“The Frog Principal” 3: The Hard Analysis

“The Frog Principal” 2: So Many Thing... The Frog Principal 4: The Betas Are N...

“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.