Author Interview with Marcia Wilson on Beyond Watson, Fan Fiction, and her Upcoming MX Publishing Books

It is a difficult enough task to write a great Sherlock Holmes book, but to write a great Lestrade one, that task seems almost impossible. And yet, the very talented Marcia Wilson has done just that with her exceptional hybrid short story collection/ novel You Buy Bones: Sherlock Holmes and His London Through the Eyes of Scotland Yard. rather than make her Lestrade a novice inspector or a bumbling fool (much the way I did in my Holmes children's book Attack of the Violet Vampire! - The MacDougall Twins with Sherlock Holmes Book #2), Ms. Wilson makes her Lestrade a knowledgeable Scotland Yarder who rivals Watson in his analyses and understanding of the great detective. I interviewed Ms. Wilson, via email, about Beyond Watson (which is still available for a limited time via Kickstarter), her work for MX publishing, and her forthcoming projects.

Your Beyond Watson story "The Mortal Condition" is told from the perspective of Inspector Lestrade as are your two books You Buy Bones: Sherlock Holmes and His London Through the Eyes of Scotland Yard and the sequel Test of the Professionals. What draws you to Lestrade and the officers of Scotland Yard?

It started because I recognized that if I didn’t want to risk mundanity, I would have to find my own voice. As I write this, I’m staring at the entry someone posted on me—I officially created a trope for the Hiatus, how cool is that?? At the time I began, I was directly and indirectly guided to the Yarders because of what was going on at the FF.NET board.

It was very different then. This was before ELEMENTARY, SHERLOCK, and the Robert Downey Jr. movies. We had a core of writers and betas I call “the Greats”: GM, Protector of the Grey Fortress, Westron Wynde, Pompey, Chewing Gum…10-15 Canoncentrics poking fun at themselves when things got too serious, gently correcting errors, and supportive. They held high standards; I asked myself why I enjoyed them. Well, they all had the common quality of “real” writing. No one had a cardboard character. These pastiche writers were all inspired by actors who loved ACD’s Canon too! Some actors were not well known—there were even fics based on voice roles. We saw tributes to Wilmer, Barrymore, Laurie Main’s Watson, Livanov and Solomin, etc., who in turn respected ACD’s creations.

When you show this partnership of equals you have a better story. But where was the right POV? Someone was already writing Mrs. Hudson. Westron Wynde was unbeatable as Holmes’ voice and Watson’s eyes. The Baker Street Irregulars had books and their own TV series. I had no interest in using Irene Adler; I couldn’t put myself through the “did he or did she?” Mycroft was perilously close to Nero Wolfe. Who did that leave?

Very few people were writing any Yarder’s POV but there is a long, respectable tradition of police crime fiction from the UK. ACD named Lestrade after a St. Lucien he loathed. Deep is my fear of turning “fangirly” and Lestrade infuriated me (OK, I was young). I figured if I used a character that annoyed me, I’d be in less danger of fan-worship. I even gave him the first name of Geoffrey because I thought it suited him the least. It was my private warning to myself. (I still do this when creating OC’s). On the plus side, he really didn’t have a lot going for him in the pastiche world. The Sholto Lestrade series by Trow felt like a parallel-Mirror-Universe so I didn’t feel like I was stepping on anyone’s toes if I used Lestrade. John Hall’s SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DISGRACED INSPECTOR was the only one where Lestrade gets as high as third billing in a pastiche (good reading, BTW).

Exaggerating the hero is a staple of western culture, but I was sick of all the badly written shows where the Hero was “made greater” by lowering everyone around him. Not only is this lazy writing that feeds on every scrap of desire we have to idolize our role models, but it makes everyone look bad. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t shine when he’s surrounded by idiots. Put him around competence and initiative, and you can appreciate his genius all the more. Pit him against a worthy foe or rival and you have the real Holmes.

Everyone else at the Yard has some stand-out mental quality, but Lestrade does not. He is an overworked, under-thanked workaholic with a heavy quota and a fierce vanity for his achievements. We can trust Lestrade to do what is right and proper in the eyes of procedure—dragging for a body, searching all the train cars, or arresting the wrong person—because the right thing to do in the eyes of the law is actually the wrong thing to do. More than Watson, he sees without observing but he doesn’t give up. When he’s wrong he apologizes. When he’s right he’s insufferably pleased because a solved case means his system works. He is the anthropomorphic face of British Law. His mistakes are the actual mistakes in the law, and his strengths are the parts of the law that work. Hopkins is the future of British Justice; Baynes is its frustrated divergence in the regional demographic between city and country crime. Gregson is the ambitious politician. But Lestrade is his own fixed point in a changing age. I think of him as like Jackie Chan, who was in a prestigious arts school because even though he was surrounded by the incredibly gifted specialists, he was the only one who was “good enough in ALL things.” That’s Lestrade. On some level we can relate to him and share his imperfections.

Because I needed a reason for Lestrade being on the Force 30+ years, I made him a Breton. Most of the Canonical era has France and England at loggerheads over territories and it fueled a terrific spy system and underhanded crime rings. Bretons were squeezed between the two superpowers and disdained by both. I was gratified when a professional researcher from London told me that making Lestrade a Breton “works” because the Yard kicked you out if you didn’t promote or prove a keepable quality in 10 years. So he’s the Yard’s personal sacrifice zone. He stays but he never promotes. He gets cases that are dirty and career-damaging. And he just happens to know this private consulting madman on Baker Street…

It is no secret I’m affected by Colin Jeavons’ Lestrade. Inspector Hopkins (Sherlock Peoria) has a charming paragraph on how Jeavons did the impossible in conveying ferrety and bulldog at the same time. I first saw him in NORW and initially I just couldn’t stand that he was doing all the things that I thought he shouldn’t: He wasn’t being properly worshipful of Brett’s Holmes (and what a shock to see him playing Moriarty at the same time in THE BAKER STREET BOYS). But Jeavons is the greatest Lestrade of his generation, and his work has repercussions to this day. He played with respect to the role as ACD saw him: vain, hidebound, overly confident, quick to act but brave and unshakeable in his morality. Like the ideal of British Law, he is incapable of corruption. Thanks to him, we soon see that no mere milksop would be able to constantly stand up to Holmes and argue with him and mock the lack of evidence for Holmes’ statements. Without Lestrade’s role as Doubting Thomas we really can’t experience Holmes’ genius. Watson is the conductor of light; Lestrade is the dark background for that lens. He isn’t a foil so much as he is that infuriating Voice of the Establishment. Holmes has to work harder to convince the Establishment, harder than he has to solve the case.

And is that a bad thing? No. Conjecture and hypothesis is the realm of the well-educated and well-born. It is not a privilege for the old copper who can only stand in court and resist being picked apart by Defense and Crown with the stubborn, hard-headed, “I saw what I saw.” This hard-headedness is a symptom of a flawed system. Because Lestrade is being hard-headed, he forces the proof, breaks the case down into terms that no one can fail to understand. If it is plain enough for a blockhead copper to see, then it will be plain enough for court! Holmes is being clever when he doesn’t explain his methods; he’s giving us the chance to see what he sees. He’s being fair. When Lestrade is being smug, it’s because he thinks his getting proof that his system, which Holmes criticizes, is the right one. There’s more than professional rivalry going on: this is a war between two opposing schools of thought in crime solving.

I spent a LOT of time writing Hiatus stories to prove this point. In Holmes’ absence the power vacuum is acute. It takes a lot of different people working from all directions to do a palliative job that Holmes could have solved in a month. But it was also the best way to show how Holmes affected people. The reactions were positive—often I didn’t know how positive, but then I’d run into things like this TV TROPES webpage:

“Everybody wants to write about what Sherlock Holmes did during his Great Hiatus (the three-year period during which he faked his death), right? It's been the subject of numerous pastiches and online fics. Aragonite a.k.a Marcia Wilson has made the argument that none of these stories, however, deal with Dr. Watson, Inspector Lestrade, and Scotland Yard, and the adventures they must have been having in that time period. So she wrote her own series… …but that's not the only thing Aragonite started. She was arguably the first Fan Fic author to give any serious depth to the men of Scotland Yard and use them as the protagonists, rather than using Holmes or Watson. She also bestowed the name Geoffrey upon Inspector G. Lestrade, and that name has gained popularity among both the canon and Sherlock branches of the fandom.”

Great Scott, someone noticed! Not only do I see “Geoffrey” popping up more and more, my created background in his Breton roots is being used as well. May all of my ideas be so benevolent!



2. Because your stories are told from Lestrade's perspective, we get a somewhat different version of Holmes and Watson than we do in the canon. In your opinion, does either Watson or Lestrade have a more honest interpretation of Holmes? Do you think we ever can really know what goes on inside Holmes' mind?

Imagine you are looking down the eyepiece of a microscope. There’s an organism at the bottom of it that is the key to everything you want to know. Unfortunately for you, what you see is a blur because it is out of focus. After some adjusting and fine-tuning, you see the outline of the thing, and this gives you a flash of satisfaction because you can ID it! There it is! The Holmes Organism! Dashed useful in wiping out those crime epidemics, or Diseases of Morality. Quite effective in taking on hostile Thug Organisms that are much larger than itself.

Then after you’ve written this down, you take another look and see that parts of that H.O. aren’t completely in focus. Back to the lens again, and it takes a lot more fine-tuning and frowning…but suddenly you move it to a higher magnification and now you can see INSIDE that organism, down to its organs and cilia, the flickers of a brain that never turns off; it is markedly different from all the other similar organisms in the slide. That flickering brain is why it is different; why it does what it does.

Watson and Lestrade each see Holmes according to their own lens. Neither is more honest, but they are different. Watson of course would be the higher magnification—he lives with him, knows him, and it is quite clear he supports and protects his friend. Lestrade’s lens isn’t that fine-tuned, but he knows from his own training that the Holmes Organism is identifiable as a consultant and a weapon against the criminal disease that affects his city. Watson can see the cause—that amazing brain. Lestrade only sees the effects of that amazing brain. And yet we will never completely know Holmes’ genius. How can we? I feel like I’m pitching for the Sherlock Peoria world right now, but Plugs & Dottles, May 1996, had this to say:
“Sherlock Holmes was Sherlock Holmes. He was the world's first and foremost consulting detective. He was unique. And the way you get to be unique is by being different from everyone around you”.

3. An edition of You Buy Bones: Sherlock Holmes and His London Through the Eyes of Scotland Yard was released from MX publishing in 2015. Do you have any plans on reissuing Test of the Professionals through MX as well?

I’m working on TEST right now, having absolutely terrified myself discovering I’ve used a word that has no place in Victorian Anywhere. So one last re-read and off to MX! After that, THE MOON-CURSERS, which is the Yarder’s version of events as Holmes and Watson go running from Moriarty.



4. David Marcum has said that he loves your writing so much that he wrote his first fan letter to you. Tell us about your friendship with Mr. Marcum. How have you gotten to know each other over the years?

He is an Ambassador, guiding by example the value of canon-centric work. Someday I expect to see him write a Holmesian version of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, because an awful lot of pastiche writing definitely falls under its category of “grammar for the eager, the innocent, and the doomed.” David may have the largest collection of canonical Sherlock Holmes fan fiction in the country! One day I was fixing up a cliffhanger during the Hiatus. Then I got his fan letter and it made me think, well gee… …maybe I should go into print. That evening I met my family at Pizza Hut and my sister, who had read the letter, gave me this prickly glare that only twins can make and said, “See, I’m not alone. Go.”

I let myself get talked into going through a press by some people. They weren’t very honest. David did more homework for his publishing and went to MX. I followed on his urgings and I’m much happier. Our friendship is on the Geek Interpreter Side—and I’m the Geek! How many drops of raw eel blood will kill? Can you really stun a man with tobacco? David knows I can answer that! We’re both Holmesians—David’s approach is “So many pastiches! So little time!” And I’m all, “Ooh. Library Sale. Shiny.” I am the Incurable Nonfiction Collecting Poster Child. We’re both Appalachian, which is a language all its own. David is supported by a great family and we should all be so lucky. His wife is his core strength, and an editor too! What I wouldn’t give to have one of those in my house…

For the last five years, I had to go into hiding to escape a violent predator, and David was one of the few who knew this. I’m gunshy, and content with being a loner. I was the first writer he approached about the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. Once I picked my jaw up from the crack where it had wedged in the floorboards, I pulled out my card and threw my lot in with him. All I could think of was De Kelley’s reaction to STAR TREK: “Going to be the biggest hit or the biggest miss God ever made.” This was definitely a hit! Even if I didn’t believe in him, I knew his goal was worth fighting for, every step of the way. And honestly, who else could have pulled this off? His ability to find all these writers and bring them together for such a worthy cause has lifted the bar on what is possible. Few people could have put this together, because even fewer would have conceived of such a project. This has changed the genre!

5. What are your current projects?

Proofing TEST for MX. I’m in the category of “barely employed” so I’m also looking for work, and keeping up with my illustrations. I have finally settled on a style that accommodates the color-impaired. My artistic work is posted at gravelgirty.deviantart.com and I’d love to get more work as an artist!

One important dream is to convert the lost film, PAUL OF TARSUS, into an online graphic novel, and I’m currently on a detective hunt for that data/support. I want to make this happen for a dear friend who is dying of cancer. Think fast: the lead actor in PAUL played what role in this version of THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL’S FOOT?

6. Any last thoughts?

Thanks to the Internet a lot of good writers and editors can find each other and collaborations fly thick and fast. After too many years of famine, we’re seeing a sudden resurgence in pastiches that honor detail and history. I wonder how many of my old friends are still out there, writing under new names? Many gave up from the larger public’s lack of courtesy on their boards. They were tired of being the few sane voices in a world that grew increasingly more disrespectful, but that wasn’t as bad as the disassociated elements that hadn’t heard of ACD’s Canon at all! A lot has been lost since then, swallowed up by an overwhelming amount of “self-gratification”, “projection fantasy”, “comfort fiction”, and what The Best of Trek editors rightly call “characterization rape”. I was almost one of those who left, for said stalker was determined to break down anything positive in my life. I wasn’t alone. Some left when their joy was weaponized by a former friend or relative. One vanished in a war-torn country.

Don’t even get me started on mirror sites and people who steal others’ work, because I get livid that we struggle through these minefields only to be robbed.

One thing I’d bring back if I could, is some of the old writing styles. I miss the old 221B challenge on the Internet, where you had to tell a short story totaling 221 words, and the last word of the story had to begin with B. It was flash fiction before its time! Writers shouldn’t give up if they feel they have something to say, and if you can’t write, try reading and reviewing. There aren’t enough of them! Share your love and be supportive. You will be noticed, I promise.

Marcia Wilson calls herself "a polymath without the grand genius--I just like to learn and I love to find out things." Her book You Buy Bones: Sherlock Holmes and His London Through the Eyes of Scotland Yard is currently available through MX Publishing.

Beyond Watson is currently available on Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/....

Derrick Belanger is the author of the #1 bestselling book Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Peculiar Provenance which was in the top 200 bestselling books on Amazon. He also is the author of the MacDougall Twins with Sherlock Holmes books, the latest of which is Curse of the Deadly Dinosaur and edited the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle horror anthology A Study in Terror: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Revolutionary Stories of Fear and the Supernatural. His latest novella Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure Of The Primal Man is currently available as an ebook from Endeavour Press. Mr. Belanger also is a frequent contributor to the blog I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. Mr. Belanger resides in Colorado and continues compiling unpublished works by Dr. John H. Watson.