A Little Drabble: Whodunnit?

Posted on August 24, 2010 by little

“One of you is responsible for the murder of Jean Le Mer,” the master detective began as he marched slowly around the circle of furniture which held his audience. “Your plan was devilish in its simplicity but hidden behind an almost impenetrable curtain.”

He paused.

“Almost,” he continued with a wry smile. “But before I reveal the perpetrator of this heinous act, I will explain how my mind unravelled this enigma.”

Richards leapt to his feet, pulled out a pistol and fired off a single, clean shot to the head which killed the detective instantly.

“Right, who’s for a cocktail?”

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The History of Hope Town (Part 3)

Posted on August 20, 2010 by little

Quick recap for those who have forgotten or don’t want to read about too much the past:

  • First job
  • Defaced Mel Gibson picture.
  • Threats of bodily harm.
  • 6 fictional characters based on real people murdered via short episodes.
  • Spin off character Pontius Smith created to investigate murders.

15 years later…

Pontius Smith had stayed with me for quite some time and I had always wanted to do something with him in the future.

The problem was that the projects I was working on were of a more serious nature, and while Pontius wasn’t ever really a comedic creation I always thought he would work better as a foil. Not to say he ever lacked humour, but I thought he would always thrive in lighter fair.

As the other projects went into their own sort of development Hell, I took a different tack and tried something a little more light hearted.

When I was younger, I always wanted to be a detective. From the Basil Rathbone Holmes films to the Dr Haledjian Two Minute Mystery books the idea of finding clues to help people or solve crimes was such an exciting concept to my young mind. I did have a detective agency at one point, but we didn’t solve any crimes even though I did buy two new pocket torches. Eventually though, the gang broke up and the team moved to a new organisation named after an incident involving carving names in a tree. For some reason I started on a fond memories kick and harked back to that time in my life. From there, ‘Tec was born.

Wait… what? Thats another project, surely?

Yes, strange voice in my head manifested on the page in italics, thats true. However, as I started to map out what would one day (hopefully) be ‘Tec, I thought about dropping in Pontius Smith.

Ah, I see.

Good. Now lets stop this schizophrenic stuff okay?
Good. So, after plotting the novel it became clear that if Pontius was to appear it would be in a more minor role.

That wasn’t really what I wanted for him because I think he is a much bigger character and could hold his own. As a result, I put him in ‘Tec as a mentor character to one of the main protagonists Mark, and sought a solution just for him.

You’ll note, of course, that throughout this historical recap I haven’t mentioned the word (or more accurately words) Hope Town. That will all change now.

My route was now to find a meaty vehicle for Pontius and after a visit to Hopetoun House just outside Edinburgh (look, if its not I apologise, but to be fair my Geography has always been shit). Whilst there, at some annual fair, I started thinking about the name of the place and how it sounds a little like Hope Town, only more Scottish. For all I knew that was the literal translation of the name, but it didn’t matter because as soon as I had the name, I had an idea for a story.

Within a few minutes I had the concept (some might call it conceit, but we’ll disagree to agree or something) for Hope Town. I’ve never shared this with anyone, so here we go:

In the early 18th Century Hopetoun was for a few hours the Capital of Scotland; some time between Perth and Edinburgh, a visiting royal spent the night sheltering from a storm and bestowed the title on the house and the 150 acres of land. The next day, he sobered up and went on the heard of Edinburgh and decided to change his mind.

However, because it was declared Capital City, even for a few hours it was henceforth afforded all privileges and for reasons that I won’t go into just now due to time pressures, it became a haven for lots of strange and mysterious things/happenings/people.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, and Hope Town is a thriving community with its own government (having ceceeded from the Union in the 1900s), police force and army. Lately however, things have gotten even more bizarre, with inanimate objects taking on more animated forms and terrorising the poor populace. Things get so bad that there are even sightings of buses in Edinburgh devouring an entire bus queue.

One of those who were on the receiving end of the weirdness was Pontius Smith, a traffic warden pounding the beat of the Edinburgh streets looking for those flounting the traffic laws.

Taking a pause for breath there, you may wonder why Pontius now is a traffic warden when my initial thought was for him to be a Detective Inspector and indeed, he had been originally.

So, take a longer pause for breath and we’ll pick it up in 7…

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The History of Hope Town (Part 2)

Posted on August 13, 2010 by little

So where were we? Oh yes, we all had to die.

Of course, as she couldn’t really kill us (unless she wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time in prison and, after all, it was just a photograph) the next best thing was to write a story about a stunningly beautiful blond heroine who decided to take revenge on the 6 men who had defaced the photograph of her beloved.

All names were changed to protect the innocent, even though in the author’s mind we were all guilty. So, she was Mercedes Jackson, I was Dick Large and I do recall a Rampant Thrust which sort of took us into extremely weird territory. Each story chapter was a page in length and had one of the suspects offed in a strange way, which was oddly appropriate given their name. I can’t recall them all, or how I was dispatched, but one was mowed down by a lawnmower.

Each chapter was left on our desks every morning and they were all disturbing-yet-funny. It kept us going for about a week.

However, either she lost her interest or the big reveal of the true culprit (it was Rampant Thrust for those who played along) gave her the closure she wanted, but I don’t think the story was finished.

Being new, and of a creative bent, I decided to pick the story up and take it forward.

My slant was to look into the investigation of the various suspects’ deaths and for that I needed a new character. I remember reading an old issue of Detective Comics and I think that the character of Harvey Bullock (in that issue) was the basis to Pontius Smith. At least, the unshaven/unkempt look; the trenchcoat and fedora could have been any private eye or similar. Come to think of it, the unkempt bit could have equally been attributed to Columbo but in any case, Detective Inspector Pontius Smith was born and made his breathed his first when he investigated said gardening “accident”.

I chunked the story into episodic chapters as well, but they were much longer than a page, mostly because my characters liked to chat to each other and lob abuse from time to time. Each episode progressed the story and was written off the cuff – no overall plot was created, characters were made up on the hoof and I really had no idea how things would play out. This worked well, as it was more spontaneous and helped to give it all a humorous edge; Pontius’ investigation quickly went off on multiple tangents very rapidly with characters becoming increasingly bizarre and locations certainly more surreal as time passed.

About 3 chapters in, I picked up on something that I had dropped in in chapter 1 and that was the inference that something horrific had happened in Pontius’ past which had taken him off the force for quite a while and gave him the occassional nightmare. This was an event that he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, talk about and had almost destroyed his career. Of course when I came to write about said event (told as a flashback chapter) it still held the humourous air that pervaded the story so far. Still, the particular incident which was hopefully funny to the readers (aka me and Mercedes) was plausible enough to scare the pants off the protagonist and send him away to convalese.

The story didn’t ever get finished but there was enough in the character to keep him in my mind and I swore that one day I would use him again.

Of course it would take about 10 years, but more of that in the next episode….

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Batman Tattoos

Posted on August 5, 2010 by little

Just stumbled across this site and it is amazing. Truly, amazing. Artistry at its finest.

http://batmantattoos.blogspot.com/

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The History of Hope Town (Part 1)

Posted on August 5, 2010 by little

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then we’ll begin.

The origin of Hope Town goes back 17 years. I had just started working in my first job following graduation and to get me into the swing of things, I was put on the IT Helpdesk. The idea being that I could meet people that I would deal with day to day, but in addition, it was the only free seat for a month or so.

One of the people who worked on the Helpdesk (and still a good friend, lo these long years hence) was a little obsessed with Mel Gibson. Okay, maybe obsessed isn’t the right word, but in any case she had a picture of said actor/megalomaniac (someone else’s words lawyer types) on her desk. From time to time she would pick it up, coo and the proceed to stroke the glass.

So far, so fine.

Then there was the first big night out, where the entire team went out to celebrate something or other (or did we need an excuse, not sure) and literally litres of alcohol were consumed and the majority of the team got very drunk indeed. I fortunately had the day off the next day and after a nice long lie, I saw I had a missed message on my mobile. I called another one of the guys in the team to find out what was wrong, and hoping it wasn’t because I had done something silly when I was drunk.

It turned out that someone had (and I’m quoting here) “defiled” the picture of Mel Gibson. Of course, “defiled” in this content meant “removed from its protective frame, had a funny moustache drawn across under his nose, and then replaced in the frame”. So… yeah, not defiled.

I was the main suspect, for some reason. Maybe it was because I was a young ‘un and didn’t understand, but I quickly learned that there would be dire physical consequences if I was found to have done anything to Mel in any way, shape or form.

Luckily I hadn’t, and when back in the office, I managed to talk my way out of pain.

Still, I was a suspect and one of six at that.

And all of those suspects were targeted for death.

To Be Continued….

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Endless Beginnings: Interrogator

Posted on August 4, 2010 by little

In complete silence, he slipped his right hand into his jacket pocket and produced a small black moleskin notebook which he placed on the formica table beside his mobile phone. He then proceeded to retrieve a small pen-knife, a pack of nicotine gum and finally a  black and gold fountain pen from his inside pocket, all placed side by side in a row in front of him. Each movement was slow and deliberate; part of his routine to create the right environment and to set the interviewee on edge.

He clasped his hands together in front of his mouth, closed his eyes and sighed.

“So,” he began, his eyes still closed, “despite what you may have heard, this is not the bit I enjoy.”

Randall shifted in his seat across the table. The room was comfortable enough – certainly there was no light shining in his eyes, or straps holding him down – but hearing the voice of his interrogator was enough to make the bravado he had demonstrated ever since they had brought him in slip into the cool evening air. While Randall certainly didn’t know the man sitting opposite, he did know of his reputation and that was quite enough to set him on edge.

“However,” the interrogator continued, after drawing a long breath, “I do have other personalities who do.”

His eyes sprang open and a smile cut across his face like a gutted fish.

Randall lost control of his bowels.

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Research Rocks – Horror Anthologies

Posted on July 13, 2010 by little

So, as Hopetown continue apace (wait, what?) I find myself taking more time to dig into old inspirational media. While many are obvious, some others are less so.

For example I feel a strong pull to watch British horror flicks from the 70s, and more specifically the anthologies from Hammer and Amicus. Things such as “Asylum”, “Dr Terrors House of Horrors” and “Vault of Horror”. Add to that the “Hammer House of Horror” tv show and that’s quite a bit of nostalgia to get through. I also eat up the DC Comics Showcase volumes of “House of Mystery” and would love to get some of the EC collections.

While Hopetown is a black comedy, these stories and tropes are arguably the building blocks of the idea. As I had watched many of these movies before my teens, Hopetown has been gestating for quite some time.

I’ll end the childbirth metaphor there.

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A Little Drabble – Preparing Breakfast

Posted on July 10, 2010 by little

Rice crispies hit the bottom of the bowl, followed by the cool white milk which splits the gathered masses and washes them around the curved ceramic.

Tea that has stewed nicely is poured into a waiting cup. No milk at this time because he might be slightly late. The sugar bowl sits newly filled, just in case.

The fried items are ready but the eggs will wait so they are at their freshest and anyway, she does love a flourish.

Everything is just as it should be.

She settles down to wait for them.

They never come.

They never have.

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Conceptual Procrastination

Posted on July 9, 2010 by little

Procrastination takes many forms for me. Its not just that I can find something else to do other than write, because that would be too obvious and something I can overcome easily – ie prioritise and drop the other stuff to concentrate on the project. No, I have to do it subtly which in the main means that I am finding ways not to write by doing other things, even tentatively related to the project.

So I find myself doing some concept art for the book cover, or for the quad poster or in extreme times of tenuousness (I also make up words I think) I play about with this website. See previous post entitled “Okay, Changing the theme (Not Procrastination)”.

It’s like I tell myself everything has to be just right before I … well, just write. It’s all arse for tit, if you’ll pardon the expression (search results may be interesting now). the writing needs to and must come first. All this is nothing without the end product or at the very least some words on the page which make up a part of the whole.

I need to get focused otherwise I’ll never achieve any of my writing goals.

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Okay, changing the theme (Not Procrastination)

Posted on July 7, 2010 by little

First of all, procrastination has not won.

Truly, today was not designated a writing day so this isn’t me playing about dodging the draft (see, what I did there? No? oh). I’ve just taken a few minutes to review the site layout and it doesn’t work for me at the moment.  I think that the site will be more of a progress update but the layout is too high maintenance so it needs to change so it can meet this new requirement and when I do post something new and creative (e.g. some Smorgasbord, Endless Beginnings etc) it’ll just blend in.

So I’m going to take a bit of time today and at the weekend to see what other options there are. Nothing spectacular, but also nothing too boring either.  I probably will have to archive some of the previous entries but that’s fine.

Also, I could do with a proper logo if anyone feels creative and would like to do it for free or kudos?

Oh, I lost you at free eh? How about for some lollipops?

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