Origin at the Lego Store

The inspiration for Lady Scarlet initially came from a trip to the mall. We took the kids to the Lego Store - alright, my wife took us to the Lego Store - to look around and maybe pick up a set or two. While the kids were looking around, I wandered around myself.

They have a deal there where you can create your own mini-figures. Grab whichever body, legs, head, hair, and one accessory you like to create each unique figure. The deal is for three.

I began messing around at the mini-fig display, not intending to get anything. I was just seeing what there was. Soon, I had created a guy in a waistcoat, with a sword and bowler cap. He looked like fun, but he needed a sidekick.

Two if I was going to take advantage of the deal.

What sort of people would go on adventures with this man?

I let the pile of plastic body parts lead me on. Soon I had a jester-looking guy and started working on a gunslinger.

But I changed my mind. It seemed like this bowler hat guy would be all brawn and no brains. His companions would have to cover the slack and clean up his messes.

Soon I had a figure in a set of work overalls. While I was looking for just the right hat or hair, I found a woman's hair do in red. That changed everything.

Now, instead of my hot-headed action guy leading the way while others pick up the pieces, I had the brains operating behind the scenes and...with a couple of more pieces, the third member of the team.

I saw it working like this:

The red-headed lady was the brains of the operation, working as a part-time spy/private investigator type to fund her real job, inventing. She'd have crazy flying contraptions, superboats, souped-up motorbikes, and tricked-out cars that were always malfunctioning at just the wrong time. Action Hero Guy was the face of the operation - the one that ended up in the papers (and answering to the police) once things had been solved. Other guy was our leading lady's romantic interest and would often be the 'don in distress' whom she has to rescue.

I saw the whole thing as working something like Remington Steele, where Leading Lady let Action Hero Guy steal the show. Distressed Don would be like Murphy from the first season of the show.

But as I got to working out the details of a first adventure, things got a little muddled. I had each of them saving the other two at various points, eventually letting Leading Lady's cool wit solving the problem, even if Action Hero Guy's fist actually stopped the threat.

It morphed into the story of a woman who was unsatisfied with life even though she was about to marry into a perfect life. I liked having the different personalities being the key to individual parts of the story, or causing bits to happen. I kept that, but closed the focus from different individuals to aspects of Leading Lady's personality.

Eventually, Leading Lady became Vivian Hawthorn. Action Hero Guy became Jack Durnham, and Distressed Don became Benjamin Gilles. Here they are in their container from that day at the Lego Store. They look like children to me after all this time.

Lady Scarlet's World

Lady Scarlet's world is different from ours. First, she lives about a hundred years in the past. Second, certain key events that shaped our past never happened or unfolded differently. Third, magic is very real and powerful, though very few understand or even believe in its existence.

Dates are not locked down in the narrative of the stories but to enter Lady Scarlet's world, imagine yourself in the early nineteen-teens. While not technically the Victorian era, many details will be the same. Rapid technology shifts have shaken the basics of society. Attitudes are changing as new clashes with old. Gender barriers are still there, but so is the idea that anyone with intelligence and drive can accomplish anything. Whole new, previously unattainable possibilities are  open to people with the ambition to try. Railroads and airships have made the world both a smaller and larger place.

But these stories are not steampunk...exactly.

The shrinking world has also grown the world economy. While steamships once took months to reach exotic ports, an airship can reach the same location in days. New commercial markets create vast opportunities for wealth and crime.

To fight the new tide of global crime, several nations banded together to create a worldwide law enforcement agency. Agents from the International Police Commission (I.P.C.) use assets all over the world to fight the new breed of criminal gangs who have also discovered the emerging global economy. These agents are the best in the world, highly trained, and empowered by the member nations to do what it takes to stamp out these upstart gangs.

But while I.P.C. agents play cops and robbers with gangs and crime lords, other forces are at work.

Most people are blissfully unaware that magic exists in this age of steam and steel. Just as robber barons, business magnates, and street thugs vie for power, other groups work in the shadows. This hidden world of magic is as real as the work-a-day world of the regular person. Some lust after power, some seek vengeance or justice, and others just want to be left alone.

The types of magic are equally diverse as the new technologies. Some have their own innate powers, while others are derived from spells or ancient rites. Others come from a mixing of technology and magic and still others are bound to and by powerful relics.

Each form of magic is different from the next and most of it distrusts the others. A secret war rages behind a curtain of coal smoke and human ambition. Lady Scarlet never knew of - nor wanted any part of - the ancient war but it found her anyway.

Getting Started

It's been well over two years now since I first had this idea about a woman who slipped away from her wedding and fell into a world of spies and betrayal. Since then the story has morphed into something very different and, I think, much better. I have had the support of friends and especially my wife along the way.

To all of them I say thank you!

Writing the first draft was difficult. Getting various scenes to line up in a way that made a plot that went somewhere while coming to a satisfying conclusion took a lot out of me. There were times I was too emotionally spent to do much of anything.

I rewrote that draft a couple of times, with some scenes changing, others going away, and others coming out of nowhere.

Then I sent the text off to a few good friends and even got some of them back. I struggled with several suggestions and hoped I didn't tick them off with my responses to their responses. The help they gave was beyond value in getting to where I am.

After that was the start of the re-rewriting.

This process never really ends if you don't make it end. There's always the idea of "what if I did this?" and "why don't I do that?" It's possible to make a good story terrible by over-rewriting it. I had to hope I didn't do that, but I knew I had made some serious changes to my original story and I had gone pretty far from my original idea.

Someday I might explain what that original idea was and where it came from.

I thought the writing part was difficult. I was right.

I thought the rewriting part was more difficult. I was right about that, too.