Once Upon a Time…

Once Upon a Time, I wrote a book called Good Liniment. This is the point I introduced witchcraft into The Hat Series. It was on purpose that readers got to meet a lot of new characters.

Since then, these characters have become part of the world of this series. They’ve assisted Lizzie to various degrees in the subsequent stories. I’ve even expanded to introduce Mad Mellinger, who did not appear in Good Liniment.

Today, I started writing one called “Run for the Roses.” This one sees Detlef Klein serving as a herald character. He will also play a major role throughout the story. Readers will remember him as the actual headless horseman. You might remember him winning an axe throwing contest against a Canadian trapper type witch, and a part ogre woman who runs the tavern.

It feels so good to be drafting new material again. My goal here is to have some terrifying things, mingled with the absolute craziest things I can come up with to make it qualify as dark humor.

When I write Detlef, I actually envision Stellan Skarsgård, but at at his craziest in Thor. No idea why, but it seems to help. Some of you might remember that I like over-the-top characters.

I kind of like this scene. It starts off with a performance by Lizzie and the Pythons. Lizzie is addressing the crowd, and Detlef makes his first appearance…

“Memphis is such a hub for American music, and we’ve had a great time here. It seems like all the greats played here, lived here… were born here…” She waited for the applause to die down.

“One of them was so enthralled, that he wrote a song about it. We’re going to leave you with a little Chuck Berry. Hit it, Carl.”

Lizzie went all out for the final song of the night, putting a foot atop her bass, then ultimately leaning it so she could stand on the C-bout. She’d just reached the part of the song about ‘half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge,’ when the hat caught her attention.

“Great, jumped-up, bald-headed, Jesus Christ almighty! Would you take a look at that?”

On the corner of the dance hall was a giant of a man. He had on orange Crocks, knee-high stockings, Bermuda shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt draped over a blue tee. Atop his head was a powdered wig that he’d obviously spent some time working into a man-bun. He did a jerky version of the twist, and others in the crowd gave him a wide berth.

Let’s face it, Detlef is colorful, if not actually stylish.

It came to about 2000 words today, if I subtract out the copyright portion that I pasted into the front material. I honestly expected more, but have to remember one rule about this series. Anybody should be able to pick up a volume and not feel lost. This means I have to reintroduce even the main characters in minor fashion.

This intro won’t be as extensive as people who’ve read the whole thing got, but the new people won’t be lost either.

I did a series about the standard archetypes over at Story Empire a few years ago. The herald character delivers the call to adventure for the hero. Detlef did this about one paragraph after I cut you off. The heroes have something new to deal with.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I accomplish more this weekend. It’s a long time until payday, and we’re inclined to stay home. Have to do something to fill those hours.