I’m not even quite sure what sparked the idea for Deliver Us From Evil. I was fixing up my hard drive copies of Aragonite's Sword for Defense series to transfer to my PDA (reading fanfic in bed all snuggled up under the covers is just about as decadent as it gets, peeps), and the idea was born sometime during that. I’ve fallen in love with the FINA/EMPT/Moriarty story arch—what could be more natural than to create an epic around it?
So I opened a new MS Word document and started out the list that became last Friday’s blog post. In fact, I’m rather iffy about that list; it might turn out to be 6 books rather than 5, with a book between To Take Up the Pen and When Cometh the Dawn—just because the Hiatus storyline might be too big to fit into two books only. But I guess I’ll figure that out once I have a more definite plot.
And that, I don’t have… yet. Major brainstorming will come later. Right now, I’ll just record whatever little ideas trickle in.
I am nearly 80% finished with my AMM prompts table. Once I’m done writing, polishing, sending it off to my beta reader (the lovely teenelizabeth), doing whatever polishing she recommends (hopefully not much), signing up with Amazon, converting the book to whatever format necessary, and getting it put through the Kindle program… Did that tire you out? It tired me out just typing it!
Anyway, once AMM is complete and available for you wonderful, voracious readers… I am taking a breather. I do think I will have earned it—I mean, how many writers out there fill out a 100 prompts table in four months?! It takes most people much longer than that—and really, I couldn’t have done it myself had it not been for the motivation of getting it done, out there, and making money. As an unemployed, as-of-yet-unpublished young adult, the idea of finally making a living for myself is highly attractive. Let’s see if I can get somewhere to Amanda Hocking’s level. ^_^
Nah, I don’t expect it. But wouldn’t it be loverly?
So, back to the topic at hand: breather. I’m telling you: I can’t wait. I’ll just sit here and bask in the raving reviews you guys leave me (be it here, on FF.N, or even on LJ or dA, if you link me to it).
…Okay, so I won’t be doing that, per se. I have a college writing course from the Christian Writers Guild that I’m months behind on. I got behind last summer and never got caught up—last summer. And it only got worse. So, I’m going to see if I can kamikaze and get my… eep, anywhere from 10 to 20 lessons caught up. Holy cow. Once that’s done and I’m (please, God?) back on schedule, I’ll take Sherlock Holmes back up again.
That’s not to say I’ll be completely silent. I’ll probably grace you with the occasional Study in Stardom update, though don’t expect them to be as regular as they once were. A Time to Heal is, unfortunately, on indefinite hiatus due to complete lack of inspiration—I just might write a far-future tie-in just to try to rekindle my muse’s interest (and I warn you, it’ll be… a little shocking, probably).
Oh yeah, and I might finally finish my Star Wars/Grand Admiral Thrawn fic that’s gotten so much love. I feel bad about that one—I haven’t updated since I got into the Sherlock Holmes fandom. In September. Do the math for yourself. =(
So, anyway, where does Deliver Us From Evil fit into all this mess? Well, quite simply, I’ll start on the series once I’m caught up with school. I’ll be doing TONS of research, but I’ll start writing, anyway. Maybe I’ll post tidbits up on FF.N as actual fics to keep your guys’ interest, and to snag new victims—I mean, readers. =D I think I will. I’ve really already done so, technically, with “Unraveling the Truth”—a scene from either To Take Up the Pen or the aforementioned possible book between To Take Up the Pen and When the Dawn Cometh.
Where’d the series title come from, anyway? …Well, y’know, I can’t quite answer that one. Obviously, it’s from the Lord’s Prayer, but how did it get stuck in my head? Hmm… I’d bet anything God put it there. Seriously, I would!
It does fit, though. I mean, we’re talking about a hidden war the likes of which you generally don’t see without a lot of fantasy elements. It’s not fantasy, it’s not urban fantasy, it’s not even sci-fi—it’s good, old adventure/historical (somewhat) fiction. I would hesitate to call it mystery, because we all know who are the bad guys, and we all know where the bad guys end up.
What we don’t know, however, is what happened in-between the lines, in the background, etcetera. That’s where I want to dig in and flesh out. So it’s certainly much more adventure than mystery.
But it’s the story behind the mysteries (well, my own version, but hey).
Allow me to quote Aragonite, from the opening to A Sword for Defense: "And I submit to you-the fiction out there that deals with the allegedly glamorous life Sherlock Holmes led while he was avoiding Moran can be measured in hectacres. But there is not a single piece I can find that deals with those three years for Watson and Scotland Yard."
For me, it was a call to action, and now, not only am I going to be writing fiction that does deal with Watson and Scotland Yard during the Great Hiatus, but I’m also going to be dealing with the events before that! In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that there is very little pre-FINA, non-parody fiction dealing with Moriarty, period. There is some, but it doesn’t seem to be much.
Cue inspiration.
Aragonite’s marvelous Sword for Defense series dealt with the Hiatus on a two-front level: Watson and Scotland Yard combating Colonel Moriarty, and Holmes hiding from Colonel Moran. KCS’s fantastic crossover with Star Trek: The Original Series, However Improbable, dealt with a surviving Professor Moriarty bent on controlling the twenty-third century. Both stories are absolute epics.
But.
Nobody seems to have done a two-front (Holmes and Scotland Yard) epic dealing with the fight against Moriarty in the several months before FINA. I want to see Moriarty as a running antagonist, as VALL seems to paint him. There’s only one story comparable to this that I’ve seen thus far, and it’s Protector of the Gray Fortress’s wonderfully-chilling, Granada-based AU Centre of the Web. But even that is an AU of the events of FINA, and not an actual hashing-out of the months before.
Enter yours truly.
I’m rewinding the video to six months before the opening of FINA, and I’m starting the story from there. November 1890. Can anybody think of any significance to that setting? Well, if Watson met Mary in 1888 and married her early the next year, DYIN (assuming that it’s Mary as his wife and not the unnamed second Mrs. Watson) falls exactly upon November 1890. Culverton Smith.
And, being in that time period, Moriarty is involved.
In fact, included in this epic, in Book One to be exact, will be the whole “torture series”—or “Holmes-captured” arch—from AMM. We’re going to see that captivity in greater detail—that might actually end up being a huge part of that first book.
What a way to kick off the series, eh? Torture poor Sherlock.
The second book is currently very sketchy. It starts with Holmes’s investigation in France and ends with a greatly enhanced version of FINA. That’s about all I know at this point.
The other day, I was going through my AMM stories and tallying up how many would appear—in some shape or form—in Deliver Us From Evil (DUE—I don’t like DUFE). Guess how many. 5? 10? Maybe a dozen?
Erm, no.
Twenty. TWENTY.
A full fifth of the collection.
And I’m not even finished yet. There could still be more. (Thus far, I have multiple introspects from Holmes before and after Reichenbach, and that’s only one category in all this FINA/EMPT glory. One of the stories is actually another account of what happened at the Falls, and I love that installment to pieces.)
Okay, I’ll stop rambling now (and don’t worry, that BBC SH post is coming—just be patient).
