simon collis

The idea of a were-man – a wolf that turns into a human at the full moon – came to me some time on Monday, but I couldn’t work out exactly how to make it work. Rebeca suggested the answer one day while we were out walking the dogs, that I tell it from the point of view of the were-man. I couldn’t really work out what exactly this would entail, so eventually in desperation I started writing on Saturday night, going carefully to try and get it right.

I basically followed the narrative through in my head, at each stage trying to work out what was happening. OK, so first he escapes from the zoo before the other wolves see him as an intruder and kill him. Fine, but then where does he go? The keeper who raised him as an abandoned cub and now has retired. She’s got clothes out for him and is baking cookies because he’s almost a son to her (I’m assuming she’s a widow, separated or divorced, of course).

Continue reading “Behind The Scenes: Next Time, Be More Careful”

First off, I have no real idea what inspired me to call this one “The March Society”. The idea that a music journalist wouldn’t see the name and immediately think of John Philip Souza and other purveyors of vaguely military-style pieces in two-four time is nonsense. Second, the idea that someone who was opera mad wouldn’t question that either is a bit silly. I can only hope that people will assume the character is either changing the name of it and it originally had nothing to do with the word “March”, or that the narrator has chosen to skip over that no doubt hilarious misunderstanding.

I actually started writing this one on the Monday, which is early for me. It’s a story idea I’d had years ago, at least the first part: the idea of something hideous, so sinister looking you can imagine it haunting Lovecraft’s nightmares, and yet all it wants to do is to sing, and you listen to its amazing, pure, delicious voice and suddenly all the other singers you’ve ever known and loved sound like ashes in your mouth and you can’t stand them any more is like catnip to me. But the question I didn’t have resolved in my mind was how to end it? I’d thought about having the society break up, be exposed… in the end, something so pure just wasn’t made for this world. (Did I really write that? Maybe I’ve got a career writing Mills and Boon beckoning…)

Continue reading “Behind The Scenes: The March Society”

The clichéd question that every writer gets asked is “where do you get your ideas from?” Well, I’m not sure, but for the last few weeks the ideas haven’t really been flowing freely. In fact, this was the third attempt to write this story. I started off thinking I’d bring back Mr Munro of the antique shop, but re-reading Elkwood just made me want to fix the problems I saw in that story. Besides which, I couldn’t then think of a decent scenario to use them in. So that was enough of that one.

The next attempt to write it was actually a resurrection of the very first idea that I came up with. I won’t expound on that one as yet, for the simple reason that I probably will end up writing it before the year is out and I don’t want to give any spoilers out. But suffice to say that this time I didn’t even get as far as the first time, and that was particuarly galling.

In a bad mood, I ended up some time on Friday evening trying to come up with something. Finally, I came up with the title, and the rest – as often seems to happen with me – flowed naturally.

Continue reading “Behind The Scenes: Leo’s Last Show”

When I first wrote If, Never three weeks ago, I didn’t think it would have a sequel. Even in my wildest dreams did I think it would turn into a trilogy (and some of those dreams and pretty funky, thank you for asking.)

The initial premise of the first story was expanded on, and I enjoyed writing the second and coming up with another twist. But the next question was whether that was the last twist, or whether there was another twist somewhere to be had. I realised from some of the comments I’d had in person that some people were a little confused what had happened, and even thought that the carrier bag had been hidden outside. That made me realise that there was still some scope in these events, and that maybe that second twist should be resolved.

Continue reading “Behind The Scenes: The Killer, Unmasked”

Having written last week’s story “If, Never”, I started reading it through for the final proof, and wondered not only why Jenkins was murdered, but how. And so the idea of writing the story again, this time from the view of the murderer, started to take shape in my head.

It was actually easier to write this one than the original story, as I had the outline already written. I came up with most of the major plot points over the week, but during the actual writing on Friday and Saturday, I had to be careful to make sure that the dialogue matched exactly between the two, although the reactions to the same dialogue across the two stories are quite different, which was fun.

My big question was how the trick was achieved, how they deceived Carson enough to be able to use him as a fall guy for their crime.

Continue reading “Behind The Scenes: Jenkins Is The Problem”