Behind The Scenes: If, Never

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Sorry I’m a little late with this one – things got in the way, as things tend to do…

I came up with the title first. I began writing, and came up with the idea of the main character being a fantasist straight away. I remembered “Billy Liar” about halfway through. I actually did do the book at school, during English lessons – we read the book, watched the film, and read the play. The three versions are mostly the same, only diverging at the end to show three different versions of the Liz character.

Mostly the writing of this one was easy. Once I started, the pieces started falling into place. I was worried that it would need a lot of editing and fixing, but coming back to it, I found that it was fairly solid. Whether I’ll still feel like that after this weekend I don’t know, because the next story is planned as a sequel, of sorts.

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If, Never

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I caught the bus at quarter to seven, as I normally do.

It’s the usual grey route to work. Grey tower blocks, grey concrete walls, grey gardens, grey weather.

And then we get to the first stop, and on she gets. I think her name is Jennifer: that is, I hope it is. She’s tall, willowy, with wispy golden hair and a laugh that can break a man’s heart. She sits next to me on the bus, and we flirt a little. She giggles, demurely, face partly hidden by one hand as with some kind of old fashioned modesty she has to hide her face, like she’s a heroine in a Victorian novel instead of a mobile phone shop customer service agent in a mini dress.

“Ticket please?”

I shake my head and look at the empty seat beside me. I reach into my pocket, draw out the season ticket and hand it to the inspector. He waves it against a machine that beeps, and he hands me back the card.

I look around again on the bus. There’s a row of seats facing sideways just in front of me, and the first one has a blind man with his dog.

I say blind, but we both know that’s a cover, of course. There’s exquisitely crafted surveillance devices built into his glasses and his dog is highly trained to sniff out explosives. He’s undercover, of course, and we both know it. That’s why he’s there. I’d reveal myself, if I had to, but I only know this because… well, let’s just say I’m involved. A little. Well, maybe more than a little.

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Behind The Scenes: How The Moon Sings

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The themes of the story, of loss, and death, and love, are universal ones. The genesis of the story really lies with our own cats and dogs, each one of them unique and special personalities. I still miss dogs I haven’t seen for years. I still miss people I haven’t seen or spoken to for years. I guess I’m saying cherish those you’ve got. Nobody can live forever.

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How The Moon Sings

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“You’re late.”

“I’m sorry,” Helena says. “The Metro…”

“Bien. Come in.”

Helena didn’t admit to standing outside the house, nerves jangling, pacing up and down, trying to summon the courage to press on the bell.

She looks around the house. It’s clean, well-kept, neutral colours, open spaces. This is the expensive side of Paris, far away from the cheap hotel she’s booked. The woman leads her into what looks like a living room – pictures of Jean in frames all around the room: on top of the grand piano, the walnut cabinet containing what looks like expensive antique crockery and glassware, hung on the wall. Helena can’t see them well enough to know, but they look like holiday snaps mixed with publicity photos and even newspaper articles.

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Behind The Scenes – Grimgreen

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Grimgreen actually started around the 7th January. Alyssa Evetts – an author in her own right who also has a regular feature interviewing authors (which is always interesting in itself) – posted a quote:

The fact that the real world could have involved dragons, unicorns, magic, time travel and insane adventures but instead has things like taxes is why I read so much

Another classic quote from that great author, “Unknown”. (I must look up some of their other work sometime). Anyway, my reply was that in such a world, surely the fantasy fiction involves accountants. And during my recent spell away from the office, the story took shape in my head.

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Grimgreen

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“Now,” said a voice behind Pluve, “I’m not saying double entry bookkeeping is just writing it down twice. I mean, y’know, it is, in a way, but…”

The gnome took his change and picked up the tray. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to elbow past the centaur, carefully holding the tray in both hands.

“Sorry, dude”, muttered the centaur , moving just enough to one side to allow Pluve past. The elf on the other side shuffled back a little, and murmered an apology when he backed into a troll.

“What I’m sayin’,” the centaur continued, “is that double entry bookkeeping right, it sounds like you just put everything in twice, but s’more complicated than that, right?”

“Uh huh?” responded the elf. Pluve cast a glance back as he put the tray down on the table and noticed that the elf looked even more drunk than the centaur, if such a thing was possible.

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Behind The Scenes – Florence

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Spoiler Alert: read Florence first, if you haven’t already…

This one was quite fun to write, although I suspect it might not be quite as much fun to read as I had writing it. I actually wrote the first draft straight after writing Doctor Fog, knowing that I was going to be away and wanting to try and make sure that I had a story for every week.

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Florence

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At the age of seventy-three, Florence felt she understood death. She didn’t really know very much about it, but she had heard the word. She had lost people. So she had some memory of it, some vague notion of yearning for souls lost.

There was no sunlight in this barn. No clear road. She felt age take her over. The air seeped from her tyres. Rust started to nibble the corner of her bodywork. Mice found ways in and shredded the stuffing of her red leather seats, once so shiny and proud, now home to a family of mice.

So this, she thought, was death. Not a sudden bang for her, just a slow fading.

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Behind The Scenes – Elkwood

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Spoiler alert: read the story “Elkwood” first, if you haven’t already

This one would probably work quite well as a radio play, to be honest. I was aiming for something more Victorian gothic horror, and I think I almost got there in one or two places.

Elkwood was the name I originally came up with, and I didn’t really realise where it fitted or whose it was. And then I finally realised it was the old man’s name. I didn’t use it more than once though, because I was using the name “Munro” so much. Perhaps that was a mistake, perhaps not – I’m not entirely sure.

The shopkeeper was originally called “Munro”. If you want a model for him, watch the film “Northfork” – Cup of Tea was predominantly in my brain for him.

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Elkwood

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“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m sorry Mr Munro,” Jacob said. “I was just taking a little look at -”

Munro grabbed the book from him and slammed it closed, putting it back on the shelf. He turned back to Jacob, his expression a hard-to-read mix of anger, scorn and perhaps even fear.

“I’m sorry, really, I was just…”

Munro waved him away, took a handkerchief form his pocket and wiped his brow.

“It’s all right, dear boy,” he said. “Really. It’s just… that book, particularly. If you know the things of which that book is capable, you wouldn’t touch it.”

Jacob smiled. “It’s just a book – I can’t read it anyway, it’s all in Latin.”

Munro stared at him, hard. Jacob didn’t like the stare.

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