Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 289

Cherry Saturday: The I Forgot Version

Sorry. I thought I had these keyed up to January 1. Sorry. Sorry.

So what’s new with you?

The Frog Principal 4: The Betas Are Not Pleased

My beta readers are excellent. They tell me what I did right, which is very important, but they also tell me when I’ve screwed up, which is what I really need them for. And I really screwed this rewrite up.

The thing to remember about responding to critiques of any kind is that you must repress the urge to explain. Explaining won’t do any good because if it tripped up a beta reader, it’s probably going to trip up somebody else, and you can’t stand in every bookstore in the world and explain the problem to every reader who picks up your book. It doesn’t matter that you know that “Tiffany” was a name in medieval times, all that matters is that some readers are going to trip on that, so you fix it. Don’t argue with your betas (although asking questions to clarify points is okay). If that’s how they felt as readers, that’s how they felt, end of discussion. Just fix the problem and move on.

Of course, you can always choose not to fix the problem, it’s your call, but it’s also going to be your responsibility when the reader complaints start pouring in after it’s published. Really, just fix it.

And now the betas:

Jill W:

1. Who is the protagonist in this scene and what is her/his goal?

Petulia wants the EMT team to help Colin (who kissed her and turned into a frog) and leave without finding out anything about her.

2. Who is the antagonist in this scene and what is her/his goal?

I guess it’s Bacon from Ruby’s. He appears in person at the end of the scene, attacks Petulia with a bread knife and then tries to drown her in the fountain, so it seems likely he was trying to kill her.

3. What expectations have been raised by the scene? (What do you think is going to happen in the next scene, much later in the book, at the end of the story?)

The story is set in a magical world with cold magic, people turned into frogs and roosters, and an Emergency Magical Technician service. Geoffrey the rooster detective is hilarious, which signals a light, comic read, but Petulia is in constant danger and Bacon tries to kill her, which is pretty dark. Also, the Protectorate sounds sinister. I’m not sure what kind of magical story to expect. Maybe it’s a kind of magical romantic suspense, with bad people after Our Girl; she stops hiding and fight back. That would be cool.

Petulia has a Secret. She thinks she knows what it is, but she doesn’t know the half of it. I bet she’s more important and powerful than she realises.

Mirra knows more than she’s telling. I’m not sure whether she’s a wicked stepmother or not (love her name) or not but I think she has important magical reasons for wanting Petulia to get married.

Wyland is more than he seems. Is he human? Not entirely. I’m not sure about his name, Fox. We already have a frog and a rooster, so I’m wondering about the significance of this.

If Petulia’s supposed to get married, I’m looking for a romance in there somewhere. I look for romance everywhere. My favorite bit of Guards! Guards! is Carrot and Angua. This is a Crusie, so the love interest’s not going to be some plain vanilla prince. It should be somebody who shows up right away, and I’m voting for Wyland. He’s dark, dangerous and competent, and he pulls Our Girl out of the fountain. Plus he’s called a Protector.

If I’m joining the dots and completing this story in my head, I’m thinking that stepmother Mirra wants Petulia married to some princely type for a powerful, magical reason. Maybe that will sap Petulia’s mojo before it’s released or she finds out an important family secret, maybe something to about her mother. There’s a real threat to Petulia who will team up with Wyland, kick some magical ass and save the day.

4. What needs work in this scene? (Be specific without rewriting.)

I don’t have a clear picture of who Petulia is. She’s attractive (anyone would want to kiss her), she’s hiding who she is, she’s used to defending herself and she knows it’s a matter of life or death. She’s not supposed to leave the house, but she did as soon as she got the chance and then she went to the bakery with a strange man. Is she TSTL? She’s used to the idea of people not being what they seem (Felix might be an impostor and Wyland might not be human), she called the magical emergency services but then she then tries to get rid of them. She comes from a place where there’s magic, she’s not freaking out about Colin (she’s more concerned she’s going to be blamed for zapping him) but she’s surprised and distracted by Geoffrey. She defended herself when the chips were really down and I believe she would have lived even without Wyland, which made me think that there’s a good, strong, interesting heroine there, but she wasn’t clear to me.

I’m not sure what to make of Felix and Wyland (I adore Geoffrey. If Anyone But You was Fred’s Book, this could be Geoffrey’s Book). Felix and Wyland have contrasting physical appearances and mannerisms, they ask a lot of questions, but they don’t do much – Felix does a little magical detecting – until Wyland pulls Petulia out of the water.

I wasn’t sure what any of the characters wanted, except for Bacon who was pretty clearly out to do major harm to Petulia.

There’s a lot of information, not much action, and not much push-and-pull between Petulia and the cops. The action at the end of the scene comes out of the blue and feels strangely unrelated to what’s gone before – one moment Petulia’s talking to one group of three guys about another guy and then she’s attacked by another guy that got a brief mention in the interrogation.

There were a lot of characters to get my head around – Petulia, Mirra, Charles the butler, Colin, Felix, Geoffrey, Wyland, Bacon, Ruby from the bakery. If it’s not necessary to have them all in the first scene, I’d have found it easier to absorb some of them in the next bit of action.

I didn’t have any feeling for Colin, except Petulia said he was hot. I didn’t really care that he was a frog and I wasn’t curious to see what he’d be like as a man. I wasn’t projecting anything on to him.

Small things:

Colin the frog made me think of Jude (?) from the Unfortunate Miss Fortunes. I imbued him with that guy/frog’s negative qualities on the basis of no information whatsoever.

I found Petulia’s name distracting. It’s not Petunia and not Petula, and it rhymes with peculiar.

You talked about needing to ‘duck’ the tree branch. It was perfectly clear, but we’ve got chicken, rooster, frog and Fox in the scene, and my subconscious got distracted.

5. What must be kept?

I like this world. It’s fascinating and I want to know more about it. I want to know Petulia’s secret and why the bad guys are out to get her and what her step-mother’s up to.

I love the characters. They’re interesting and I want to know more about all of them – Petulia, her step-mother and her butler, Felix and Geoffrey and Wyland.

Geoffrey is the best thing about this scene. He’s fabulous and funny and I hope he has a role throughout the whole story.

I love the idea of Emergency Magical Technicians. That made me laugh out loud.

Mirra’s intriguing. Great name. I haven’t even met her yet, and I’m not sure what to make of her, but I want to know.

I want to meet the butler, and I want to know why Petulia’s living on the Edge.

There’s so much in this scene. It promises a rich and entertaining story that messes with some signals that have clearly been ingrained in my psyche since childhood. It’s fun, it raises a whole book full of questions in my mind, and I want to know the answers to all of them. I would definitely keep reading to find out.

Michille C:

1. Who is the protagonist in this scene and what is her/his goal?

Petulia is the protagonist. Her goals change quickly as the scene progresses. Her first goal is to help Colin by turning him back to a human. This goal started before the scene starts because she has already called the EMT. Goal not met. It changes to getting rid of the EMT and the tec and to hide her origins, although I’m not sure why she has set aside the goal of helping Colin. Goal met. After the EMT and tec leave, it becomes saving herself from Bacon. Goal met, but with assistance from Wayland. Her final goal is to get rid of him. Goal not met because she gives up.

2. Who is the antagonist in this scene and what is her/his goal?

Colin perhaps is the first antagonist, however he is very inactive. So I’ll go with Felix with Wayland added in. Their goal seems to be to get information out of Petulia in order to know what to do about Colin. Goal not met, because Petulia successfully banishes them. Then Bacon becomes the antagonist when he attacks Petulia, I assume with the goal of killing her. Goal not met although I’m not sure why. I assume Wayland ran him off while Petulia was under water. Enter Wayland again. I assume he came back to hound her into giving him answers, is temporarily waylaid when he saves her and goes in pursuit of Bacon. Goal not met because he loses Bacon. However, he eventually wins because he has worn Petulia down to the point that she gives up and takes him into the house.

3. What expectations have been raised by the scene? (What do you think is going to happen in the next scene, much later in the book, at the end of the story?)

Since “Petulia gave up,” I expect that she will tell Wayland the truth about where she is from. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if either the butler interferes immediately or if Mirra shows up and interferes, instead (Mirra, despite the title of stepmother, seems like a mentor/protector to Petulia, giving her advice on how to survive).

The writing style leads me to believe that there will be a lot of convoluted logic created by a paranormal world. I expect the bottomless fountain will play into the story as will Sleiping.

Petulia seems young and naïve – basing many decision on what Mirra told her, not on her own experiences. This makes me think she will make a lot of mistakes on her way to her ultimate destiny.

End of the story, I have no idea. I don’t remember if you gave a genre for this. If it is romance, she get an HEA, although I have trouble picturing it with Wayland.

4. What needs work in this scene? (Be specific without rewriting.)

There were a lot of names and I found myself having to go back and figure out who they all were. I was also a little confused by Petulia’s differing reaction to magic. She turns a guy into a frog and it’s no big – just call the EMT. But then when the chicken talks, she is freaked out. And the expectation is there that she is aware of magic because of where she comes from and her stepmother. This could easily be forgiven if it is explained soon after this scene. I would prefer feeling dumped right into the action than having to step back out of it and read explanation and backstory.

5. What must be kept?

The characters seem great. Wayland gets the most description. A chicken wistful for human food is hilarious. I hope someone bakes him a sunflower seed or corn muffin. I love the Frog Prince idea, but I have no idea where you’re going with it, which could be a good thing, as I would have kept reading had there been more. I like the stepmother not being stereotypical (although I could see a way that she could actually turn out to be wicked, I’d like her to truly protect and care for Petulia). Having a butler lends it an old world air.

I like it.

Jeanne E (did a track changes commentary and ended with this):

What Needs to Stay: Love, love, love the fairy tale background. Petulia is feisty, which is fun, and her need to live life by the rules Mirra has taught her make her intriguing. Love Wyland, Geoffrey and Felix. Love the banter.

What Needs Work: Because there’s so much off-topic chatter, it’s sometimes hard to follow the conversation. Also, it’s a bit short on sensory detail. It feels like the garden is soundproofed and smell-proofed. Other reactions added as comments.

Kathy K (did a track changes commentary and ended with this):

Lots of great stuff going on. I love Petulia and I’m pretty sure I know what she wants in this scene, although it’s not clear yet what her main goal & motivation is. However, it’s clear she’s the protagonist.

Obviously, Wyland is the hero (tornado-like bod clued me in ☺). I think he’s the antagonist of this scene (if not the story) but the stuff with Bacon seems tacked on so I suspect Bacon may be the story antagonist.

My expectations: the story world is one of magic. Petulia is apparently privy to that world, although not necessarily magical herself. She’s got a secret though that seems to related to the magic and I expect that she and Wyland will team up to resolve whatever the problem is (magical killers run amuck?)

Sue Danic:

1. Who is the protagonist? Petulia

2. What is the protagonist’s goal? At first, to get Colin changed back into a man, then to save herself from the attacker. Threaded throughout the scene are references to Petulia’s need to protect herself. (And it’s clear, there are more antagonists out there than just Bacon)

3. Who is the antagonist? Everyone in the first part of the scene is there to try to figure out what happened to Colin, so there’s no antagonist on screen then. Later it’s the attacker. Prior to this scene, his goal must have been to hurt Colin, unless it was to hurt Petulia and Colin got in the way and the magic affected Colin instead.

4. What is the antagonist’s goal? Hurt/Kill Petulia

5. What do you expect will happen next in the story, given what you read in this scene? I’ve never read anything like this. Talking chickens. Broody techs. A heroine who is hiding all kinds of things. A stepmother with a lot of advice and most of it could be self serving – it could go anywhere. I’m guessing Bacon will keep trying to kill her. She’ll successfully defend herself. She’ll have to figure out why he’s after her (there may be others after her too). Wyland will keep showing up and become a love interest.

There will be something about the stepmother — All this talk about protecting Petulia leads me to think there’s something in it for her.

6. What in this scene must be kept at all costs? The chicken. Wyland. Petulia and her internal thoughts. As always, the dialogue is great. I love this world where magic exists.

7. What in this scene needs work?

I’m not sure Felix adds much to the scene.

Petulia’s not freaking out about Colin turning into a frog. She knows whom to call to fix such problems (Emergency Magic Techs), so I have to assume she’s aware she’s living in a world that includes magic. Why then is she shocked by the talking chicken?

Line Notes below (both keepers and what needs work)

“Petulia needed disarmed” – missing something

“Smiles were non-threatening. Mirra said people liked it when you smiled at them. It disarmed them, she said, and since a lot of the people coming at Petulia needed disarmed, a smile was a small gesture in the overall scheme of things.” – wow, Petulia is a gal with a lot of problems. If people keep coming at her. I like this very much.

“The chicken followed on his heels” – she mentioned earlier it’s a rooster and details matter, so why does she call it a chicken again. Unless we’re to assume she’s just not good with details. Will this be important? She does it again later: “Chicken. Rooster. Bird.” I like that sequence – it illustrates her confusion and her sense of humor too, but if her lack of details is just for this setup, I’m not sure it works.

“Details matter, Mirra had drummed into her. The difference between living and dying could be in the details.” – love this because it sets up all kinds of foreshadowing

“But it’s okay, I got a friend who’s a ‘tec.”” – is a “tec” like the EMT (tech). Or is tec a short form for someone who knows magic? If Wyland is a “copper”/cop, why is he also a tec?

“he looked like a human tornado as he moved toward them” – love this description

“She hoped to hell he really was with the Protectorate because if not, she was in trouble. Mirra hadn’t taught defense against tornados.” – love this, and want to know more about the Protectorate

“Hello?” Petulia said to the chicken and looked at the cop to see if it was a joke. Maybe he was a ventriloquist.” – I don’t understand her surprise or even her earlier assumption that he was a pet. If Colin just turned into a frog then nothing can be taken for granted in this world. Shouldn’t she know that? Or if this is the first time she’s aware that magic has occurred, shouldn’t she be freaking out?

“Also I’m a rooster,” the chicken said. “And you turned a guy into a frog, so let’s not point fingers.” – love this

“You don’t have any fingers” — this feels weak as a comeback

“Well, he has blue eyes,” Petulia said. “Frogs usually don’t. Colin did. And when Colin disappeared, this frog was sitting in his pants. So, yes, I think it’s Colin.” She looked back at the frog, more distressed now as the enormity of it all finally overwhelmed the abnormality of it all. – love this

“Smiling was important, Mirra said. Even if you felt like screaming, you kept smiling.” – love this too

Geoffrey shrugged, ruffling his feathers. “I like to give back.”

Petulia nodded. “Of course.” I just watched a chicken shrug. Because he wants to give back. -absolutely love this

“Full Poultry.” Geoffrey ruffled his feathers. “It’s okay. I’ve adapted.” – love this

“Stepmother,” Felix said. “That’s not good.”

“That,” Petulia said sternly, “is just prejudice.” – fantastic

“Charles knows how to defend a door,” – love this

She thought, A bread knife?,– this undercuts the terror of being lunged at. Is that what you want? Later she undercuts the terror again: “Really? She thought and she tried to pry his hands away. A bread knife and then a dumb luck drowning? I’m going to lose to somebody this inept?” Really? She thought and she tried to pry his hands away. A bread knife and then a dumb luck drowning? I’m going to lose to somebody this inept? –It makes me not worry much about the attacker. Though I love her vicious clawing next.

They sagged where Bacon had sliced through them, so she ripped them off the rest of the way and kicked for the surface, breaking it and sucking in air only to have Bacon shove her under again. – ripping off a skirt would take awhile. Wouldn’t she try to get to the surface? Would a summer skirt be so heavy it would drag her down?

Ellen:

Protagonist: Petulia

Goal: It’s a bit all over the place. To get help for Colin, then to get Wyland to go away, then to get them ALL to go away, then to defeat the attacker. Most of these collectively amount to “protect herself,” but it’s a bit scattered.

Antag: Wyland? Kind of. He’s the cleanest source of conflict in the scene, but you could also argue that whoever Toad-ized Colin is the real antagonist (without that, the scene never happens), and then at the end, Bacon is the direct antagonist. But let’s go with Wyland because the scene doesn’t go anywhere without him/the tension between him and Petulia.

Goal: To get to the bottom of whatever Petulia’s deal is.

What happens next: Wyland gets to go inside the house, meets the butler, digs for info in his persistent way, learns more about Petulia’s situation. In the longer term, I assume that Petulia’s stepmother is, in fact, up to no good (although Petulia has yet to realize that), Wyland will be the hero, and Petulia will learn to think for herself (and will be FIERCE and fantastic).

What must be kept: Colin turning into a frog — I love this fractured take on what is, truly, a deeply weird fairy tale. Love the names, especially Bacon. *Adore* Geoffrey the talking rooster. I love Wyland ripping off the tree branch. Wyland in general — very intriguing. This guy has presence. Love the description of him as a “human tornado.” I love that Petulia is smart and careful and has some self-defense skills (even though she is in over her head). I like how you conveyed her naivete without making her look dumb. Laughed out loud at Geoffrey moaning over food. (Although, can’t he eat that stuff? Are raisin cakes bad for a rooster’s stomach or something?) Love that there’s a dish called “Rumple.” Love “Full Poultry/Full Frog.” I’m intrigued about the stepmother and wondering what Petulia is hiding, so that’s good pull into the story. Love the stepmother prejudice line. Basically, I am really feeling this world and these people; I want to spend more time here.

What to work on: Well, Petulia’s goal, as mentioned above. It’s shifting, which might be unavoidable; I certainly don’t know how to fix it. I just wish there were a clearer through-line to it, so I would feel a little more anchored in what exactly I’m supposed to be worried about for Petulia or hoping will happen for Petulia.

I also feel a little confused about the magic in the world. Petulia does not seem all that taken aback by Colin becoming a frog, and there are magical emergency responders, so this is a magic world where magic things happen. But then she is so agog over the talking rooster… that threw me. Why is that so much stranger than a man becoming a frog? Because he’s not Full Poultry? I kind of got the sense that Petulia is a bit of a sheltered bumpkin and this a strange “big city” sight for her? Maybe? But I need anchoring in what’s commonplace and what’s unusual in this world, and those two things (Colin and Geoffrey) weren’t different enough for me to cause that different of a reaction in Petulia.

I thought the interrogation went on a bit too long. Petulia repeats her story (of how she met Colin and he kissed her and then turned into a frog) a few times, adding more detail each time — because of Wyland’s probing. But that doesn’t go anywhere because it’s not building to a revelation she’s been trying to hide or anything, so it just goes on and then stops when even Petulia realizes it’s not going anywhere, and says as much. And then the guys (and rooster) leave (didn’t seem like they tried very hard to find poor Colin) and it feels like that whole conflict just stops abruptly and suddenly we’re in a new scene with a new antagonist (Bacon) but then Wyland’s back after all and it’s NOT over… I just got lost a bit in there. I started trying to think of ways to fix it, but I can’t really, and that’s not my purpose here anyway — I leave it to you.

But I think this is all fixable, and it’s going to be great. I love this story already. It’s delightful.

So first of all, best betas ever. Really good stuff in here.



But now I need a plan because this puppy is in bad shape. So . . .

The small things:

• I didn’t want Petula or Petunia, I wanted Petulia, but it makes sense that that would be confusing. My last agent’s husband used to call me Petal (he’s British), and I kind of like that here. It’s such a fragile name for a woman who is prepared to kick ass if she has to. Petulia was just more fun, but I can roll with Petal.

• I didn’t think that knowing about magic necessarily meant a lack of surprise when people turned into chickens and spoke; we know about science but stuff still happens that amazes us. However, since I’m not going to be standing in every book store in the world explaining that to people, Petal’s going to have to have a bigger reaction to Colin and hit something in her dialogue with Felix like, “This doesn’t happen in the mountains.” Or something. Cogitating.

• Set up Geoffrey as diabetic.

• Establish Petal’s dyed hair as a clue for Wyland to pick up.

• The tec thing is confusing, so just stick with EMT and Protectorate and do the short term later.

• Put Colin in the box and have the box vanish.

The big things:

• Antagonist: send Bacon back to the third or fourth scene where he belongs. Get Wyland in there in the first paragraph.

• Too much talk: get those bodies in motion

• Too much repetition, cut the hell out of this.

• Focus Petal’s goal which has to be to save herself. She has to call in the EMTs because she can’t let Colin stay a frog, she’s a good person, but that’s putting her in danger, so she has to hand over the frog, get them out, and lock the garden gate behind them. When the EMTs bring the police, that’s her antagonist, the guy who won’t take the frog and go. If Wyland shows up first, that’s even better.

• Set up the princess thing. It’s explained in the next scene, but it has to be less irritating here. So move up Wyland’s realization in the next scene to this one. Maybe cut the next scene, move straight to Wy’s POV back at the station, then back to Petal in the garden with Bacon in the third scene, saving herself. Then she calls Wyland and the next scene is his POV and then the scene with Mirra? More rewriting. Argh.

I was going to rewrite this and put the new version here, but this post is long, some bad stuff has been happening and I haven’t been able to work (getting better, no worries), and this scene is going to take some thought, plus Argh’s weekends are booked as are Mondays, so how’s Tuesday for the rewrite for you? I know, it’s a long time away and I promised today. Can I buy you off with a look at another scene from the story on Wednesday? Or how about the collage in progress for this? Because my afternoon will be at the dentist’s and my evening will be spend trying to get my internet to work. Also, if anybody know about pain relievers that do not tear up the stomach, let me know. Thank you.

“The Frog Principal” 3: The Hard Analysis

After twenty or thirty rewrites, I get to the point where going on gut instinct and the voices the Girls send up is not enough. I have to look at that scene with cold, clear, analytical, left-brain-driven eyes. This is where I stop describing the things that happen in my scene as “Petulia realizes” and “Wyland thinks” and change it so it’s “Petulia takes” and “Wyland hits.” Action. Bodies in motion. People on the page, not just voices and brains.

And then I have to look at the gap between what I wanted to accomplish in the scene and what I actually did. This is the first scene of the first story in a subplot about a difficult romance that’s going to weave in and out of the next half dozen stories. These are two fairly simple characters who have very complex and dangerous problems and who are therefore going to make each other’s lives much more complex and dangerous. This is the first time the reader sees Petulia, and the first time that reader sees Wyland as more than a sidekick. So this scene, looked at analytically, must

• Establish Petulia as smart, in trouble, guarding a secret, and at first annoyed and then attracted by Wyland.

• Build on the character Wyland has been in the previous two stories while also establishing him for the people who might start with this story by showing him on his own, without the steadying hand of his much more thoughtful, quiet partner, still emphasizing his focused determination to set things right. Also, set up his attraction to Petulia.

• Use the beats of the scene to bring more pressure to bear on the characters, moving them out their comfort zones and peeling back some of their self-possession while heightening their interest in each other.

• End with enough added complication to propel the plot and the reader into the next scene.

This part isn’t much fun. (Ask the McD students; they’ve suffered greatly doing this.) All the wild, free, let’s-see-what-these-people-say-next stuff is pretty much done; now it has to be disciplined into good story. Snappy dialogue and interesting plot twists and wild imagination do not make good story. Great structure and craft do not make good story. But the snappy/interesting/wild stuff contained by craft does make good story, and the better you are at both, the better story is. Which is why I give myself all the time I need to get the snappy/interesting/wild on the page, and then I cowgirl up and do the cold analysis, reshaping what I’ve got into story.

And then, of course, I send it to the betas and they tell me where I went wrong and I rewrite it, and then I send it to my editor and she tells me where I went wrong and I rewrite it, and then I get the copy edits back and I see other places where I went wrong and I rewrite it (but less than 10% of it or it costs me money), and then I start all over again with the next book.

Here’s the rewrite that came after the analysis, with the external/internal beat analysis at the end. Problems: It’s too long, the pacing is off, there still aren’t enough bodies in motion in the middle, and the ending is a later scene, but I’d rewritten this so many times, I couldn’t even see it any more. It should have gone to the betas sooner, before I’d reworked it into inchoherence. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Tomorrow: the betas speak, and they are not happy, which you will understand when you’ve read this version.

The Frog Principle First Scene, Before the Betas:

Petulia shook her skirts out to dislodge any debris she might have picked up when she’d knelt down by the fountain and then smiled at the frog in the palm of her hand, going for calm and positive. And soothing. Soothing was important in situations like this. “It’s all right, Colin, I called for the EMTs, they’ll be here soon, and everything will be just fine.”

Colin gazed back at her coldly, but then he was a frog. His eyes twitched away from hers, and his tongue lashed out and caught a fly.

“Must you?” Petulia said.

She heard the rusty garden gate squeak open and turned to peer through the overgrown topiaries and the vines that had run wild, ready to defend herself if necessary, but it was just a guy in a Riven EMT uniform accompanied by a chicken. He was tall and ordinary but cheerful about it, his light brown hair neat and his posture straight, somebody she could easily defeat if he turned out to be an imposter. Also, the chicken was a rooster. Details matter, Mirra had drummed into her. The difference between living and dying could be in the details.

Petulia looked at Colin in her hand and wondered what detail she had missed that had gotten her into this mess. And him, too, of course, but she was still hoping it was somehow his fault–

“Petulia Jones?”

“Yes.” Petulia smiled at the EMT as he came down the broken stone path, ducking a tree branch on his way. Smiles were non-threatening. Mirra said people liked it when you smiled at them. It disarmed them, she said, and since a lot of the people coming at Petulia needed disarmed, a smile was a small gesture in the overall scheme of things.

The chicken followed on his heels, and Petulia smiled at it, too. People liked it when you were nice to their pets.

“You called about a guy turning into a frog?”

“Yes,” Petulia said, losing the smile.

The EMT put his case down and offered her his hand. “I’m Felix, your Emergency Magic Tech.”

Petulia switched Colin to her other hand so she could take Felix’s. “Very nice to meet you.”

“I know you asked me to keep this quiet, but since there’s a human involved, I had to call in the coppers. But it’s okay, I got a friend who’s a ‘tec.”

The gate squeaked again, and Petulia braced herself again.

This guy heading toward them was not ordinary and not cheerful, medium height, broad across the shoulders and then tapering down so that he looked like a human tornado as he moved toward them, his blunt face scowling under a mop of dark hair that he must have combed with his fingers. He reached the tree branch that had made Felix duck and broke it off with one hand, throwing it into the overgrown bushes beside the path without breaking his stride.

She hoped to hell he really was with the Protectorate because if not, she was in trouble. Mirra hadn’t taught defense against tornados.

“Felix,” he said, nodding to the EMT, and Felix grinned at him and said, “Wyland!”

The cop looked down at the chicken. “Geoffrey.”

The chicken nodded. “Wyland. Good to see you again.”

“Hello?” Petulia said to the chicken and looked at the cop to see if it was a joke. Maybe he was a ventriloquist.

Sharp, dark eyes bored into hers, hot with suspicion.

Not a ventriloquist. Or a joker. Possibly not human.

“This is Petulia Jones,” Felix said to the cop.

The cop nodded, looked at the frog in Petulia’s hand, and then back at Petulia. “I’m Protector Wyland Fox. Tell me about the frog.”

“What about this chicken?” Petulia said, looking down at the poultry. “It really talks?”

“He,” Wyland Fox said distinctly. “He talks.”

“Also I’m a rooster,” the chicken said. “And you turned a guy into a frog, so let’s not point fingers.”

“You don’t have any fingers,” Petulia said, stunned that she was talking to a chicken. Rooster. Bird.

“I’ll just take the frog and we’ll get started,” Felix said, cheerfully.

“Ma’am,” Wyland said, and Petulia jerked her head up from staring at Geoffrey the talking chicken. “If you could tell me about the guy you turned into a frog—”

“I didn’t turn a guy into a frog,” Petulia said. Felix took Colin from her hand, and she resisted the urge to dust them off. “He kissed me, and then he turned into a frog.”

“So your story is that he turned himself into a frog,” Wyland said.

“It’s not my story, it’s what happened.” Petulia scowled at him. “Why would I turn him into a frog? I just met him.”

“That is the question,” Wyland said, watching her without blinking.

Petulia shook her head at him. Unbelievable. A thousand cops in Riven and she had to get this guy.

Felix knelt down and put Colin on the stone wall around the fountain.

“Careful,” Petulia said. “I don’t know if he can swim.”

“He’s a frog,” Wyland said.

Petulia looked at him, exasperated. “Well, yes, he is now. But half an hour ago, he was a man.”

“And then you kissed him and he turned into a frog.”

“No,” Petulia said, holding onto her temper. “I’ve kissed men before, and they never turned into frogs. It’s not me.”

“So you did kiss him.”

“No, he . . .” She took a deep breath and then looked down at Felix and Geoffrey who were conferring quietly at her feet. “Can’t you just turn him back into a man so we can send the law back to . . . wherever?”

“Not without knowing the source of the magic,” Geoffrey said, his eyes looking worried over his beak. “Maybe he was always a frog and a spell made him a man and now he’s what he’s supposed to be.” He squinted at the frog. “Are you sure this is him?”

“Well, he has blue eyes,” Petulia said. “Frogs usually don’t. Colin did. And when Colin disappeared, this frog was sitting in his pants. So, yes, I think it’s Colin.” She looked back at the frog, more distressed now as the enormity of it all finally overwhelmed the abnormality of it all. “He wasn’t frog-like before the kiss. He was very normal. Charming. Handsome.” Hot, actually. “A little pushy maybe. I was not expecting to get grabbed and kissed, but otherwise he was a normal guy.”

Felix grinned up at her. “I think it would be completely normal to want to kiss you.”

“Thank you,” Petulia said, smiling again. Smiling was important, Mirra said. Even if you felt like screaming, you kept smiling.

“About the frog,” Wyland said, those sharp eyes still fixed on her.

If she ever needed to sic a cop on anybody, she’d send this guy; he was like a terrier crossed with a bear.

“If it wasn’t you,” Wyland said, “who turned him?”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t anybody else here.” Petulia looked at the old stone fountain behind her. “We just moved in. I haven’t spent much time out here. Maybe it’s a magic fountain.”

Felix smothered a laugh, and Geoffrey clucked.

“There’s no magic in this garden,” Geoffrey said, encompassing the garden with a sweep of his wing. “Trust me, I’d know.”

Felix held up Colin and sniffed his back. “There might have been magic earlier. He smells like cold magic. We’ll know in a minute.” He put Colin back on the fountain and took some cotton swabs out of his bag.

Geoffrey tapped Petulia’s leg with his wing to get her attention. “Maybe it was something he ingested.”

He’s not a chicken, Petulia told herself. He’s Geoffrey. “We had lunch at Ruby’s. It’s a bakery down the street–”

“Ruby won’t let magic in her place,” Wyland said. “It wasn’t there.”

Geoffrey scratched at the dirt by the fountain. “I don’t suppose you heard anybody chanting in the underbrush.”

Petulia met Wyland’s eyes. “You know, life here in the city is strange.”

Wyland nodded. “Where exactly did you come from?”

“The mountains,” Petulia said.

“It’s cold in the mountains.”

“Not in the summer,” Petulia said, turning away from him to get the subject off the mountains. “So, Geoffrey, have you always been a chicken?”

“No,” Geoffrey said. “EMT accident.”

“I’m sorry.” Petulia considered kneeling down to be at his level, if only to get away from Wyland’s glare, and then thought that might be condescending. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Although looking at the frog was probably doing that already. Colin, she reminded herself. Not frog.

“Oh, hell, no,” Geoffrey was saying, flapping a wing at her. “I talk to school kids about it all the time. Magic is dangerous, but they don’t believe it until they hear what happened to me.”

“That’s really generous of you,” Petulia said.

Wyland was still glaring at her; she could feel it on the side of her face like a sunburn.

Geoffrey shrugged, ruffling his feathers. “I like to give back.”

Petulia nodded. “Of course.” I just watched a chicken shrug. Because he wants to give back.

“We got called to a hot spot,” Geoffrey said, “and we found an unexecuted spell somebody had left behind when it hadn’t worked. People think that means they’re just duds and leave them and then something triggers it and—” Geoffrey flapped his wings and clucked.

“Oh,” Petulia said. “And you can’t reverse it?”

“Well, if we reworked the bad spell, there’s a chance,” Geoffrey said, “but there’s an equally good chance it would go the other way.”

“The other way?”

“Full Poultry.” Geoffrey ruffled his feathers. “It’s okay. I’ve adapted.”

“So that’s what would happen with Colin? You might turn him back into a guy, but he might go Full Frog?”

“He’s already Full Frog.” Wyland had a notebook out now, black leather with a thin gold band. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Wait,” Petulia said. “Maybe that’s what caused this. An unexploded hot spot.”

“You were standing right beside him when he turned?” Geoffrey said, looking very focused for a chicken.

“He was kissing me when he turned.”

Geoffrey shook his head and his wattle followed a second later. “Not a hot spot. You’d be a frog, too.”

“Oh.” Petulia drew a deep breath. “Well, that’s one thing that’s gone right for me today.”

“Interesting,” Wyland said, gazing at her with more suspicion.

Petulia ignored him to squint down at Felix, who was on his knees next to the fountain, putting a cotton swab in a test tube. While she watched, the liquid in the tube turned blue.

“Yep, cold magic.” He looked up at Petulia. “It could be from the mountains. You from anywhere near Sleiping?”

“I didn’t do this.” She looked down at the frog again. Colin, not frog. “Sleiping? Really?” Oh, HELL. She turned away, trying to think. She had to get rid of these guys, she had to talk to Mirra—

Wyland was watching her.

She shouldn’t have called for help, she should have waited for Mirra, she had to get rid of–

Wyland tapped his notebook. “So your name is Petulia Jones and you came from the mountains where it’s cold, and now you reside in this house at 425 Garnet Lane.”

“Yes,” Petulia said. Could she send them away? Was that possible? Could you just dismiss the Protectorate? Thanks for stopping by, come back later?

“When did you move in?”

“Last Friday. Five days ago.” Maybe Charles could get rid of them.

She considered Wyland: stolid, immovable, breaker of tree limbs with one hand. It hadn’t been a thick tree limb, but still . . .

“You live here alone?” he was asking.

“No, I live with my stepmother and our butler.”

Wyland’s pen froze over his pad and Felix jerked his head up.

“Stepmother,” Felix said. “That’s not good.”

“That,” Petulia said sternly, “is just prejudice.”

Wyland fixed her with those eyes again. “Your stepmother’s name?”

“Mirra Jones. You know, I think I should talk to her about this before–”

“Your stepmother have any special talents?”

More than you could imagine. “She makes a mean muffin.”

“Oh, muffins,” Geoffrey said, real longing in his voice.

“No magic?” Wyland said.

“Of course not,” Petulia said, relieved to be telling the truth. “And even if she did, she’s not home. She’s been at a meeting since early this morning. I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Why don’t you go and then I’ll have Mirra get in touch–”

“What meeting? Stepmother’s Anonymous?” Felix said.

“She’s been very good to me,” Petulia said, frowning at him. “That stuff about stepmothers being evil is just old wives tales.”

“Yeah?” Wyland said. “Be a cop for a week. You’ll change your mind.”

“It wasn’t Mirra,” Petulia told him. “She’s never even met Colin. I went to the bakery for bread and met him there, and he walked me home and kissed me and bam! He was a frog. So I called the EMTs, and they brought you.” She took a deep breath. “They brought you.”

Wyland nodded. “Where in the mountains did you come from?”

“Grusbaden,” Petulia lied. “You know, really, I think you should go–”

“Why did you come to Riven?”

Petulia thought about protesting and decided that would just make her look guilty of something. “My stepmother had business in town and she thought it was time I saw the city.” And got married. “So, really, I think you should go, and then Mirra will–”

“She wanted you to see the city so she brought you to the Edge?”

“She rented the house before we got here. She said it was a much better part of town when she was here thirty years ago. And we have Charles for protection.”

“Charles?”

“The butler.”

“You brought a butler for protection.”

“Charles knows how to defend a door,” Petulia said sternly, trying to be quelling.

“Right,” Wyland said, unquelled. “Does Charles do magic?”

“No,” Petulia said. “None of us do magic. We’re just regular people. It’s not us.” She looked around the abandoned garden again. “I think it’s this place. It’s creepy. Look, I really think you should go now.”

“This neighborhood has gone downhill fast, what with the forest coming in,” Felix said, standing up again. “Nice house, but it’s been empty for thirty years.” He looked at Wyland. “Anything could have moved in there.”

“We’ll have a look in a minute,” Wyland said and turned back to Petulia. “So your stepmother sent you to Ruby’s for bread this morning?”

“No,” Petulia said. “Charles did. After breakfast. He said, ‘We’re out of bread, can you get some from Ruby’s?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

“Wouldn’t it be the butler’s job to get the bread?”

“He’s a butler, not a cook. And anyway, Ruby’s isn’t that far. He had a lot of errands to run. I had nothing to do.” I wanted out of the house, and Mirra wasn’t there to stop me, so I grabbed the chance.

“Anything happen on your way to Ruby’s? Anybody talk to you, give you anything?”

“No,” Petulia said. Like I’d let anybody get close enough to give me anything.

“So you got to Ruby’s and then what happened?”

“I bought the bread and some sweet corn rolls and some sugar twists—”

“Sugar twists,” Geoffrey said.

“—and I paid the guy at the counter–”

“What guy at the counter?” Wyland said.

Petulia shook her head. “He said his name was Bacon. He told me I was sweet as a sugar twist.”

“Terrible line,” Felix said.

“He was being nice,” Petulia said. It was a terrible line. “And then I turned to go and this great-looking guy stopped me and asked if I’d ever had Ruby’s Beef Rumple in a Bread Bowl, and I said I was new in town so no, and he said his name was Colin Butler, and he owed it to the Riven Chamber of Welcome to introduce me to the Rumple, and he was really great-looking so I said yes, and we ate Rumple which was very good, and then he bought two raisin cakes—”

“Raisin cakes,” Geoffrey said with longing.

“–and we walked back here and ate the cakes, and he was very charming, and we laughed, and then we got to the gate, and he opened it for me, and I told him he couldn’t come in because my stepmother wasn’t there, but he followed me in anyway and kind of swooped in and kissed me, and then he vanished and there was a frog in his underwear, so I called the EMTs and Felix and Geoffrey came, and then there was you.” Petulia glared at him, breathless.

Wyland looked at her with what she could only see as exaggerated patience. “Let’s go back to this guy Bacon at Ruby’s counter. Are you sure he talked to you inside the bakery?”

What did I do to deserve you? “This is ridiculous, we’re not getting anywhere. I want you to go now. Just take the frog and go.”

Behind them, the fountain suddenly burbled, a stream of water shooting out of its long dead mouth, making them all jerk back. Then it stopped as suddenly as it began.

“Where is the frog?” Wyland said.

“What?” Petulia said, looking around, startled.

The edge of the fountain was empty, Colin nowhere in sight.

“Damn it,” Geoffrey said. “If he’s gone Full Frog, we’ll never get him back.”

“What?” Petulia said grabbing Wyland’s arm since she couldn’t grab Geoffrey’s.

Wyland tapped his notebook again. “Miss Jones–”

Petulia let go of his arm, patted his sleeve back into place, and smiled at him. “Please go. This is very upsetting.” I knew we should have stayed in Sleiping.

What if I’ve killed Colin?

Felix closed his bag and stood up. “Very nice to meet you, Miss Jones. If Colin comes back, please call us.”

“Of course,” Petulia said.

“Miss Jones?” Wyland said, scowling at her.

“Go,” Petulia said, and amazingly, he nodded and put his notebook away.

“Call us if we can be of assistance,” he said, and followed Felix down the path, which was easier now that he’d broken off that damn branch she’d been ducking since they’d moved in.

It was much quieter after he left.

“Colin?” she called out. “Damn it, Colin, if you’re here, come out.”

There was rustle in the bushes and she turned that way, but it wasn’t a frog, it was Bacon from Ruby’s lunging at her with a bread knife.

She thought, A bread knife?, as she lashed out with foot and caught him below the knee. Her skirt got in her way but the blow toppled him anyway, and he went down slicing at her, catching her skirt but not her, as she aimed her next kick at his head. He caught her foot and pushed it up in the air, and she toppled backward into the fountain and went under.

Far under, the fountain was deep, there was no bottom, and her skirts dragged her down. They sagged where Bacon had sliced through them, so she ripped them off the rest of the way and kicked for the surface, breaking it and sucking in air only to have Bacon shove her under again.

Really? She thought and she tried to pry his hands away. A bread knife and then a dumb luck drowning? I’m going to lose to somebody this inept? It made her angry, and she clawed viciously at his hands as everything began to go black.

Then suddenly he was gone, and somebody was yanking her to the surface and dragging her over the edge of the fountain, and she held onto him, sputtering but ready to dismember him if necessary.

She coughed up some fountain water, and her rescuer pounded her on the back with enough force to dislodge a lung, and when she looked up through her streaming hair, it was Wyland, of course, looked enraged and concerned and not like anybody who wanted to kill her.

“You okay?” he said and she nodded, and he dropped her onto the stone path and vanished, heading off into the underbrush, leaving her to get her breath back and stare at the bread knife where Bacon had dropped it.

A bread knife. That would have been a humiliating way to go, sliced like a loaf of whole wheat.

She let herself fall back against the fountain wall as her breathing slowed to normal. So now the frog wasn’t the worst thing that happened that day. It kind of put everything into perspective.

Wyland came back through the trees. “I couldn’t find him.”

“It was Bacon from Ruby’s,” Petulia said.

Wyland held out his hand and hauled her to her feet.

“We need to talk, Miss Jones,” he said, and Petulia gave up.

“Call me Petulia,” she said, and let him lead her toward the house.

“The Frog Principal” 2: So Many Things To Fix

As with all first drafts, there were so many things to fix in that rough draft that I had to concentrate on the big ones to start:

• The voices were too trendy (Petulia would not say “vibe.”)

• Petulia was much too smartass for somebody who’d just changed a guy into a frog.

* Petulia was way too relaxed for somebody who has a Big Secret (not the frog).

• Wyland came in way too late.

• Pet and Wy were both too smartass and at the same time, too flat. No dimension, just smart mouths. (ALL my first drafts are like that.)

• I wasn’t using Geoffrey to full effect. (Lani thought up Geoffrey. “He talked to high school kids about the dangers of magic,” she said, riffing. “He wants to give back.”)

• Colin, who’s going to be back in other stories, wasn’t getting enough attention aside from the fact that he was a frog.

• No foreshadowing of the final solution.

• The continuity is all screwed up, with characters dropping in and out, repeated lines, etc. Hey, it’s a first draft.

There’s more, of course, but that’s where I started.

This stuff is all soft rewrite. There’s no hard analysis because hard analysis often shuts down the creative stuff that just shows up as you write. This is all stuff that’s just obvious. But I do use one bit of hard analysis, the protagonist-goal-antagonist-goal-conflict.

The protagonist is Petulia. Her goal is to get Colin put back as fast as possible because she’s a nice person and doesn’t want him to suffer but also because she has a secret she needs to keep and now her garden is lousy with EMTs and a cop. She needs to get this problem solved now.

The antagonist is Wyland. His goal is to find out what happened to the frog and put it back, but because he’s a good cop, he wants to know how it all happened, what’s going on, everything he can find out. So he’s aligned with Petulia in wanting to save Colin, but he’s in conflict with her on about finding out everything.

Clearly, Wyland the Antagonist needs to show up much earlier. Like AT THE BEGINNING. Jesus. How long have I been doing this?

Okay, it’s a first draft, a Don’t-Look-Down-Draft, so no criticizing the things the Girls sent up, Jenny. Also, I have a suspicion that the previous version may not have been the actual first draft, that maybe I went back and stuck Wyland in the middle which would explain why he comes in late and disappears toward the end. I can’t remember, it’s been several years since I wrote that version, but I think maybe when I started, Tank was the antagonist. Which wasn’t working, either.

So then I did several rewrites and arrived at this draft:

The Frog Principle

Petulia smiled at the frog in the palm of her hand, going for calm and positive. And soothing. Soothing was definitely necessary. “It’s all right, Colin, I called for the EMTs, they’ll be here soon, and everything will be just fine.”

Colin gazed back at her coldly, but then he was a frog. His eyes twitched away from hers, and his tongue lashed out and caught a fly.

“Must you?” Petulia said.

She heard the garden gate squeak open and turned, looking back through the misshapen topiaries and the vines that had run wild. A man in a Riven EMT uniform was coming toward her, accompanied by a chicken.

“Petulia Jones?”

“Yes.” Petulia smiled at him as he crossed the ruined lawn, ducking a tree branch as he came.

Smiles were non-threatening. Mirra said people liked it when you smiled at them. It disarmed them, she said, and since a lot of the people coming at Petulia needed disarmed, a smile was a small gesture in the overall scheme of things.

The chicken followed on his heels, and Petulia smiled at it, too. People liked it when you were nice to their pets.

“You called about a guy turning into a frog?”

“Yes,” Petulia said, losing the smile.

As the EMT came closer, Petulia saw that he was tall and ordinary but cheerful about it, his light brown hair neat and his posture straight.

Also, the chicken was a rooster. Details matter, Mirra had drummed into her. The difference between living and dying could be in the details.

Petulia looked at Colin in her hand and wondered what detail she had missed that had gotten her into this mess. And him, too, of course, but she was still hoping it was somehow his fault–

The EMT put his case down and offered her his hand. “I’m Felix, your Emergency Magic Tech.”

Petulia switched Colin to her other hand so she could take Felix’s. “Very nice to meet you.”

“I know you asked me to keep this quiet, but since there’s a human involved, I had to call in the coppers. But it’s okay, I got a friend who’s a ‘tec.”

The gate squeaked again, and Petulia looked back.

This guy heading toward them was not ordinary and not cheerful, medium height, broad across the shoulders and then tapering down so that he looked like a human tornado as he strode toward them, his blunt face scowling under a mop of dark hair that he must have combed with his fingers.

“Felix,” he said, nodding to the EMT, and Felix grinned at him and said, “Wyland!”

The cop looked down at the chicken. “Geoffrey.”

The chicken nodded. “Wyland. Good to see you again.”

“Hello?” Petulia said to the chicken and looked at the cop to see if it was a joke. Maybe he was a ventriloquist.

Sharp, dark eyes bored into hers, hot with suspicion.

Not a ventriloquist. Or a joker. Possibly not human.

“Hello,” Petulia said and gave up on smiling.

“This is Petulia Jones,” Felix said to the cop.

The cop nodded, looked at the frog in Petulia’s hand, and then looked at her again. “I’m Protector Wyland Fox. Tell me about the frog.”

“What about this chicken?” Petulia said, looking down at the poultry. “It really talks?”

“He,” Wyland said distinctly. “He talks.”

“Also I’m a rooster,” the chicken said. “And you turned a guy into a frog, so let’s not point fingers.”

“You don’t have any fingers,” Petulia said, stunned that she was talking to a chicken. Rooster. Bird.

“I’ll just take the frog and we’ll get started,” Felix said, cheerfully.

“Ma’am,” Wyland said, and Petulia jerked her head up from staring at Geoffrey the talking chicken. “If you could tell me about the guy you turned into a frog—”

“I didn’t turn a guy into a frog,” Petulia said, as Felix took Colin from her hand. “He kissed me, and then he turned into a frog.”

“So your story is that he turned himself into a frog,” Wyland said.

“It’s not my story, it’s what happened.” Petulia scowled at him. “Why would I turn him into a frog? I just met him.”

“That is the question,” Wyland said, watching her without blinking.

Petulia shook her head at him. Unbelievable. A thousand cops in Riven and she had to get this guy.

Felix knelt down and put Colin on the stone wall around the fountain.

“Careful,” Petulia said. “I don’t know if he can swim.”

“He’s a frog,” Wyland said.

Petulia looked at him, exasperated. “Well, yes, he is now. But half an hour ago, he was a guy.”

“And then you kissed him and he turned into a frog.”

“No,” Petulia said, holding onto her temper. “I’ve kissed guys before, and they never turned into frogs. It’s not me.”

“So you did kiss him.”

“No, he . . .” She took a deep breath and then looked down at Felix and Geoffrey who were conferring quietly at her feet. “Can’t you just turn him back into a guy so we can send the law back to . . . wherever?”

“Not without knowing the source of the magic,” Geoffrey said, his eyes looking worried over his beak. “Maybe he was always a frog and a spell made him a man and now he’s what he’s supposed to be.” He squinted at the frog. “Are you sure this is him?”

“Well, he has blue eyes,” Petulia said. “Frogs usually don’t. Colin did. And when Colin disappeared, this frog was sitting in his pants. So, yes, I think it’s Colin.” She looked back at the frog, more distressed now as the enormity of it all finally overwhelmed the abnormality of it all. “He wasn’t frog-like before the kiss. He was very normal. Charming. Handsome.” Hot, actually. “A little pushy maybe. I was not expecting to get grabbed and kissed, but otherwise he was a normal guy.”

Felix grinned up at her. “I think it would be completely normal to want to kiss you.”

“Thank you,” Petulia said, smiling again. Smiling was important. Even if you felt like screaming, you kept smiling.

“About the frog,” Wyland said, those sharp eyes still fixed on her.

If she ever needed to sic a cop on anybody, she’d send this guy; he was like a terrier crossed with a bear.

“If it wasn’t you,” Wyland said, “who turned him?”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t anybody else here.” Petulia looked at the old stone fountain behind her. “We just moved in. I haven’t spent much time out here. Maybe it’s a magic fountain.”

Felix smothered a laugh, and Geoffrey clucked.

“There’s no magic here,” Geoffrey said, encompassing the garden with a sweep of his wing. “Trust me, I’d know.”

Petulia folded her arms. “Okay, fine, I don’t care, just put him back.”

Felix held up Colin and sniffed his back. “Smells like cold magic. We’ll know in a minute.” Felix put Colin back on the fountain and took some cotton swabs out of his bag.

Geoffrey tapped Petulia’s leg with his wing to get her attention. “Maybe it was something you ingested.”

He’s not a chicken, Petulia told herself. He’s Geoffrey. “We had lunch at Ruby’s. It’s a bakery down the street–”

“Ruby won’t let magic in her place,” Wyland said. “It wasn’t there.”

Geoffrey scratched at the dirt by the fountain. “I don’t suppose you heard anybody chanting in the underbrush.”

A chicken is asking me if there was somebody muttering in my weeds. Petulia met Wyland’s eyes. “You know, life here in the city is strange.”

Wyland nodded. “Where exactly did you come from?”

“The mountains,” Petulia said.

“It’s cold in the mountains.”

“Not in the summer,” Petulia said, turning away from him. “So, Geoffrey, have you always been a chicken?”

“No,” Geoffrey said. “EMT accident.”

“I’m sorry.” Petulia considered kneeling down to be at his level, if only to get away from Wyland’s glare, and then thought that might be condescending. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Although looking at the frog was probably doing that already. Colin, she reminded herself. Not frog.

“Oh, hell, no,” Geoffrey was saying, flapping a wing at her. “I talk to school kids about it all the time. Magic is dangerous, but they don’t believe it until they hear what happened to me.”

“That’s really generous of you,” Petulia said.

Wyland was still glaring at her, she could feel it on the side of her face like a sunburn.

Geoffrey shrugged, ruffling his feathers. “I like to give back.”

Petulia nodded. “Of course.” I just watched a chicken shrug. Because he wants to give back.

“We got called to a hot spot,” Geoffrey said, “and we found an unexecuted spell somebody had left behind when it hadn’t worked. People think that means they’re just duds and leave them and then something triggers it and—” Geoffrey flapped his wings and clucked.

“Oh,” Petulia said. “And you can’t reverse it?”

“Well, if we reworked the bad spell, there’s a chance,” Geoffrey said, “but there’s an equally good chance it would go the other way.”

“The other way?”

“Full Poultry.” Geoffrey ruffled his feathers. “It’s okay. I’ve adapted.”

“So that’s what would happen with Colin? You might turn him back into a guy, but he might go Full Frog?”

“He’s already Full Frog.” Wyland had a notebook out now, black leather with a thin gold band. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Wait,” Petulia said. “Maybe that’s what caused this. An unexploded hot spot.”

“You were standing right beside him when he turned?” Geoffrey said, looking very focused for a chicken.

“He was kissing me when he turned.”

Geoffrey shook his head and his wattle followed a second later. “Not a hot spot. You’d be a frog, too.”

“Oh.” Petulia drew a deep breath. “Well, that’s one thing that’s gone right for me today.”

“Interesting,” Wyland said, gazing at her with more suspicion.

Petulia ignored him to squint down at Felix, who was on his knees next to the fountain, putting a cotton swab in a test tube. While she watched, the liquid in the tube turned blue.

“Yep, cold magic,” he said.

Wyland tapped his notebook. “So your name is Petulia Jones and you came from the mountains where it’s cold, and now you reside in this house at 425 Garnet Lane.”

“Yes,” Petulia said, giving up.

“When did you move in?”

“Last Friday. Five days ago.”

“You live here alone?”

“No, I live with my stepmother and our butler.”

Wyland’s pen froze over his pad and Felix jerked his head up.

“Stepmother,” Felix said. “That’s not good.”

“That,” Petulia said sternly, “is just prejudice.”

Wyland fixed her with those eyes again. “Your stepmother’s name?”

“Mirra Smith.”

“Your stepmother have any special talents?”

More than you could imagine. “She makes a mean muffin.”

“Oh, muffins,” Geoffrey said, real longing in his voice.

“No magic?” Wyland said.

“Of course not,” Petulia said, relieved to be telling the truth. “And even if she did, she’s not home. She’s been at a meeting since early this morning.”

“Stepmother’s Anonymous?” Felix said.

“She’s been very good to me,” Petulia said, frowning at him. “That stuff about stepmothers being evil is just old wives tales.”

“Yeah?” Wyland said. “Be a cop for a week. You’ll change your mind.”

“It wasn’t Mirra,” Petulia told him. “She’s never even met Colin. I went to the bakery for bread and met him there, and he walked me home and kissed me and bam! He was a frog. So I called the EMTs, and they brought you.” She took a deep breath. “They brought you.”

Wyland nodded. “Where in the mountains?”

“What?”

“Where in the mountains did you come from?”

“Grusbaden,” Petulia lied.

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s very small.” That at least was the truth.

“Why did you come to Riven?”

Petulia thought about protesting and decided that would just make her look guilty of something. “My stepmother had business in town and she thought it was time I saw the city.” Got married.

Wyland waited a minute, possibly hoping she’d confess, and then said, “She wanted you to see the city so she brought you to the Edge?”

“She rented the house before we got here. She said it was a much better part of town when she was here twenty years ago. And we have Charles for protection.”

“Charles?”

“The butler.”

“You brought a butler for protection.”

“Charles knows how to defend a door,” Petulia said sternly, trying to be quelling.

“Right,” Wyland said, unquelled. “I would like to talk to Charles.”

“He’s out right now.”

Wyland nodded. “Sure he is. Does Charles do magic?”

“No,” Petulia said. “None of us do magic. We’re just regular people. It’s not us.” She looked around the abandoned garden again. “I think it’s this place. It’s creepy.”

“This neighborhood has gone downhill fast, what with the forest coming in,” Felix said, standing up again. “Nice house, but it’s been empty a long time.” He looked at Wyland. “Anything could have moved in there.”

“We’ll have a look in a minute,” Wyland said.

Petulia thought about what he might trip over poking around inside. Nothing that would get her in more trouble than she already was, she decided. Mirra was careful.

“So,” Wyland said, “Your stepmother sent you to Ruby’s for bread this morning?”

“No,” Petulia said. “Charles did. After breakfast. He said, ‘We’re out of bread, can you get some from Ruby’s?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

“Does Charles always send you for bread?”

“We’ve been here five days. We haven’t had time to establish an ‘always’ yet. But Ruby makes amazing bread.”

Wyland nodded, the first sign of humanity he’d shown. If things got too bad, maybe they could bribe him with Ruby’s bread.

Then he frowned at her again. “Wouldn’t it be the butler’s job to get the bread?”

“He’s a butler, not a cook. And anyway, Ruby’s isn’t that far. He had a lot of errands to run. I had nothing to do.” I wanted out of the house, and Mirra wasn’t there to stop me, so I grabbed the chance.

“Anything happen on your way to Ruby’s? Anybody talk to you, give you anything?”

“No,” Petulia said. Like I’d let anybody get close enough to give me anything.

“So you got to Ruby’s and then what happened?”

“I bought the bread and some sweet corn rolls and some sugar twists—”

“Sugar twists,” Geoffrey said.

“—and I paid the guy at the counter–”

“What guy at the counter?” Wyland said.

Petulia shook her head. “He said his name was Bacon. He told me I was sweet as a sugar twist.”

“Terrible line,” Felix said.

“He was being nice,” Petulia said. It was a terrible line. “And then I turned to go and this great-looking guy stopped me and asked if I’d ever had Ruby’s Beef Rumple in a Bread Bowl, and I said I was new in town so no, and he said his name was Colin Butler, and he owed it to the Riven Chamber of Welcome to introduce me to the Rumple, and he was really great-looking–”and I’m supposed to meeting eligible men—“so I said yes, and we ate Rumple which was very good, and then he bought two raisin cakes—”

“Raisin cakes,” Geoffrey said with longing.

“–and we walked back here and ate the cakes, and he was very charming, and we laughed, and then we got to the gate, and he opened it for me, and I told him he couldn’t come in because my stepmother wasn’t there, but he followed me in anyway and kind of swooped in and kissed me, which was a surprise, and then he vanished and there was a frog in his underwear, which was another surprise, so I called the EMTs and Felix and Geoffrey came, and then there was you.” Petulia glared at him, breathless.

Wyland looked at her with what she could only see as exaggerated patience. “Let’s go back to this guy Bacon at Ruby’s counter. Are you sure he talked to you inside the bakery?”

What did I do to deserve you? Petulia thought, and then behind them, the fountain suddenly burbled, a stream of water shooting out of its long dead mouth, making them all jerk back. Then it stopped as suddenly as it began.

“I don’t think it’s anything from Ruby’s,” Petulia told him. “I think it’s something here in this garden. Like this fountain. This fountain is–”

“Where’s the frog?” Wyland said.

“What?” Petulia said, looking around, startled.

The edge of the fountain was empty, Colin nowhere in sight.

“Damn it,” Geoffrey said. “If he’s gone Full Frog, we’ll never get him back.”

“What?”Petulia said grabbing Wyland’s arm since she couldn’t grab Geoffrey’s.

“You guys find the frog,” Wyland said, closing his notebook. “Miss Jones and I will check out the house.”

I knew we should have stayed in the mountains, Petulia thought as her heart hammered. What if I’ve killed Colin?

“Miss Jones?” Wyland said.

Petulia let go of his arm, patted his sleeve back into place, and smiled at him. Your smile could disarm anybody, Petulia, Mirra had said.

Wyland scowled back at her.

Of course, Mirra had also taught her to disarm people with a kick to the solar plexus followed by a sharp elbow to the kidney.

“Follow me,” Petulia said, not smiling, and led him toward the house.

“The Frog Principal” 1: Don’t Look Down Draft

Several years ago, Krissie and Lani and I started talking about a new collaboration based on fairy tales called Fairy Tale Lies. We brainstormed and did some worldbuilding, but we were all swamped with other things, so while we kept talking about it off and on in e-mail and in Campfire, we didn’t do anything on the book.

But for the first time, I was caught by a world. I kept adding things, running it by them, shifting things, drawing maps, thinking of economies and customs and countries. I’d say, “Okay, this is an alternate history world and we’re going to set it in 1910, okay?” and they’d say, “Sure,” and go back to whatever they were doing. I’d say, “There are going to be mountains to the north, and we’re going to call them the Sleiping Mountains, okay?” Sure, sure, whatever. And eventually, I started to write. I couldn’t help it. The people were so marvelous and the voices were there. Among other things, I made a plan for a novel composed of chapters that were complete stories in and of themselves, like episodes in a TV show. One of them, “The Frog Principal,” was the third story in the book, but it introduced a new character, Petulia, the secondary heroine, who becomes entangled with the hero’s best friend, the secondary hero. The draft below was one of the pieces of that story that I wrote back then.

Then the voices went away and I just played with the world when I had a few minutes. I still loved all the characters but, hey, no voices, so I just THOUGHT about them for a couple of years. Then several weeks ago, I posted this long, self-indulgent post about the voices going away just to finally get it out of my head. And a couple of weeks later the voices started to come back.

I was cautiously happy. Hey, they could leave again. But I’d been obsessing about Petulia so I decided to go back and look at the first draft of her first scene. Result: Lots of juice, but generally awful like most of first drafts–too fast, too slick, too smart ass. So I pulled the keeper stuff from that draft and rewrote it and then rewrote it again and again and again …

When we did the “Cold Hearts” rewrite series, the scene the betas got was still pretty raw. This time, I’m putting up the original first don’t-look-down draft from several years ago so you can see where I started. Then tomorrow, I’ll put up my and the twentieth or so rewrite I did. At that point, it was solid enough that I could start poking at it with a stick, so on Thursday, I’ll post the final-rewrite-before-the-betas with the notes at the end, a rewrite, I might add, that vividly shows the dangers of overthinking. On Friday, the beta critiques go up with the latest rewrite, although the scene may go up in a second post that day because that would be a long entry.

This project is a big departure for me in some ways–different world, magic, etc.–and not in other ways–smart-ass characters and an oh-hell-not-you love story. No idea how my voice works with this much fantasy. But hey, comfort zone, moved out of. So here’s the first draft. Yes, I know it’s lousy, I know characters appear and disappear, I know some of the continuity is off. It’s the FIRST DRAFT.

Note: Geoffrey is Lani’s character, including and especially the “I like to give back” line and the bit about talking to school kids. I’m just borrowing him for this scene.

Second Note: This is the first scene of this story, but the story is the third chapter in the book. Even though some of these characters have been introduced before, this has to stand on its own.

“The Frog Principle”, Scene One, Draft One

Petulia smiled at the EMT and checked to make sure the frog was still there.

“Take your time,” the EMT said. The patch on his uniform said “Tank” which was odd since he was built like a blond drinking straw, but Petulia was in no position to judge his name or the fact that he’d brought his pet chicken along to an emergency call. “Just give us the basics.”

“He kissed me and then he turned into a frog.”

Tank nodded and pointed to the flagstone edge of the spring. “That frog?”

“Yes,” Petulia said. “His name is Colin.”

“So you kissed him and–”

“No, he kissed me.”

“Did that upset you?”

“No, I was all for it,” Petulia said. “I participated. I just thought you’d want me to be accurate. He leaned in and kissed me, and I kissed him back and then he wasn’t there and I looked around and he was gone and there was the frog.”

“Uh huh. And how do you know this frog is, uh, Colin?”

“It looks like him.” Petulia looked down at the frog again. He looked green and angry but in the world of frogs, he was probably hot. Colin had been. “I mean, he was very good-looking, not frog-like at all, but this frog has the same vibe, you know?”

“Sure,” Tank said.

The chicken, who had been standing next to Tank, toddled over to the stone edge and bent to look at the frog.

“He’s not going to eat him, is he?” Petulia said.

The chicken looked up at her and said, “Oh, please.”

Petulia swallowed. “The chicken talks,” she said to Tank.

“He’s not really a chicken,” Tank said. “Geoffrey, is it human?”

“Definitely,” Geoffrey chirped. “And it stinks of magic. Not Valden. Cold magic. The mountains maybe.”

“So,” Tank said to Petulia. “Magic.”

“I don’t know anything about magic.” Petulia took a step back. “Or chickens. I was at a party, and it started to get dark, and my step-mother doesn’t like me out at night, so I excused myself to walk home, and Colin asked if he could walk me, and I said yes, and then he wanted to come inside but I knew my stepmother wouldn’t like it, so I brought him into the garden and he kissed me and then he turned into a frog. That’s it, that’s all I know.”

“Stepmother,” Tank said, exchanging knowing glances with Geoffrey.

“What do you mean he’s not a chicken,” Petulia whispered to Tank.

“I’m right here,” Geoffrey said.

“He’s an EMT,” Tank said. “Tried to defuse an old magic dump, things went sideways, and now he looks like a chicken. But it’s still Geoffrey.”

“Damn straight,” Geoffrey said.

“You’re handling it very well,” Petulia said to the chicken.

“If life gives you lemons,” Geoffrey said. “Gives me a chance to give back to the community. I talk to school kids, tell them not to mess with magic, if they find any old dumps, call the EMTS, they don’t want to end up like me.”

“That’s wonderful,” Petulia said. “I hope Colin takes being a frog that well.” She remembered Colin, tall, dark, handsome, arrogant. “Although I doubt it.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Geoffrey said and then looked around. “Where did he go?”

Petulia looked at the edge of the spring: nothing but naked stone. “Colin?” she called and the name echoed through the twilight of the garden.

“About your stepmother,” Tank said. “Would she have a reason to stop your romance?”

“No, she’s a big fan of romance,” Petulia said, still looking around. “Colin? Come on, this isn’t funny.” Which probably wasn’t the best thing to say, she reflected. Colin hadn’t seemed like a glass-half-full kind of guy even before he’d turned into a frog, so she doubted he was playing games now.

“Does she lose an income if you marry?” Tank said.

“What? Who? Oh, my stepmother. No, she’s hellbent on getting me married. She’d have loved Colin.” Petulia stepped back again and then froze when she trod on something. She picked up her foot gingerly but it was just a clump of dandelion. “Come on, Colin, get back to the stone before somebody steps on you.”

“Does she practice magic?” Tank said.

“What? No. Good grief, no, she practices gong ki and the piano.”

“Gong ki.” Tank exchanged glances with Geoffrey again. “That’s pretty heavy stuff for an old lady. I know guys in the Protectorate who haven’t mastered gong ki. Is she good?”

Petulia frowned at him. “She’s excellent. Call her an old lady to her face and find out; she’s in her fifties not her nineties. How is this getting Colin back?”

“Get a cage,” Geoffrey said and Tank headed for the garden gate and beyond that, the white truck with Emergency Magic Technician Squad painted on the side.

“So you’re the boss,” Petulia said, trying to talk to the chicken with respect.

“I have seniority,” Geoffrey said. “The reason Tank was concentrating on your stepmother is that we’ve found in the past–”

“She’s not that kind of stepmother,” Petulia said. “She’s on my side. She’s been on my side for fourteen years. She’s all the family I’ve got now, and she’s wonderful, and you’re not going to pin a frog on her because she’s from an unfortunate demographic.”

“Of course not,” Geoffrey said, looking past her. “Excellent, you’re here.”

Petulia turned and saw Tank and then forgot him because of the guy striding along beside him. He actually did look like a tank; not fat but solid, average height which was the only average thing about him, moving across the grass with purpose and what looked like a permanent scowl, his dark shaggy hair falling into his eyes which were now fixed on her with deep suspicion.

“Hello,” she said.

He nodded at her. “Ma’am.” He looked down at the chicken. “Geoff.”

“Good to see you, Wy,” Geoffrey said. “Thanks for coming. Miss Potter, this is Wyland–”

“So you turned somebody into a frog?” the guy said, scowling at her. His scowl had shifted a little, heavy with disbelief now.

“No,” Petulia said. “Who are you again?”

“He’s plain clothes Protectorate,” Tank said, putting a small blue box on the stone edge of the spring.

“Plain clothes,” Petulia said, looking at the guy’s beat-up leather jacket and worn canvas pants.

“Yeah, I dress to blend, princess,” he said and she started.

“You okay?” Geoffrey said to her.

“I’m having a hard day,” Petulia told him, thinking He can’t possibly know, and then looked back at the ‘tec.

Plain clothes. He was wearing a badge now that she looked closer at his jacket but it was hardly the first thing you noticed about him. “Don’t you guys usually travel in pairs?”

“My partner’s busy. If you didn’t turn anybody into a frog, what am I doing here?”

“He turned into a frog on his own,” Petulia said. “Don’t they give you guys training in how to talk to the public? Because you’re not good at this.”

“That’s why he has a partner,” Geoffrey said.

“So this guy just turned into a frog,” the cop said. “For no reason.”

“He didn’t mention one,” Petulia said. “He kissed me and then he turned into a frog. How many times do I have to tell this story?”

“You still haven’t told it.” The cop looked around. “Where is this frog?”

“He appears to be missing,” Petulia said.

“You turned him into a frog and then you lost him?”

His scowl shifted again, this time flavored with disbelief. It was like the Ephesians who had a hundred words for sand. This guy probably had that many scowls.

“I didn’t turn him into a frog,” Petulia said. “And it wasn’t my day to watch him, so no I didn’t lose him. I don’t think you should do this kind of thing without your partner.”

“I saw the frog,” Tank said. “So did Geoffrey.”

The cop looked down at the chicken. “Big deal. You saw a frog.”

“Magic,” Geoffrey said. “It was human once. She didn’t do it.”

“Who else was here?” the cop said, evidently finding it easier to believe a chicken.

“Nobody. I met him at a party, he walked me home, he kissed me, he turned into a frog. That’s all I know.”

Tank leaned down and put a blue metal cage on the stone edge of the spring.

“What’s that?” Petulia said.

“It’s a stability box,” Geoffrey said. “It has a force field that keeps whatever is within it in the same condition indefinitely. If you find Colin again, put him in the box and call us. It’ll keep him from degenerating until we can restore him to humanity.”

“Colin?” the cop said. “This is the guy who’s a frog now?

“Degenerating?” Petulia said.

“Magic makes the things it touches deteriorate.”

Petulia took another look at Geoffrey. “You’re doing pretty well.”

“This is my stable state,” Geoffrey said. “Until we find out what Colin’s stable state is, it’s best to keep him in his present condition. We don’t want him to degenerate.”

He’d looked kind of degenerate to begin with, Petulia thought. That had been part of his attraction.

“God knows what he could turn into,” Tank said.

“Fabulous.” Petulia lifted her voice. “Colin, did you hear that? It could be worse than frog. Get in the box.”

“It’s perplexing that he moved on,” Geoffrey said. “Generally victims of this kind of spell are transfixed in terror.”

“He seemed to be pretty fast on the uptake,” Petulia said, remembering tongue on the first kiss. .

“Call us if you find him,” Tank said.

“Believe me, you’ll be first,” Petulia said, and watched them walk away together, the beanpole and the chicken, tragically not the weirdest thing she’d seen that day.

“Colin?” she called one last time. “I’m sorry about this. Whatever happened, I’m sorry.”

The garden was silent in the dusk, and she gave up and went inside, leaving the door to the cage open.

Next Who Sunday: End of Time, Russell T. Davies

The Master is back. You have to kinda love the sick bastard, especially in this episode where he’s completely mad but has flashes of what he once was.

Parts of this are so odd, you expect Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to show up. Plus the longest denouement in the history of television. I used to be really snarky about that long good-bye, but as I rewatched this, I realized it wasn’t Ten’s good-bye, it was Davies’. He was leaving a show he’d rebooted, creating something new and wonderful with two amazing actors, Eccleston and Tennant, and now he had to leave it behind. I think that’s why Ten says good-bye to everybody from the past four years and gives shout-outs to all the monsters; it’s Davies saying, “Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.” That anguished “I don’t want to go” wasn’t just the Doctor talking.

But having said that, “The End of Time” is an absurd mixture of opera and vaudeville with some Star Wars thrown in. Plus Wilf. It’s not as compact and well-crafted as “Planet of the Dead” or “The Waters of Mars,” but Davies had a lot of epic stuff to shove into two hours. Also, I think his four year reign was marvelous, so I cut him a lot of slack on this one.

And since we’re talking about writing, I learned this from Wikipedia:

Davies’s official role as head writer and executive producer, or “showrunner”, consisted of laying a skeletal plot for the entire series, holding “tone meetings” to correctly identify the tone of an episode, often described in one word—for example, the “tone word” for Moffat’s “The Empty Child” was “romantic” — and overseeing all aspects of production.[82]

I’ve asked students to give their individual acts titles before, but I’ve never thought of asking them to tag their work with one word for tone. I do remember that when I was writing Bet Me, I taped the words “Wildly Romantic” to the top of my computer to remind myself to swing wide. Now I’m thinking about that tone-in-one-word and how much it could do to clarify things. Must cogitate.

Who Sunday: Planet of the Dead, Russell T. Davie & Gareth Roberts

Isn’t there a little Malcolm in all of us?

I really loved Christina, not the least because she proved to be such a cheerfully amoral counterpoint to the Doctor’s morose savior-complex. Okay, he has a reason to be morose, Davies ripped out his heart and fed it to the cat in the last episode, twice, but even he had to banter with Christina. And there’s this:

Christina: We could have been so good together.

The Doctor: Christina, we were.

Christina makes me think about what makes a good companion, and why the answer to that is so polarized. People love Rose, hate Rose, love Martha, hate Martha, love Donna, hate Donna, love Christina, hate Christina . . . is there a perfect companion? Besides Captain Jack, of course.

I would have signed on for a lot more Christina. Or Malcolm. More Malcolm would be good.

Cherry Saturday 8-31-2013

August 31st is National Trail Mix Day.

Tragically, we missed Toasted Marshmallow Day by twenty-four hours (August 30th).

Character and Choice

In the previous post comments, we were talking about how much some of us disapproved of what the Doctor did to Donna at the end of her run. Well, “disapproved” is a little weak; try “bitter and enraged.” But thinking about it coldly, what’s interesting about the choice is how much it characterizes the Doctor. That is, what’s interesting to me as a story wonk is that character choices not only shape the reader’s perception of the character, they shape the character. It’s difficult to separate “I like/don’t like the choice that character made” from “I like/don’t like that character.” I think the larger the bank of character choices (that is, the longer you’ve know the character and the larger the list of choices you’ve approved or disapproved of), the less impact any one choice has, but some choices are so overwhelmingly indicative of character that they cancel everything else out.

I watched the excellent first episode of Single Handed, a mystery series set in Ireland, and I would have signed on for the whole series except for the choice the protagonist made at the end of the first episode. He was incredibly cruel to someone who’d shown him nothing but love because he was horrified and ashamed and in shock; that I could have bought. But he also kept crucial information from her, essentially keeping a secret that she needed and deserved to know, making the decision that his needs were more important than hers. It was still terrific writing and acting, I just didn’t want to spend any more time with that character.

All of the other choices that character had made I’d approved of. He was in a very difficult situation in a very difficult setting, and he slogged on, doing the right thing to the point of nobility without swanning around about it, just here to do his job, nothing flashy. In one episode he’d banked enough good choices that I was completely on his side. And then in that one scene, that one choice, he lost me, even though in retrospect I can see that it was completely in character for him to have made that choice; I just realized I didn’t like his character. The “I know better than you” part of his personality that I had applauded when he used it on liars and predators was vile when he used it on a defenseless person who had let him into her life.

The thing is, I think that’s really, really good writing. That’s outstanding characterization. If he’d been a supporting player, I’d still be watching the show. But I just don’t want to follow this guy through multiple episodes now. Even if he arcs later, his last choice lost me. Which does not mean that the writers should have written him differently; lots of people will still follow this story because it’s so very well done and because they probably don’t have the same issues with lying that I do, or the same requirements for protagonists-I-will-follow-through-multiple-episodes.

This has happened to be before in Angel with Cordelia Chase. I loved Cordy: she was selfish and rude and honest and strong and active and capable of great growth. And then she slept with a boy she’d known since he was a baby, the son of a man who loved her and had sacrificed for her. It was despicable, so much so that when it was revealed several episodes later that she was possessed by an evil entity, it didn’t matter. That choice destroyed the character for me.

The Doctor has banked enough choices that I survived the Donna atrocity, but I didn’t like him as much any more. No, that’s not true; now that I think of it, I blamed Davies more than I blamed Ten, but that’s because I’m a writer. The Doctor’s anguished but patriarchal actions seemed like a character violation to me, unless I could accept that he’d do something so selfish just to avoid pain. Of course, it helped that he was on his way out, too, just three episodes away from turning into Matt Smith. And somehow, I don’t see Eleven doing what Ten did. Eleven was so much colder (in a good way), that I think he’d have made the right choice.

So I’m interested in this, not characters that make bad choices–that’s just good characterization–but characters that make choices that destroy them in the readers/viewers eyes. So new question for Argh Nation: Have you ever had a character you loved, one you’d been willing to follow through everything, make one choice that damaged the character so badly you couldn’t think of him or her the same way again, or a choice so bad you abandoned him or her completely? What triggers that revulsion for you?

Next Who Sunday: Planet of the Dead, Russell T. Davie & Gareth Roberts

A bus, a jewel thief, and the Doctor walk into a bunch of sand . . .

I could have spent some more time with Christina, at least a couple of episodes, but I’ll take what I can get: She survives in this dimension with her brain intact.

I really do love this episode, and a Davies quote I found in Wikipedia told me why:

Davies described “Planet of the Dead” as “a great big adventure, a little bit Indiana Jones, a little bit Flight of the Phoenix, a little bit Pitch Black.”;the relationship between the Doctor and Christina was influenced by 1960s films such as Charade and Topkapi, which included Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn “being witty and sophisticated together, and then running for their lives”

Why yes, if you put Indiana Jones and Charade together with Doctor Who, I will show up.