I mentioned in an earlier post that I was thinking about writing some Christmas-themed stories for my characters that would be available in December. I’ve become enamored with the idea of stepping slightly outside of my standard mystery box and instead focusing purely on a character-driven vignette; and, while there is usually plenty of relationship subplots in my novels, I usually tell the story from either Sean or Vasily’s perspective. These shorts open up the option for me to take one of the many other colorful characters I have out for a spin, allowing me to see the world through their eyes.
While there are a lot of choices, for whatever reason, the first idea that popped into my head was a question: what does Alejandro think about when he’s getting ready to make a dive from the really-scary-tall ten-meter platform? That, in turn, made me wonder what he might be feeling since it was his second Christmas with Vasily, but first that they’d be celebrating together in California. Although we see a lot of Alex in the novels, the idea of hearing his take on their relationship was intriguing enough that I suddenly found myself with a cute tale loaded with romantic fluff worthy of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. (Okay, maybe not quite that level of fluff, but you get the idea.)
I didn’t think I’d be able to spin a mystery in so few pages — I’m not good enough to boil something that complicated into a short; I did, though, weave a secret into the story that is revealed at the end. Usually I leave enough context in the bigger novels that if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll snap your fingers at the reveal and nod to yourself that it all makes sense now; I’m taking a bit of a risk with this short, as much of that context is being drawn from the larger novels. I believe I’ve trickled enough hints into it that someone dropping by for this one tale will still enjoy it, but it will also be quite meaningful for anyone who’s read the five books in the series. We’ll see, I guess, once the comments begin to roll in.
As I like this format, I’m planning on doing more; the next one will be something from Suzanne’s perspective, a chance for us to find out more about Sean’s girlfriend and how she sees our intrepid detective. A lot has happened between those two — not all of it has been published yet, either — so I am a bit leery of putting out a Christmas tale for them before the wider Windeport stories are available. Then again, I’ve kind of wondered what Suzanne was thinking the day she met Sean at the Windeport Not-So-Scary Halloween Party… maybe we back up to that? I suppose holiday is a term that can cover a few sins, after all. Stay tuned for developments…