Most Excellent Reader Elizabeth asks:
"Could you talk about how you come up with all the various capers and escapades for your spies?
All the fiddly bits that string together to make up the jobs they pull basically.
How do you do that? How do figure out the pieces and then put them together?"
Hah! Bit of a tough question.
Plot devices. I haz them. |
One good thing is that the spy stuff is all 'plot device', really. The stories do not hang on the outcome of any of the spy stuff, except in Forbidden Rose where the actual historical politics are important.
All this running around, doing stuff, is just plot device, That means I can plug one thing or another thing into that spot in the story. I have something to accomplish and it doesn't much matter which 'device' I choose.
So, for instance, I had a spot in Spymaster's Lady where I want my heroine to escape Meeks Street.
I set up an event -- a plot device -- that makes the escape possible.
I set up an event -- a plot device -- that makes the escape possible.
I
need a plot device because it is not like my Meeks Street guys are
going to go out one afternoon and leave the door open behind them.
But it could be anything, so long as it opens up Meeks Street so my heroine can escape.
I considered a bunch of possibilities.
I considered a bunch of possibilities.
Sorta like this coach |
(My heroine escapes because they have loosened the bars on the windows.)
Or I could use a cat playing bagpipes |
(That would loosen the window bars but good.)
Or maybe somebody drives up a load of cobras and dumps them in the back garden
Cobra, which Adrian could have got hold of |
Or the baddies could steal Congreve rockets or fireworks and set up on the next street and lob some explosive rockets through the air.
(That makes a nice weakened spot in the house wall for the heroine to pull the bricks away and slip through.)
Or somebody could sneak up to the roof and drop a keg of gunpowder down the chimney. Boom.
(Which blows through the bars they have blocking the chimney and the heroine is up and away through that chimney.)
There are others.
I don't have to stick to one possible caper. I have a choice of many.
I pick the one that lets my hero and heroine do exciting things together.
And is, like, plausible.
I try out all these possibilities in my mind and toy with them and brainstorm with myself.Gordon Riots. My answer to folks who think London wasn't violent |
I go with the scenario that comes to my mind most clearly and strongly.
The coach drive-by comes to my mind from the Gordon Riots and various other riots of the period.
The satchel bomb -- I was in Paris when somebody threw one of these into a building. Shook the glass in my windows but good.
Cobras are in an old trunk novel I have under a bed somewhere.
The rockets came to my mind because I like fireworks. (I did a Word Wenches blog on period fireworks.)
The keg of gunpowder is from the 'Infernal Machine', plot to assassinate Napoleon.
Putting something down the chimney is from the story of how Hawker first entered Meeks Street.
How do I figure out the details of making the 'spy stuff' happen?
Research.
And more research.
(Le sigh.)
Lotsa research.
None of that shows up in the scene, drat it, but my life is just full of finding 1800 stuff out.
If I want my bad guys to do something as simple as arm up and go shoot into a house,
I can't do that till I ask myself --
What kind of neighborhood 'police protection' would be available at that time.
(Short answer -- none. Paris had police. London didn't. That's why London had muggings and gang rapes in good neighborhoods and periodic riots.)
Would the available neighborhood protection prevent a shooting or chase down the criminals who did it?
(No.)
What kind of weapons would be available?
(I know more than I want to about period guns Much more. Ye gods, that is boring research and there is infinite scads of info.)
Would somebody be able to get hold of a bunch of guns?
(Peace had come. Much corruption in 1802 in the matter of army weapons. Lots of weapons lying about in London)
(I know more than I want to about period guns Much more. Ye gods, that is boring research and there is infinite scads of info.)
Would somebody be able to get hold of a bunch of guns?
(Peace had come. Much corruption in 1802 in the matter of army weapons. Lots of weapons lying about in London)
Would Frenchmen be conspicuous in London?
(It was the Peace of Amiens. Lotsa Englishmen travelling to France. Lots of traffic the other way. London was full to the gills with Frenchmen.)
How fast could they shoot? What would it sound and smell like?
(Y'know, Youtube is just a wealth of research goodness.)
What were security bars made of, how did bars get set in the windows; did London houses have bars; would a shotgun blast loosen a bar; how widely were they spaced; how much space does somebody need to climb between bars
...?
(Endless research. Endless.)
And yes I really did work all the stuff out. All the details of the 'spy stuff'.
And yes I really did work all the stuff out. All the details of the 'spy stuff'.
So the long answer is above.
And the short answer is, "I dream up what should happen. I picture it. I spin it out of all my experience. I blue sky it.
Then I research the details
to see if it could really happen."