First off, a bit of context.
I was asked a while ago how the two shorts I wrote — Baubles and Snow Drifts — fit into the overall canon for what I’ve been calling the Windeport Universe. Canon, for those of you who might not know, is a term often used to encompass the known “givens” of a story, i.e. where a particular character might have grown up, their favorite food or the place where they proposed to a future spouse. They are considered items that are inviolable, much as any item in our own actual histories, and are used to give the reader a consistent backstory from which to just the current narrative.
I was struck a bit by the question, for while I had thought about it, I didn’t have a ready answer. Truth be told, even though I’m an unabashed Star Trek fan — and one who regularly howls when the show strays from what I consider to be its canon — I was a little embarrassed to to express my surprise at just how hard it is to actually keep to said givens. It’s one thing to laugh at Spock suddenly gaining siblings, and quite another to realize you, as an author, might have accidentally written in a non sequitur that will come back to haunt you during a later edit.
In the beginning, as with most things, I found it fairly easy to stick to my basic understanding of Sean Colbeth and his universe; the same was true in the early books for Vasily Korsokovach. But as each have progressed, the accompanying notes have burgeoned to include some of the tiniest of tidbits, helpful reminders for when I’m in a future story and want to make sure I stay consistent to the vision of my overarching world. And that, essentially, is where these two short stories came from.
The first, Baubles, came out of what I’d thought was a toss away conversation Vasily had with his favorite millionaire, Rosie Frankenhoffer, in Mirage:
“No kidding,” she laughed in that Lauren Bacall laugh of hers. Rosie paused for a second and got that thoughtful expression that I knew meant trouble. “You know, I could use him for a fundraiser I’m thinking of holding later this fall. I bet people would pay real money to see him dive.”
Mirage, Chapter Six. Copyrighted material (c) by Christopher Jansmann.
At the time, it was intended to underscore Rosie’s unrelenting mission to give back to her community, but for whatever reason, the line stuck with me long after the book was published. I wondered — would she actually have gotten Alejandro, Vasily’s diver boyfriend, to participate in such a fundraiser? And if she had convinced him, how would he have felt about doing such a thing? The more I turned it around and around in my brain, lines and scenes and a possible bridge from the next Vasily book I had planned to the one where his wedding (might) finally take place formed. And it started, appropriately enough, with a dive:
The splash from the diver ahead of him entering the water was Alejandro’s cue to climb the final flight of steps to the very top of the diving tower; he waited until the polite applause from the crowd had waned before stepping out onto the platform. It was hard not to see the scoreboard mounted on the far side of the pool, nor the slightly less than impressive scores his only real competitor had put up; as he slowly walked to the end of the concrete, Alex did a quick mental calculation to ensure that the dive he’d selected as his finale would ensure he remained atop the standings, then checked to confirm the tape tightly wrapped around his wrist hadn’t come loose. Now that he was just shy of his thirtieth birthday, Alejandro had begun to note with some alarm that his body didn’t bounce back from injuries quite as quickly as it once did; a few months earlier, he’d felt something pop in his wrist while doing a typical handstand-to-back-flip dive. Despite Vasily’s gentle encouragement that he take a break and let his body heal, Alejandro had stubbornly soldiered on right up until it had become too painful to ignore. The tape was a tacit acknowledgement he could no longer ignore what his body was telling him, as well as a reminder that his healthcare plan through California State University, Irvine, had never contemplated a former Olympian needing the services of a high-priced specialist.
Baubles, The Dive. Copyrighted material (c) by Christopher Jansmann
So I guess, in the end, the short answer is that both of these books are part of my overall canon. Baubles is designed to give a small peek into our California couple’s first Christmas together; Snow Drifts took a slightly different backstory element, fleshing out the hints that Dr. Suzanne Kellerman dropped to Sean during their initial encounter in Blindsided about just how bruised and battered her heart was after her disastrous marriage. Many of the details I sprinkled into Snow Drifts have spun themselves into full plot threads in future books of the Sean Colbeth Series, enhancing — and, unfortunately, complicating — his relationship to the physician.
I’d originally planned on adding to my library of short stories, but ultimately didn’t have enough time to get anything completed for this holiday season. The ideas are still there, though, including my backstory for one of the characters in Reflection in the Shadows, coloring in some of the areas that the first book isn’t going to have time to address. We’ll see — keep your fingers crossed.
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