Dan’s Comments (group member since Aug 08, 2013)

Dan’s comments from the Q&A with Stephanie Osborn group.

Stephanie wrote: This part is not quite true for me. I tend to debate it with my characters before I write it, or sometimes during, but I usually know what they're going to say or do before I set it down. It's very hard to write a mystery without knowing beforehand what's going on."

And that is exactly why I write so few mysteries. My writing style isn't as well suited to anything that requires sticking to anything but the vaguest of outlines. Unless the story comes to me as a nearly complete idea, needing only dialog and set dressing, I would tend to write as the words come to me, rather than plan ahead.

I did that myself, in my spaceport bar story that featured Holmes and Watson. Although I read every ACD story, as many of the other stories by later writers, watched the old B&W TV series, the Rathbone films, Brett's series, Tom Baker's turn in a "Hound of the Baskervilles" production, and many more as research, when I was writing Brett's voice was in my head saying the lines, making the gestures, flashing that lightning smile...

When my characters begin telling me what they are saying or doing, instead of my having to think up things about them or for them. Once the characters are vivid enough for me to follow them rather than lead them, and the words are in full flow, then I'm sure I've got something good. In my best stories, I have no idea what's going to happen next, or what the characters will say next. Not until my fingers have finished typing it, in any case.

So how do you tell if you have a mystery worthy of Holmes, versus one which would better suit the average investigator? What tells you that you've got a real corker of a mystery in mind?

So how do you tell if you have a mystery worthy of Holmes, versus one which would better suit the average investigator? What tells you that you've got a real corker of a mystery in mind?

Well, I've been publishing Aphelion Webzine for the past 16 years, and writing for online publication for a couple of years longer. I have a variety of interests ranging from music and art to gardening and woodworking. I've been reading since I was 4 or 5 years old. I enjoy more genres than I have time to list, actually. I'm also active in the Atlanta-area steampunk community. I've been known to dress up and go to photoshoots and so on. Quite a lot of fun.

I made it. Thought I was going to have to miss out.