off with her dance instructor."

MacGreevey gave him a cold stare and said, "No it wasn't. Someone tried to kill her."

"But...." said Pfaffle in confusion.

"There's a mass of evidence of it," he added. "There are peacock feathers and chestnut hair in the boot of her roadster. Also, by the odometer and the amount of petrol used since the carman recorded it, that roadster went almost to Thronden and back before it went into the ditch near the railway station. Someone stuck her in the boot of that car -- hardly something she'd do to herself -- and drove her to that spot on the tracks where she was meant to be run over, and then drove the car back to leave it in the ditch."

"But she was seen getting on that train. She bought a ticket."

"Someone wrapped from head to foot in a peacock cloak bought a ticket, head covered with her hat. No one actually recognized her, did they? It's easy enough to fake. Leave the party wrapped in that cloak, wearing her hat. Call out, make sure people notice. Buy the ticket, get on the train early and make sure you're seen. Then take off the cloak and hat and stuff 'em in a bag, leave that shoe behind, and step off the train just before it leaves, dressed in your regular clothes."

"That means it was a woman!" said Pfaffle. "Someone who could impersonate her--"

"Right, an impersonator, not a woman," said MacGreevey with satisfaction. "That's what put me onto it in the first place. Her hair is chestnut, but I found a number of short black hairs in her hat. It was a man who impersonated her."

"Are you sure? Some women wear their hair quite short these days."

"But not slick with hair oil," said MacGreevey. "No, it was a short slight man, with greasy black hair with a known talent for mimicking all sorts of folk, including women, and who had the grace to walk like a lady, even in borrowed heels.... It was her dance instructor."

"The foreigner!"

"Yes, Antonio Maurinos is the man who tried to kill Lady Pauline."

"But she's run off with him," gasped Pfaffle.

"No, I told you, that was just a joke they told at the party--"

"No, no, MacG! She's run off with him since. The housekeeper rang us up to tell us. As soon as the girl was done talking to us, off she went to be with Maurinos."

MacGreevey took a sharp breath and then let out a string of oaths so harsh, that Pfaffle had never heard most of them before.

"He tried to kill her," hissed MacGreevey. "And now he's got her alone, doesn't he?"

MacGreevey took two cars and a squad of constables to Maurinos' town house while Pfaffle went to give the bad news to the Chief Inspector.

Maurinos' house was empty, but they found a dark stain on the floor of the hall.

"Looks like blood, sir," said a constable.

MacGreevey agreed. They were too late to save the young baroness. He felt briefly guilty for not listening sooner, but she'd been safe enough when they left her. She knew, better than anyone, that she was in danger, so running off like that was a fool thing to do. MacGreevey's job was not to feel guilty, but to catch that foreign blighter who did the deed.

A city-wide dragnet quickly expanded to country-wide They spoke to the man's clients and associates. A search of police records found that the man was known to them. And those records gave them the names of some of the man's aliases. And that led them to discover that an Anton Nestlegraf had got on a boat to the continent that very afternoon.

It was simple enough to wire full information to the authorities in the landing city, with a listing of aliases, including a female one -- an Awarshi countess, Antonia Bishnovia. Those authorities were highly competent and efficient, and eager to cooperate.

This fellow would have a nasty surprise waiting for him at the end of this little voyage.

Stay Tuned For Episode 13 - "Plink Disembarks"
(Available after 8am EST, Monday, June 24.)

First Episode | Previous Episode | Series Intro and TOC | 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

Story Notes - Pulp Illustrations and The Misplaced Baroness

2013-06-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

I was incredibly pleased with my illo for Episode 7. Even though that episode was a bit of a cheat.

Things had gone off the rails a little bit that week, and I was once again writing and illustrating the whole thing starting at 11pm the night before it was due. And so I went through little illos and dingbats I'd created earlier for fun, and found some pulp silhouettes I'd played with this winter. I redid them -- giving the thug an ivy cap rather than a bowler (since MacGreevey wears a bowler) and the "smoking man" -- Mr. X -- a homburg.

The figures were originally inspired by pulp illustrations. The smoking man was inspired by the logo for The Falcon And the thug was
inspired by every grotesque thug illo from comic and pulps you'll ever see.

I think he was also subconsciously inspired by this book cover (which I think is an E. Phillips Oppenheim book but I can't remember just now). The colors are greatly enhanced here -- this is actually the impressed image illo from the actual cloth-bound book, not the printed paper dust cover. Images on the physical book are often simpler than the paper dust covers, with maybe one or two inks that easily wear off. Or no ink and just an embossed impression. The whole thing is often dull and low-contrast. The design on these things, therefore, has to be particularly good. Sort of like thumbnails -- it won't be seen clearly so it has to look fab anyway.

But that's only half of why I like my illustration from Episode 7.

The other half is depth of field, and that comes from more recent pulp illustration -- like this men's magazine illo by Earl Norem. It was particularly a feature of the sexy he-man sort of adventures that came along in the forties and fifties and sixties. Many of them were thinly disguised porn, but even the more upscale stuff had some amazing art, dynamic, filled with detail.

One of the things these pulp illustrators often did really well was use the full depth of the setting. This particular example may not be the very best, because all the figures are pretty similar in size, and it's not a very deep setting. But often you'd see more exaggerated depth -- someone in extreme close up in the foreground, and someone or something seen over his shoulder in the background. The foreground figure would be almost a framing device for the background.

Now, in natural depth of field, you see either one or the other of figures so far apart in depth. One will be in focus, the other not. These artists put both in focus, emphasizing both figures. Often very dynamic and visually exciting.

Great filmmakers -- especially noir filmmakers after the war, through the 60's -- tended to use this sort of artsy style. (This is why the French came to worship the Noir film.) Of course, they had movement and time to add to it. The ending of The Third Man is a great example of using the deep background -- Valli walking toward the camera from far down the long tree-lined road, while Joseph Cotton waits for her in the foreground. In this case the power of the image comes from time and scale. (Imagine this seen on a big screen in a theater -- which is how I first saw it.)

Another video example that I can lay hands on quickly is the Peter Gunn TV show. It was a very very hip show at the time -- full of jazz. And though it was filmed at a time when all TV had low production values, it they used a lot of over the shoulder and depth of field to jazz up the impact. Often the openings were particularly stylish in terms of visual interest. Here's the opening of a show which uses a technique king of like that Third Man ending. A car comes down the road in the distance, as if it's going to pass right across, then turns to come right into extreme close up range, and continues past to head off into the background again as it enters a garage. Then a figure moves into the foreground, and sends a dog into the background. There's some close up work from another angle, but soon we return to that same camera, and see figures moving in and out -- using the background and foreground in the same shot.

I think the style I'm working on for this serial is well suited to the combined foreground/background image. I haven't been able to do it as well as I did with Ep 7 -- partly because that episode didn't require a setting or object. I really need to work on the kind of sketchy suggested settings that go well with this silhouette style. (I liked Episode 9's illo seen here, but Episode 10 really should have been much more striking.)

However, when I look at the green cover up above, maybe I need to think about not representing location depth the same way -- but rather to put a stylized backdrop?

In the meantime, the serial continues with a complication for Plink, when MacGreevey decides to look into the case after all.

On Sunday there will be another post on the Plotting Game, with an explanation of the MOW 7-act plot structure -- then a week off while I play. These posts will be automatically posted and I will be away from my computer and may not see comments, or respond to them. (I'll try!)

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 11

2013-06-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

Episode 11 - "The Gentleman With a Cold"

by Camille LaGuire

The difficulty with passing yourself off as a gentleman named Anton Nestlegraf, when you are a lady named something entirely different, is that your voice is wrong. Plink resolved this problem by coughing and speaking in a hissy, hoarse voice as if she had a very bad cold.

She'd had no trouble getting past the ticket agents and such, but she had a nervous moment when Lady Blinkersley's entourage blocked her way at boat side. Plink held her collar high, coughed a lot, and croaked out an "Excuse me."

The only one who gave her much of a look was Lady Blinkersley's companion -- a nervous little woman named Miss Vilthrop, no first name ever given that Plink had ever heard. However, what little could be seen of Plink's face was obscured by a pair of glasses, and a false moustache and beard she'd acquired during her stop in the theatre district.

It was a nervous moment though. Miss Vilthrop gave a small start, like she recognized Plink, but as soon as she saw Plink's mustachioed face, she seemed embarrassed, as though she didn't recognize her after all. She hurried to get the porters to move the luggage aside so Plink could pass.

Plink bowed and growled some thanks, and hurried up the gang plank onto the boat.

As she went, though, she heard voices hailing the ladies behind her. Distinct Freedonian accents. She thought for a moment that Mr. X and friends might have found her, but as she paused to listen closer, she could not recognize the smooth tones of Mr. X.

Still, when she got up on the deck she turned to look. The Freedonian, Alder Graves they called him, was short and round and effusive. His suit was expensive and his accent was coarse and betrayed no culture at all. He laughed and talked and waved a cigar. She had smelled smoke in the hall where Antonio had been killed, but she thought it wasn't cigar smoke. It smelled like perfumed cigarettes, actually. She hadn't thought anything of it, because it was the sort of thing Antonio smoked.

But now that she thought of it, it didn't smell quite like Antonio's cigarettes either. Nor like a cigar.

Still, if Mr. X were an actor, he could pretend to be an effusive man with a rough accent, couldn't he? All she knew of him was the sound of his voice and possibly the smell of his cigarettes. Things easily covered or faked. Of course this man could also be a colleague, enemy or have nothing to do with X.

With the help of a junior purser she found the cabin reserved by Antonio. She coughed and croaked at the man.

"I am sick in the lungs," she said, in a fake foreign accent. "I wish to stay only in my cabin and not bother anyone with the coughing."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Nestlegraf," agreed the purser eagerly. "Of course."

"Can I have tea and a light supper brought to me there?"

"Yes, yes, of course," said the purser, and he seemed eager enough to get Plink into her room and the door shut between them. She decided not to reassure him that she didn't have plague.

The room was fair sized, and a trunk stood in the corner. It had a label with the name Anton Nestlegraf on it, and the name of a hotel in the city where the boat would dock.

The trunk was not locked, and she took that as a sign that there was nothing important in it. A quick search showed she was right. Only clothing and personal items. Some of the clothes were dresses, however. Possibly to go with the passport for Countess Antonia Bish-something-a.

Plink collapsed on to the bed. She was exhausted. She'd hardly slept, and that was a short-lived drugged sleep, from which she'd been wakened by a train nearly rolling over her. She'd been running ever since, hadn't she?

The heavy suitcase, though, beckoned. She opened it and quickly removed the contents. It took only a moment to find her way to release the false side of the case.

She found papers, all in a foreign language -- Truvian, she thought, as that was Antonio's native language -- and behind that, well-packed wads of money. Several currencies, but most of it Awarshi, which was worthless outside of Awarshawa, and not worth much inside.

But if he were carrying Awarshi money, didn't that indicate he was headed for Awarshawa? And wasn't that where the peace conference that the Blinkersley's were headed to? Or was it somewhere in Truvia? Truvia was under Awarshi "administration" wasn't it? Political this and that going on there. Trouble.

There had been a number of diplomatic people at her party. Lord Blinkersley had gone on ahead, but most of Lady Blinkersley's cultural whatsis had been there. And Antonio, as hired host, kept an eye on all of them. It was his job to make sure everyone was having a good time.

Plink sat on the bed and thought hard. Memories of the night before -- now seeming so long ago -- floated to her. Antonio greeting her when they went into the great hall to play games, and a funny look on his face as he looked beyond her at someone. Plink had started to turn around, but someone else greeted her and she never looked, never saw what concerned him.

She pulled out his tickets and itinerary. The ending point was the city of Tiva. Yes, that's right. That was in Tuvia, and, it seemed to her, it was the sort of place you'd hold a peace conference. An old and lovely city on the sea.

She looked again at the suitcase. Heavy as paper could be, it did not account for the weight of the bag, she thought. She looked deeper and realized that the remaining wall of the suitcase was quite thick. Too thick.

Plink peeled back the paper lining and found beneath it....

Gold.

Coins, to be exact, all packed carefully in sheets of cardboard with holes punched in to hold the coins still. The coins had eagles on them -- Republic of Freedonia gold pieces.

Was that was Mr. X was looking for? She was too tired to care.

When a porter arrived at her door with a tea tray, Plink covered herself with a robe and put a towel over her head and let the man in. She asked him, between feigned fits of coughing, if the ship's library might have a Truvian dictionary. He promised to check, and hurried out, almost forgetting his tip.

She had two nights in isolation in this room. Plenty of time to rest, and see if she could parse out the papers Antonio had hidden in his suitcase, and search the trunk better.

If she found no new clues to follow, she'd check out the hotel named on the trunk's label, and then follow the diplomats to Tiva.

As she drifted off to sleep, she remembered that she had forgotten to send Lister a note saying that Antonio was dead, but she was all right. Well, that could wait until she docked. After all, if Mr. X was right, no one would know that murder had been done at all. No one would be worried.

Stay Tuned For Episode 12 - "MacGreevey Digs Deeper"
(Available after 8am EST, Mon/Thur)

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

Or donate via Paypal

Sunday Update - Writing as a Game

2013-06-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Vacation, Blogging Break

Not this week, but the next week (June 16-22), I'm taking a one week break in the serial, and blogging overall. I was going to try to get episodes and things done ahead, but I realize that it's just better not to fight it. This serial likes to be written "just in time." I think it's actually a good place for a break, kind of the end of Act 1. We will move into a new section of the story when we come back.

Meanwhile....

I am having a phenomenal amount of fun this week. I might not be as productive, word-wise, as I would like. However....

I'm doing something that may really revolutionize some of my writing. Maybe all of it, maybe only the blah days.

I'm creating a plotting game!

I love writing games. I read about Rory's Story Cubes in Jennie Coughlin's blog, and went out and bought some immediately. It doesn't matter how busy I am, when I stumble across one of those little contests "Write a 100 word story using the following six items..." I have to stop and do that.

And one thing I really really really really really get into are randomized idea generators. For instance, one of my favorite old writing exercises is The Dictionary Game: open a dictionary to a random page, stab your finger at the page and choose the word you landed on. Do it again so you have a pair of words, and then come up with ideas based on those two words in juxtaposition.

And one of the things that have always intrigued me is the concept of the Plot Wheel. It's something that pulp writers sometimes used as a way to come up with their formula stories faster. It was also a way to keep things a little fresh; take certain things that always or often happen and randomize them so you don't get into a rut.

Recently there was a story on Erle Stanley Gardner's plot wheels. The pictures are hard to make out, and he didn't really have many options on them, but I immediately wanted them, just like I wanted the story cubes. However, I realized that's not what I really wanted. Gardner didn't go far enough.

I wanted to play with the idea of going a lot deeper and a lot further with plotting for this Mercenary Writing exercise. Probably my biggest problem ever with doing that kind of fast and dirty writing is that I tend to get too many ideas, and I can't decide among them. So I don't just want a plot wheel of "red herrings" or "false leads." I want a really extensive set of plot (and detail) wheels to use on every aspect of the story.

Welcome to Camille's Plotting Circus!

I spent the early part of this week creating this writing game. And before I tell you about it, I've got to say this: because I wrote it for MY needs, it works. At least for creating an exciting and interesting stand alone story that isn't something already in your head, it's lovely.

This is unlike all the fun little toys I've ever used before (such as those story cubes) which are fun to play with, but they don't really fire me up, because they use details that don't interest me.

This fires my imagination well enough, that I might just look for ways to adapt it for my regular writing. (But not yet.)

The thing about it, though, is that it isn't something I could write and give to you and have it work. You would have to write it for yourself with the details that fire you up. And every genre or kind of story requires a different set of game materials.

However, that in itself is a part of the game. The game changes to suit what you need.

It works kind of like what James Patterson did when he decided he was going to write best selling novels. He studied the heck out of a bunch of best sellers and broke them down into elements and created a formula (or several formulas) for himself.

The difference here is that I looked more inward than outward: I don't particularly like best sellers. So I sat down and started to analyze what I like in a romantic suspense story. Not what I think ought to be there, but what I want.

And I began to create lists of these favorite archetypes and tropes (and yes, cliches). Then I looked at plotting structure and picked a format that works for romantic suspense: the Movie-Of-the Week (MOW) script breakdown I learned in filmschool.

I found, when I put these two things together, I needed one more peice to get started. Something for the stuff outside the plot:

The "Situation Form."

Basically the Situation Form is about the foundation of the story. Not what happens (plot) but where the plot comes from. So it has Title, Theme, Character Roles (Heroine, Hero, Villain, Helper, Victim, Red Herring, etc.), Heroine's Secret, Villain's Secret.

Each of those elements have a wheel with anywhere from a dozen to a thousand options that I can pick with a random number.

And I take those elements and brainstorm what the story is about specifically. I look first at the most important things and then shape them with the smaller details. (So "villain's secret" might be differently defined depending on things like the age of the victim, for instance.) As the ideas develop, I can change the details to whatever works best for a great story.

What I found was that this form gives me ninety percent of the story right there. Put the "theme" word together with the heroine's secret and the villain's secret, and it's like dictionary exercise -- you have an interesting triangle that tells you what the story is about ... what drives the story.

And it does drive the story because, remember, all of these options are options that I find exciting, or at least challenging.

I'll talk more about it later.

In the meantime, on the serial this week, we'll wrap up the first act as Plink finally gets some privacy to examine Antonio's luggage, and MacGreevey examines the evidence and makes a startling discovery. (Then we skip a week.)

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 10

2013-06-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

Episode 10 - "A Diplomatic Expedition"

by Camille LaGuire

Lady Vera Featherdale stood patiently at dockside, waiting for her companions to sort themselves out. Lady Blinkersley, who was apparently her best friend just now -- though Vera had never intended it to be so -- was gossiping and calling to her companion, to the boatmen, and to her servants, while Vera bit her tongue and tried to think ahead to the peace conference.

Lord Blinkersley, the newly appointed ambassador to the United Republics of Awarshawa -- or was it the Republic of United Awarshi States now? -- had asked her to come along to the conference as part of a cultural delegation headed by his wife. Vera assumed he did this because, to conservative old Blinkersley, Vera was a raging revolutionary. She did things like organize drives to feed the poor, after all. He seemed to think that she could charm these hostile Washy officials into supporting his agenda.

Vera didn't know or care what his agenda was. She was interested in creating an organization to aid civilians and refugees in the more conflict-ridden areas of the continent, and her hope was to get some cooperation from the above mentioned officials.

It was hard to think on these plans, however, because the voice of Lady Blinkersley was too shrill to ignore.

"...and she took my lovely peacock cloak!" exclaimed that worthy lady.

"Who, what?" said Vera.

"Pauline Beethingham. Ran off in the middle of her party last night. Took my cloak with her," said Lady Blinkersley.

Oh, yes, the footloose baroness. Vera had declined the invitation to the party on the grounds that she must prepare for the conference.

"I don't see why she should run off," said Vera. "She's the only woman in the country with the right to vote, now that she's a peeress and of age."

"Only in the House of Lords," said Lady Blinkersley, with a shocked sniff. "And that's not a right, it's a duty. Which means that she probably won't do it. She ought to marry that cousin of hers quick. Then he can sit for her."

It was just at this point that she was interrupted by the sound of a cough. A slight, bearded man in a long black overcoat, with his wide-brimmed hat pulled low, was trying to make his way through the throng of Lady Blinkersley's baggage and retainers.

"Excuse," he said in a raspy, low, accented voice. He coughed again. "May I pass please?"

"Miss Vilthrop!" called Lady Blinkersley, irritably. "Let this man through before he gives us the plague!"

Miss Vilthrop, the lady's rabbit-like companion, stared for a moment at the man, and then leapt to get the footmen to move a trunk and let the man through. He bowed and headed for the gang plank to board the boat, while Lady Blinkersley prattled on about the scandal.

"...and now she's run off with her dancing instructor!" she said. "I can't see her cousin marrying her after that, but these are modern times and if he's dutiful enough he'll take her in hand."

"If you're talking about Freddy Smythe-Winterbourne, I can see why she's run off," said Vera shortly.

She was spared a long protest in defense of the insipid but stodgey Freddy, by the arrival of another knot of newcomers.

The Freedonian contingent had arrived. Vera's interest perked up considerably. Whether she could get Awarshi support or not, she had great hopes of gaining Freedonian money for her refugee effort.

A short, hefty gentleman came striding out of the center of the group like he owned the world, and he probably did, from what Vera had heard. Mr. Alder Graves, industrialist, philantropist, and by all accounts, hearty offender of all manner of manners. Vera expected to like him.

He came barreling up to Lady Blinkersly hand extended in greeting. When she offered her own, he did not take it as one would a lady's hand, but rather grabbed on to it and pumped it up and down.

"How do ya do, lady? How do you do?" he said. When introduced to Vera, he gave her the same treatment. Vera, who was used to traveling through all sorts of uncivilized places, didn't mind at all, and she grasped his hand in return as tightly as she could.

"How do you do, Mr. Graves," said Lady Blinkersley, cooly. "I understood the Freedonians weren't taking part in these talks?"

"I'm not here in any official capacity. I'm with you ladies on the cultural side," said Mr. Graves. "The Freedonian government prefers to stay out of your tangled continental politics. We believe that the ties of business will motivate people to work together and keep the peace. If we all prosper, we have no reason to fight, right?"

He elbowed Lady Blinkersley, in a hearty, friendly, Freedonian way.

"Tell me, Mr. Graves," said Vera. "If you are interested in the prospering of the weak, are you interested in charity?"

"Oh, of course, Lady Featherdale. Of course. It's hard for a man to look up, if he's hunched over in hunger and pain, right? That's what my grandaddy used to say, the tight-fisted old coot. He made his first fortune off prison labor, so you could hardly call him charitable, but the prisoners were well fed, you can believe that." He paused and looked at her with a wise twinkle in his eye. "So why don't you tell me which charity you have in mind?"

"I'll tell you, if you join me for dinner."

"I'll be glad to. Glad to!" he said.

They had two nights on the boat, and a few more by train. The man's friendliness gave her hope that she could make an ally of him before they reached the conference.

Stay Tuned For Episode 11 - "The Gentleman With The Cough"
(Available after 8am EST, Mon/Thur)

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

Or donate via Paypal

Story Notes - Writing Big Scenes Vs. Little

2013-06-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Jumping to the Big Scenes... or not

Great post on Dave McFarland's blog (by Kami McArthur, I think) about not futzing around with little scenes but jumping straight into that big scene you have vividly in mind.

This is, generally, how I write. If something is vivid in my mind, I write it. Even so, her description of writing around an important scene did strike home: because I do write little scenes to procrastinate about the big ones sometimes. It can be a form of "cat vacuuming." (I.e. "I can't write that scene now! I've got to... vacuum the cat!" even though cats are self-cleaning.)

But this is not always a bad thing. Often when the cat suddenly looks really dusty to you, and the pencils need sharpening, and oh, that email needs checking right now, it's because your unconscious mind is working on something.

And while going after Mittens with a Hover is not useful to the cat or your writing career, I have to disagree with McArthur on the potential usefulness of writing the little scenes first.

Those little scenes can be a form of exploratory writing. You may have parts of the big scene vividly in mind, but some small details - the details that make the story live - aren't there. Writing the little set up scenes can populate the setting, give you details to work with. These are, for me, very often the details that make that big scene sing.

All the same, I do advise writing the important stuff first -- the stuff that is vivid and you know how you want it to come out. Because those less important scenes can squirrel around on you. You can write yourself into a situation where you can't get to the big scene that was so important to you. (Nothing wrong with that if you are willing to give up the big scene, though.)

Like I said, that's how I normally work anyway. It's how my mind works. However....

The Big Scenes and The Serial

Writing out of sequence doesn't work with serial. Sure if a scene is really vivid, I'll scribble it out ahead of time. But as often as not, when I get to that scene, the story will have changed. And because the earlier scenes are now live, I can't go back and change them. They're set in stone, and that big important later scene isn't.

And oddly, that works. Writing those big scenes ahead of time doesn't work, and concentrating on the current, very next scene does work.

There's a reason for that:

With a serial, EVERY scene is a big important scene.
Nothing in a serial is ever as important as the next episode. If the next episode is dull, then that is the major overwhelming problem for the writer, and nothing else matters. Once it's published, though, it no longer matters. It's set in stone. Nothing you can do about it. All of that importance and energy is transfered to the next episode.

The great thing about short episodes like I'm doing is that they can't hold too much. I often struggle to make the episode do more than it can handle, but in the end, the episode improves when I remember that I can push details or information into a later episode.

I'm having a hard time remembering that for this story, though, because it's a mystery thriller. This genre is normally filled with background -- conversations, memories, thoughts, straight exposition from the author. You have to fill it up with info and details to help set up twists while hiding them.

You can't, for instance, just have a character conveniently remember that he always keeps a spare gun strapped to his ankle (which you've never mentioned before) at the exact moment he needs it. That feels like a cheat to the audience, like you just magically put it there to get him out of trouble.

You can get away with that more in pulp fiction, though. It's expected to be more of a "made up as it went along" kind of thing. And a serial resembles that more than a classic thriller. The mystery writer in me still likes to lay groundwork, but the groundwork doesn't have to be laid the same way is it is with a book. As a matter of fact, in a serial, it works against you.

First, with a short-episode serial, people aren't going to remember a bunch of details. They'll remember one or two from an episode, maybe. If the hero has a spare gun in his boot in episode 3, odds are your audience won't remember at all ten weeks later when you're at episode 23. In a book, you have the space to set things up -- such as the character's habits -- right at the beginning, all at once, or trickled out in pretty nice detail over a few chapters. It would feel weird NOT to know the character really well. With a serial... the character set up takes time. And with the time involved, it's actualy a waste of space to introduce details you'll use much later in the first few episodes.

What you have to do instead is draw broad strokes -- a cartoon -- which gives the audience an impression of the character which is compatible with later revelations. (Twists are harder, but they still work.) And you save details for later. Set it up only an episode or two ahead of where you will use it.

This is also true of the background world of the story. Exposition has to be trickled out in small memorable chunks, or left until it's needed.

In Episodes 6, 7 and 8, I had originally planned to introduce a little of the politics, with Antonio's background and nationality, and the miss-mash of nationalities of the gang of toughs searching his house. Then I realized that I would be throwing a terrible mess of names and nations at the audience all at once with no real context to hang on to it.

So I backed off, and just introduced the mysterious American... er, I mean Freedonian boss, and one sidekick with a name, Bains. I threw in another set of names, the Awarshi brothers, in the next episode, but I suspect that won't be memorable at all. (There had been a scene with them, but I cut it.)

Confession time: These characters - the murderous guys searching the house - were originally intended to be anonymous thugs. I really hadn't nailed down the specific personalities here. The Freedonian, who I think will become known as "Mr. X" in Plink's mind, just stepped in as I wrote it, and took over. The Varishkins, Bains, the chauffeur guy -- all sort of coalesced out of thin air at that time.

That isn't to say that these guys aren't important. They're very important. They are no key players in the story.

This is one great thing in the nature of writing those little scenes before the big ones. This is how those later scenes and turns of plot get populated by interesting facts. It provides opportunities for later things. What's amazing is how such things hook up.

For instance, this story crosses paths with the previous story, The Case of the Misplaceed Hero, and I've been fretting about how to do it. Some of the events from that story will be unexplained and inexplicable in this story. Now, suddenly, I have a mysterious Freedonian connection which gives me opportunities to blend these two stories together much more smoothly.

Little scenes are all about discovery. Sometimes when writing a novel, you only discover false trails and have to cut them. But as a "big scenes first" writer, I have to admit, the little scenes matter. And sometimes matter more than the big ones.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 9

2013-06-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

First Episode | Previous Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Next Episode

Episode 9 - "Antonio's Itinerary"

by Camille LaGuire

Waiting was not one of Plink's strong points, but she managed. The man guarding the street scanned back and forth, never looking away long enough for her to move out on to the walk without him knowing where she came from.

But then a group of about five or six young women came giggling and sauntering up from the direction of the park. The man fixed his gaze on them as though they might all be runaway baronesses. With a sharp glance in each direction, he headed in their direction.

Plink picked up the suitcases and stepped right out onto the walk and headed in the other direction, striding purposefully, head down, like a man with a long walk to the train station.

When she reached the nearest corner she turned, not looking back for fear of him seeing her face. No one chased her.

After a block her fear let up, and the suitcases and questions began to weigh her down. After two blocks, she lost her fear altogether and was lost in thought.

Fact: these men had not expected her to arrive with a suitcase at Antonio's door. Therefore they had not gone to his house to look for her. And that meant they were not drawn by the rumor that she was running away with Antonio. She had not sent Antonio to his doom with her frivolous story.

Another fact: These men were searching the house. And they said Antonio had lied to them, and they had lied to him. Ergo, he had a relationship with these men, and they were in his house for something to do with Antonio.

And quite possibly none of this had anything to do with Plink. Perhaps it had been Antonio who had inadvertently sent Plink to her sooty, iron-railed doom. Or nearly did.

That seemed much more likely.

Antonio was a professional friend and confidant. He knew everyone's secrets, and if he was above blackmail himself -- which she couldn't honestly say he was -- he would certainly be of great interest to a criminal sort of person.

And it depressed her a great deal to think that this was about Antonio, because the boss man -- Mr. X, as she thought of him -- had said he had the police fixed.

She didn't believe that for one minute. The Imprish police were stolid fellows. Hard working. Not corrupt. She couldn't imagine a stubborn bulldog like Sgt. MacGreevey looking the other way to help a gang of foreign crooks. The man wasn't even forgiving of a little matter of a pony in a teashop!

But that chief superintendent, the one who looked like a politician, had been so determined to dismiss Plink's story of killers. A politician, given the word from those above to keep something quiet, would easily, thoughtlessly, redirect those under him, or even let them do their work, and bury the results.

She, a baroness, would be all right. She didn't think he would intentionally cover her murder. But would he have any compunction at all about a crime against a foreigner like Antonio? No, she was sure he wouldn't.

And that made her angry.

She stopped and set down the suitcases. She was on a major street now. She could call a cab. She could head straight for the police and bash them in the face with whatever it was in Antonio's suitcase. Lord that case was heavy. She'd thought it must have books in it at first, but as she walked, it had seemed more like anchors. Or perhaps, given his relationship with gangsters, hot lead. But now, as her arms ached and her already sore feet throbbed, she was of the opinion that Antonio had a suitcase full of a special kind of condensed gold, twice as heavy as regular.

She shook out her arms and looked around for her purse to find money for a cab. The purse was in her suitcase, though, so she pulled out Antonio's wallet instead. He'd have money for a cab, wouldn't he?

It was a large wallet, more of a travel document case, really. There was a couple of fivers right in the front pocket and when she pulled them out she saw his tickets and reservations....

A reservation in the name of Anton Nestlegraf.

Odd. Was he planning to meet this fellow? And if so why was Antonio carrying the man's reservation? And how convenient that they both had similar first names.

Plink searched further in the wallet to find the passport. She was in luck. She found three.

Three passports: One for this Nestlegraf fellow, one for Antonio, and one for a Countess Antonia Bishnoria. But only one travel ticket.

The passports contained very similar physical descriptions -- weight, height, eye color. And suddenly Plink recalled one of Antonio's impressions. He was so funny and so real when he pretended to be an extravagant exiled countess. All he needed was a dress.

She knealt right down there on the busy street and opened his suitcase. There was nothing heavy inside at all. Just some clothing and personal items -- but there was also not as much space inside as it appeared outside. She decided not to search for the secret compartment there on the street. Instead she shut the suitcase and hailed a cab.

She did not go to the police.

Sergeant MacGreevey could say what he liked about her riding ponies through tearooms, but he really didn't know the half of it. That had been just a warm up for when she rode a charger into the male-only equestrian sabre charge competition of the Annual Cavaliers of the Queen's Boot Tournament, wearing a long fluttering banner which read "Votes For Women." She'd won, too, at least according to Minnie Haverstock. The offical timekeeper had refused to clock her time, but Minnie had a fine timepiece of her own.

The Barons of Beethingham did not shrink from a challenge, even if they weren't as fond of duty as others of the same rank.

Plink told the cabbie she needed to catch the one o'clock boat train, but first to make a short stop in the theatrical district along the way.

Stay Tuned For Episode 10 - "A Diplomatic Expedition"
Available after 8am EST, Mon/Thur)

First Episode | Previous Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Next Episode

Or donate via Paypal

Sunday Update - Summer and Music

2013-06-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Summer

Summer is a horrible time for me. I can't take heat, and light disrupts my sleep.

All the same, summer evokes story. A long, slow, quiet, dream-like time, in an abandoned Dali-esque landscape of an empty college town, or the farm. Reading until 5am, when it would finally be cool enough to sleep. Ominous skies, sudden storms of any temperature or variety. The chalky smell when rain hits dry, baked earth or sidewalk.

My Anonymous Mercenary Writing Experiment is going okay -- not as well as I hoped, but that's partly because I've got a few more projects in mind, and my mind jumps from one to the other. (And I've wasted time discovering some of those projects are non-starters.)

All the same, Summer is seeping into Project 1, and imbuing it with sensory detail. I find that I can get back into that story instantly by Evoking Summer in my mind. (Project 1 was actually on the non-starter list, until summer came along and showed me what I needed to do.)

The Serial is doing well. I loved my illustration for Episode 7. I was working at the last minute again, and stole from work I'd done earlier of mysterious pulp figures. The background figure, with the cigarette, was inspired originally by a logo for The Falcon, I think. I'll talk more about that in some upcoming Story Notes. (Possibly not this week - I have some other things I want to say Wednesday about David Falrand's recent post about wrting great scenes. It is how I normally write, but the serial has forced me to go in the other direction, and there are benefits to that too.)

Music

In the meantime... I've discovered that if I put Bob Seger's "Breakdown" on continuous loop, I draw better and faster. Weird but true. I think that it evokes images of conflict and power, the arrogant criminal, the dogged detective. It may have been meant for Beverly Hills Cop, but it works thematically for Columbo or Miss Marple as well as The Saint.

(Or it might just be the beat -- "That Old Time Rock and Roll" also seems to work.)

I may try it with some of Paul Simon's songs from his Rhythm of the Saints album. He has evocative lyrics and performances.

While I don't like to write to music with words, I often write with a single jazz or instrumental song on continuous loop. The Third Man Theme, Take Five, or maybe Sing Sing Sing. The sound stimulates my brain, and keeps outside distractions at bay, and the continuous loop makes the song blend into my head and it stops being distracting itself.

Something highly active, though (such as Bob Seger) can over-stimulate after a while, so I need to switch to a different song. Or sometimes I'll change when I need a different mood.

Another thing that is surprising: when I have the fuzz-headed effect of a silent migraine, "wall-of-sound" music tends to help. (I don't often get the painful migraines, so I don't know if it would be so helpful to those folks.)

In the meantime, in the serial this week, Plink reviews her situation and decides to follow the money....

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 8

2013-05-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

Episode 8 - "Plink's Plan of Escape"

by Camille LaGuire

Antonio was -- had been -- a slight man. Not much taller than Plink herself. His coat ought to fit well enough. And since he had a tendency toward flamboyance, he had a large floppy-brimmed hat. Her feet sticking out from beneath the coat might give her away. It would be clear she wasn't wearing trousers... but there were those riding boots. Tall enough to disguise her lowest extremities.
She slipped off her small boots and stuck them in her suitcase, and donned her disguise, but as she reached for the hat, she realized that her chestnut hair was too short to gather and hide under the hat. But she might cover it to hide the color at least.

She pulled the dark blue scarf from her neck, and wound it round her head, tucking it behind her ears so that it could be mistaken for hair if any showed from under the hat.

She grabbed her suitcase and peeked out the front door.

The man stood there on the walk, looking up and down the street. If he saw her come out of the house, even in disguise, the game would be up. Behind her, she could hear the boss and his sidekick Bains searching the back of the house. They'd move to the front soon.

Window.

She tried to remember which side of the house had a narrow alley beside it. She was pretty sure it was on the office side, to the right.

She glanced through the door again, and dashed across and into Antonio's office.

It was a cluttered room, and showed signs that someone had been searching it; drawers open, papers scattered about the desk. Across the room was a small window, half covered by a folding screen. She ran to it, and adjusted the screen to shield her from view if the other men returned.

The window was small, but large enough to get herself and her overnight bag through. She carefully pushed the sash up, and found it didn't stick too badly, but it made some noise. She paused, but heard no footsteps running to see what made the sound.

Below was a fine narrow alley, no one guarding it at either end, and there were dustbins to hide behind. But the window was a tad high, and the dustbins were so close, that dropping her suitcase might make a racket.

She could lower the bag and perhaps herself with the assistance of an umbrella.

She turned to go back to the hall and fetch one, when she saw, behind the door, Antonio's silver handled cane. It was lying cross-wise atop a small suitcase along with a pair of gloves and a large leather wallet, of the sort you might keep your papers or tickets in when traveling.

Two thoughts struck Plink on viewing this tableau: one was that Antonio had clearly set out these things in preparation for his trip, and the other was that whoever had been searching the room hadn't got to that side of the room yet.

The other side of the room was all in disarray. This side was not. And the suitcase was out of view of where the man had been searching. He probably hadn't seen it.

And if Antonio had something they wanted, wouldn't he take it with him on his trip?

Plink bounded across the room. She peeked out the door as she slipped the wallet and gloves into the pockets of the coat, and took up the suitcase and cane. She could hear the men, distantly. Maybe coming closer.

She slipped back to the window, and lowered the suitcases as quickly as she could. The voices were already closer.

"What will we do with him?" asked Bains. He seemed to be standing near the body -- not at all far from the door to the office. "Best to make it disappear, shouldn't we?"

"Leave that to the Varishkins," said the leader. "They're good at making things disapper. Go up and check on them. Tell them to take the body when they're done."

Plink tossed the hat and coat out the window, and slipped one leg through. The men had stopped talking and footsteps moved toward the office. Oh, blast! she thought. She pushed herself through as quickly as she could manage without making much noise.

Thank god I'm good at climbing lampposts and things, she thought.

She clung to the sash as she got her feet down, and onto the suitcases below. She leaned against he wall and slid downward, hoping the wobbling suitcases would hold.

Stay Tuned For Episode 9 - "Antonio's Itinerary"

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

Or donate via Paypal

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 7

2013-05-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

Episode 7 - "Burly Men With Nefarious Intentions"

by Camille LaGuire

Plink stood still in shock for a tiny moment.

Was this a coincidence? Had Antonio simply fallen down the stairs? No, no, it couldn't possibly be. His was lying with his feet to the side of the stairs.

He hadn't fallen. Someone had bashed his head in.

And was that her fault? Had she somehow brought this on him?

She started to step closer, but then she heard the sound of footsteps overhead. Someone was in the house, perhaps the killer. She wheeled around to run out the door, but she heard running footsteps on the walk, and the man she'd mistaken for a chauffeur -- the one reading a paper and leaning on a car -- came running into view.

She ducked into the shadows behind the door before he saw her.

There was a large coat rack, with several hats and long coats on it, and Plink slipped behind them. She set her suitcase down against the wall as if it were stored there, and lined her feet up with a pair of old riding boots, hoping that the small winter boots she'd worn to ease her sore feet would blend in.

She needn't have worried about that. The man who came in behind her shoved the door open so violently that it slammed back against the coat rack, covering it and her completely from view.

"Hoy! Hoy!" he called. "She's here! Catch her!"

His call was answered by other calls within the house, and the thundering of feet. Some from upstairs, another from the next room. There must have been at least five or six of them.

As they gathered, the chauffeur man continued calling to them.

"She just came in here! Came in a taxi. Almost missed her. That baroness! She's here!"

"Are you sure?" said an accented voice.

"Course I'm sure! Bobbed red hair. Can't miss her."

There was then a general hubbub, in a mix of languages. One voice rose a little above the others, in quick, quiet command.

"You, out back. You, in front. Don't let her get out if she's still inside. You two, check out the streets all around, in case she's already out."

This man spoke with a flat, nasal, Freedonian accent. More cultured, perhaps, than she expected from a big city gangster or a cowboy. But then, Freedonian gangsters were always called things like "Gentleman Jim." Perhaps their leaders had to meet some educational requirements.

There was a scurrying and shuffliing as at least half their cohort went outside to obey their leader.

"Bains! You were in that front parlor?"

"Yes, boss."

"And I was searching the office. The only way she could go was upstairs or to the back. You boys go upstairs, Bains and I'll search down here." Then, as footsteps thundered up the stairs, he called out, "And be thorough! She can't get out, so there's no hurry."

There was a moment of silence, and Plink wished dearly that she could peek out from behind the coat rack, but there was a solid door as well as several coats in her way.

"Well, boss," said the voice of Bains. "This means Maurinos lied to us."

"That he did. But we lied to him, so I guess it's even," said the boss.

"This has got out of hand," said Bains. "We need to pack up and--"

"No we don't," said the Boss firmly. "We've got it fixed. The police will stay out of it."

"For you they might, you've got high up friends. But the rest of us will rot. We'll swing!"

"No you won't. My friends, as you call them, want us to succeed. If the police get in the way, a little phonecall here, and another one there, the case gets transferred, shuffled, and forgotten."

"They won't forget the murder of a baroness," said Bains.

"Oh, that we'll just blame on Maurinos." The boss paused, and then chuckled. "It's only right," he added. "Let's get cracking. We'll start at the back and move to the front."

Their voices and footsteps faded and Plink was left alone, except for poor Antonio. She resisted the urge to shove the coats aside and run screaming out the door. They were watching the door, and the street itself.

Watching for her.

But there were other people on the street. These men weren't watching for everyone. They were not, for instance, looking for a man....

Stay Tuned For Episode 8 - "Plink's Plan of Escape"

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

Or donate via Paypal

Update -- Chasing Squirrels

2013-05-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

I've had a more productive week than I thought I was having. But I did spend a lot of the week chasing squirrels.

As distractions go, "squirrels" are at least fun. (If you've never seen the movie UP; the talking dogs have a tendency to whip their heads around and say "Squirrel!" in the middle of any conversation.) They're the shiny, pretty new things that can grab and absorb your attention completely for a bit. They're kind of like Popcorn Kittens --with one vital difference.

Squirrels are temporary distractions which don't hold you. You can think "Squirrel!" and hare off and play for a short time and then return to what you're doing. As a matter of fact, a really good squirrel tends to become boring rather quickly.

For example:

One part of my Experiment in Mercenary Writing involves Twitter. The idea of the overall experiment is to test whether the best promotion for a book is another book. And as a part of testing that, I'm doing it under pen names and keeping a firewall between me and the book identities.

However, books hidden in your basement are unlikely to be found, no matter how many of them there are. So I felt I needed an announcement mechanism. I decided on Twitter for many reasons I won't go into now, but you need to establish a Twitter follower base before you make the announcements.

And as long as I'm using both pen names and creating a new Twitter account, it seems like this would be a good time to use some of those "power user" methods of gaining a following and promoting to it. (I am modifying these to be less annoying, but that's one of the things I love about Twitter -- the users do not have to put up with or battle annoying behavior. You can just unfollow and those people are gone.)

Thus I was chasing some Twitter squirrels this week. (Actually, though my other accounts don't follow them, there are a lot of very cool squirrels to follow on Twitter. Particularly "Clyde The Exceptional Squirrel," and if you are into progressive politics, there's Beebz and Mad City Squirrel.... Whoops, I just chased squirrels again, didn't I?)

In the meantime, the writing:

Is going well. Not as well as I'd hoped, but I now have four projects in the queue for the experiment (and the romantic suspense is back on) and I've been working hard on The Serial.

One of the things that set me back was that I was going to spend this week trying to get several episodes ahead on The Serial. This did not work. This is a story that likes to be written on deadline -- and real deadlines, not pretend ones I set for myself. If I spend more time, I just spend more time, and don't get more story. (I do get more and better plotting, though.)

So new plan: I have a time later this summer when I will be out of town and will have to have a couple of episodes done ahead. I'll set aside the week before that to get more episodes done. That will be on deadline too.

Now back to the drawing board...

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 6

2013-05-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

Episode 6 - "Making Use of One's Reputation"

by Camille LaGuire

"Run away with Antonio?" said Mrs. Lister. "And why would you want to do that, after all the trouble you had to say this wasn't a prank."

"My would be killers are waiting for news of my disappearance and death," said Plink. "If I do nothing, they'll know I'm all right, but if they hear I disappeared and everyone is assuming I ran off with Antonio, well, they'll know that's wrong. So perhaps they'll think they succeeded and get on with their business and leave me alone."

"A large perhaps, madame," said Lister.

'Indeed," said Plink. "I'd better ring up Antonio and give him the heads up."

She got to her feet, and found that she could walk all right if she paused to wiggle and stretch her toes. Then she went to her writing desk where she kept the phone and all her correspondence. Plink was terrible at remembering numbers, so she rifled through and found where she wrote it down.

"The question is," said Plink, as she dialed, "should I ask him to play along, or pretend complete ignorance?"

"If you want the killers to be fooled, it's better if he's ignorant."

"Yes, but if he sits there and professes ignorance, then it will be clear enough to everyone that I didn't run away. And then everyone will ask what happened to me, and the police will tell them that they saw me here and in good health this morning."

The telephone continued to ring. Antonio was notorious for taking his time in answering, so she let it, and glanced over her correspondence. There was a note there from Antonio, regarding the party:

This is to remind you, dear Plink, that I have to catch the one o'clock boat train the next afternoon, so I will be leaving your party early. I am devastated that I will not be able to dance with you until dawn, but when one goes to the continent, one has so many things to prepare.

"Oh, blast!" said Plink.

"Your ladyship?"

"Sorry, I just remembered that Antonio is leaving town today. He must already be gone."

"That resolves it then. He'll be gone, so no one can ask him whether you've run off with him."

"It seems rum letting him go off without knowing he's being blamed for it all, though."

The phone was still ringing, however, so she hung up and collapsed down into a chair.

"The fact is, Lister, I wanted to talk to him anyway. Antonio is the sort who sees everything. If anyone noticed anything odd at that party, he'd be the one to see it. And he has a wonderful devious mind...."

Lister had come over to look at the note Plink had been waving around, and finally took it away, ever so politely, to read it herself.

"His train doesn't leave until one. He might only be out for breakfast."

"Yes!" said Plink, sitting up. "And if he doesn't go back home, I can probably catch him at the station or .... Lister! Pack a small overnight bag, quick! I'll go with him on the train, and we can conspire in full. I could even take the boat over with him. We can start an investigative notebook and he can give me every detail."

"I'll include your passport," said Lister.

It was barely a half hour before Plink was ready, and dressed in plain and inconspicuous clothes, and small boots which were not attractive, but comfortable on her sore feet.

Lister called a taxi to wait in the mews out back, just in case the killers were watching the house. If Lister questioned this precaution, she didn't let on.

Antonio lived in a bohemian district beyond the park, on a nice little street, where it was fashionable enough for is clients, but affordable for a man who always had to live above his means. Plink paid off the cab and took up her little suitcase.

She should have asked him to wait, at least until she had determined if anyone was home. But she didn't and the taxi drove off before she thought of it.

And suddenly she felt nervous. There was no reason for it. It was a quiet neighborhood, but there were people around. A maid with a perambulator, a chauffeur leaning against a car a few doors down, reading a newspaper.

Perhaps she was nervous about how Antonio might react to her horning in on his trip. Well, it was an emergency. She was nearly murdered, and if the police had believed her, they might have stopped him taking his trip at all.

Plink went up the stairs and raised her hand to knock, but as her hand touched the door, it swung away.

The door was not latched. She pushed it open and noted a sort of coppery, metallic smell. She stepped inside the darkened hall and saw a figure sprawled near the bottom of the stairs.

It was Antonio, his head lying in small pool of blood. His eyes were open and glassy. Unblinking.

Definitely dead.

Stay Tuned For Episode 7 - "Burly Men with Nefarious Intentions"
(Available after 8am EST, Mon)

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

Or donate via Paypal

Story Notes - Episode Endings vs. Chapter Endings (and a change in Ep 5)

2013-05-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Episode 5 of The Case of the Misplaced Baroness got posted with a place holder for the last line. I corrected it in the morning, but some of you likely only saw the original, so I'll mention it here.

In the orignal, Plink informs Mrs. Lister that she needs to talk to Antonio.

The line now reads that she needs to run off with Antonio.

The line was wrong because Blogger went gazookie last night, and I ended up fighting technology rather than finishing the last go on the story. I was up until four, my brain was no longer functioning, so I left the place holder.

It was not a big difference, but it was in the last line, and for a serial, that is important.

Pulling a "George Lucas"

They say that in the script of Return of the Jedi, during the fight between Luke and Vader, there was a spot which read: "Vader says something to get Luke really mad." They didn't have an actual line, so they put in a place holder. They finally came up with what he should say on the set.

I do that sometimes. Okay, I do that often. Most of the time, it doesn't matter much. It's a set up for a joke, or a transition. A great line in those situations will make the punchline or new direction shine, but it's not something you dwell on. An approximation will do the job.

And if I come up with a better word or line or phrasing when I'm editing, I'll stick it in later, without mentioning it. Or just put it in the book version during the editing and formatting stage.

More Important Than a Cliffhanger

With a serial, there is one place where the right detail or line can really matter: the end of an episode.

This is especially true of a short episode serial such as I write here. With a longer episode, a writer has a whole scene to set things up for the next episode, put in a cliffhanger, and otherwise make promises for the next episode. With a short episode serial, that last line is what you leave the audience to think about for three or four days.

I don't always come up with that perfect end line. Sometimes, I am left with the option of just haivng Vader say "Yeah, and you're ugly too!" and getting on with it.

When that happens, I can make it better in the novel version. But here's the unexpected thing:

That great episode ending is not nearly as important for a novel as for a serial. With a novel, you actually can end a chapter abruptly, and it doesn't matter, because the audience can flip the page. And the fact is many/most readers do check the first page of the next chapter before putting a book down. (I don't remember where I read that, but I know that I do that.)

With a novel, the audience gets to decide where they take their breaks. They can, and often do, end a session on a note of satisfaction. They can read until they see the next direction of a story, and then stop.

With a serial, the breaks are not optional. And that is more than an accident of the form; the breaks are what a serial is about.

So it's actually less important with a serial to leave the reader in suspense. With a novel, if you leave Jim the Adventurer dangling over a pit of zombie alligators, that will make the audience want to turn the page. Great! Because they can have instant gratification with a novel. With a serial, you need to give them something that lasts for days or weeks; something to actually think about.

I heard a bit of an interview with a reader of serials who had discovered that the serial format forced her to stop and think about the story between episodes. That turned out to be a real pleasure for her. The gap between episodes was the best part.

It made me think about how people react to TV shows -- especially on shows which have some sort of overarching story to the whole series. The thing that gets people to talking about the show between episodes is not exciting peril, but rather that something changes, making the future uncertain, or something is revealed that gives a whole new meaning to what went before. Things, in other words, to think about.

Mastering this for short episodes is tough. I don't know how well I do it, but it makes for a great goal in writing the story.

In Episode 5, the fact that Plink wants to talk to Antonio doesn't mean much. The audience doesn't know enough about him to anticipate anything or think about it. Sure, yeah, he was at the party. So maybe he knows something. But... The fact that she has just spent a couple of episodes trying to convince people to take her story seriously, and that it isn't a prank or joke or accident, makes her suggestion that she carry out a joke that would make people take her even less seriously -- that's more of a question. It's something to hmmmm about.

Therefore, I think it is a better to put it at the end of one episode than at the beginning of another.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 5

2013-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

Episode Five - "MacGreevey's Theory"

by Camille LaGuire

"MacGreevey, don't talk nonsense," said Chief Superintendent Darling. "Why on earth would she jump off that train?"

"To create a stir," said the sergeant with a great deal of satisfaction. "Get in all the papers; mysterious disappearance of the new baroness. Everyone making a fuss."

He turned an almost sneering look on Plink, and she had feeling she'd seen him somewhere before. He was very ordinary looking, with ginger hair and freckles. Tall enough, but a bit slight for a policeman. She vaguely remembered having that thought before, too, but she couldn't remember when.

"Her ladyship has a long history as prankster," the sergeant went on, emphasizing her as if Plink were no ladyship of his. "Starting with riding her pony through the Haverton Tearoom on a paper chase when she was, what, seven years old?"

"Nine," said Plink. "We had permission."

"For the paper chase, not the pony. Then there was the incident where she hung a full beard and mustache on the statue of Queen Valaria at Pinsby Square. And then the malicious destruction of property in Manners Park, including an assault on a police officer..."

"Oh!" said Plink, and she suddenly knew why the sergeant looked familiar.

That day in Manners Park, Plink had been attempting to affix a woman suffrage banner to the top of the light poles near the pond. A constable attempted to pull her down. She did not kick him. She just sort of shoved his shoulder with her foot, and he lost his balance and ended up in the pond, covered in mud and as angry as a cat would be in similar circumstances. This sergeant was that policeman.

"You slipped," said Plink, defensively.

"And you jumped!" said MacGreevey. "You plotted out this whole event. You had a fellow waiting in a car by the side of the road to pick you up, after you jumped. We found the tracks of the car."

"Those were obviously the tracks of my assailants. Find those men, and you'll find they're no friends of mine."

"Stop this nonsense, MacGreevey," said the superintendent. "This is utterly improper to accuse a lady of this kind of malfeasance."

"Oh, stuff it!" said Plink. "He at least gives me credit for some brain. You accused me of drinking myself silly!"

She turned back to the sergeant.

"If I had jumped off the back of a moving train," she said to him, "no matter how lithe and acrobatic I might be, I would certainly have at least fallen to my knees, and look, you can see for yourself... my knees are fine."

With that she slipped out from behind the breakfast tray, and pulled up leggings on her pajamas to display her knees. The constable turned pink and spun away to avert his gaze. The superintendent did something similar in a more genteel way. Both the inspector and the sergeant actually looked, though she thought the inspector was admiring and not really examining.

MacGreevey, on the other hand, bent closer and squinted at her knees.

"Very nice," he said. "But since the momentum of the train would have you going the other way, you'd have fallen on your hind quarters. Shall we have a look at them?"

"MacGreevey!" said the superintendant.

"No need," said Mrs. Lister. "I've seen her ladyship's other side, and she didn't fall there. She's nothing but scrapes and wee bruises anywhere. Nothing you'd get from a fall -- or a jump -- like that."

The police scowled and had a brief consult, in which the superintendent snarled at MacGreevey, who finally backed away like a sullen dog ordered back from an impertinent rabbit. No more was to be heard of the Prank Theory.

"Lister, would you fetch the things I was wearing last night? These gentlemen will want them as evidence."

The sergeant gave a nudge to the silent constable, who went with Lister to fetch the things.

"I think it would less of an embarrassment if we closed the case," said the superintendent. "Though, of course, we will investigate further if you insist. But there really is no evidence--"

"Bosh," said Plink, and she displayed her genteel upbringing by not throwing the tea pot at his head. "There will be evidence if you look for it. I am sure you fellows are much cleverer than the way you are portrayed in popular fiction."

Mrs. Lister and the constable returned, the constable with a carton full of Plink's things. The sergeant, still sulking, dug into the box with a scowl. He happened to pull out Plink's heavy cloche hat. The rabbit-like inspector exclaimed at the sight of it.

"I say, that's a rather thick hat, isn't it?" he said, hopefully, glancing around at everyone. "You could have had a blow to the head and not got a bump because of the hat! You'd still have a concussion. That would resolve everything, wouldn't it?"

"Perfectly!" said the superintendent. He smiled at Plink. She did not return the smile, so he bowed and took his leave. The sergeant lagged behind, examining the lining of the hat with a frown.

"Come along, MacGreevey!" snapped the superintendent. And then, with a thunderous clomping down the stairs, they were all gone.

"Well!" said Plink. "That was as useful as a partridge at a prize fight!"

"Indeed, your ladyship," said Mrs. Lister, and she cleared away the breakfast tray. "Will you be wanting a nap, or will you be chasing after trouble this morning?"

"Oh, trouble, I think. If I had any idea where to look for it." Plink took a sip of her tea. "I think... perhaps I should run off with Antonio after all."

Stay Tuned For Episode 6 - "Making Use of One's Reputation"
(Available after 8am EST, Mon/Thur)

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

Or donate via Paypal

Update - Beware of Meaningless Talk

2013-05-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Here is an eternal truth:

Nothing is as exciting to you as what you are going to do next. But what you haven't done is pretty meaningless until you've actually done it.

It's one of the reasons why the blogosphere is full of beginners blogging as if they are experts on subjects they hardly know: they're the only ones actually interested in blogging about it. (People who are experts are bored with it and want to get on to things they haven't done yet.)

And though it can be interesting to follow someone's journey into new territory, it's also one of the reasons why the internet is rife with rumors, myths and ill-considered half-truths. The people talking the most on any subject are the ones who don't know about it.

This is also why so many beginners never advance on to an intermediate level. They are so busy talking about what they're going to do that they get stuck right there at the point where they started talking. They settle into the comfortable spot of being the Advanced Beginner, who mentors the newer beginners along.

Which is what happened to me this week.

After 35 years of writing, you'd think I'd know better.

I probably wrote 10,000 words or more this week, prepping this update post. I am so jazzed about what I'm doing this summer that I'm talking about it rather than doing it.

The words are not wasted -- those words contain the core of a dozen or so good blog posts for later -- but they are not what I'm doing. They are what I'm thinking about. The theory behind my experiment, etc. Which is fine. But I don't need to tell you about that until I've done it.

So, for the most part, I won't.

(Other than to refer you to last week's update, if you want to know what this writing experiment is. Its under the middle section about Writing as a Get Rich Quick Scheme.)

What I learned this week:

*I write different genres and kinds of stories at different speeds. If the goal is to complete novelettes quickly, I have to first experiment with what I can write quickly. (Hint: Romantic Suspense triggers my intricate mystery puzzle plotting instinct. I love that stuff, but it goes SLOW.)

*When I try to write erotica, it takes a left turn into quirky literary territory.

*Creating a better, more productive writing schedule means taking the pulse of your life over a long time. (Also, it's easier to mess with your schedule and habits when you're doing something "unimportant" like mercenary writing.)

*Sleep is good. (I think I already knew that, but it's a lesson I always have to keep learning.)

*Kale makes a lovely (and healthy) addition to homemade coleslaw.

*Writing Experiment + Kale = Weight Loss (Who knew?)

Story Notes on Misplaced Baroness

Really short story notes this week, to whit:

I guess the cops decided they wanted to play a real part in the story after all. I'm thinking that I needed the interview between Plink and The Rozzers to set two things in motion.

Still doing my artwork at the last second. Must stop that.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 4

2013-05-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

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"

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

Or donate via Paypal

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 3

2013-05-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

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.

But as she passed the dark specter of one more abandoned factory, it's 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, 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

Or donate via Paypal

Update - a Reboot, Experiment, and Story Notes

2013-05-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

2013-05-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

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

Or donate via Paypal

Misplaced Baroness - Ep 1

2013-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

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.

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

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 it's 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. 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

Or donate via Paypal

Introduction - The Case of the Misplaced Baroness

2013-05-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

2013-04-30T09:37:00.001-07:00

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

2013-04-24T09:11:00.001-07:00

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

2013-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

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.