Discover the deceptively simple thought process Dan Crawford uses to come up with some of his best mysteries in this short post! And don’t hiss his latest story in our September/October issue, on sale now!
Try as I might to come up with a NEW problem, I keep returning to the ones that have troubled mankind for years, the eternal philosophical problems that all of us have to deal with. What would happen if a werewolf bit a robot? If I could travel into the past to chat with my younger self, would this create a horrible paradox, or would we both be so shocked by each other would we run screaming in opposite directions? If Cinderella’s coach turned back into a pumpkin at midnight, did anything happen to it when the clock struck noon the following day?
Using fiction to cope with such questions is a simple process. I write down the question and lose the paper in the stack on my desk. When I run across the idea again, I curse and thrust it back into the pile, continuing my quest for the bills which are due more or less this month. Continuing to ignore the story idea as long as I can takes up a great deal of skill, as the pile includes suggestions for limericks and the lyrics of songs no one else remembers (and I remember imperfectly, hence the page of lyrics) which might be mined for titles the next time I commit prose or poetry.
Eventually, in the middle of a cussword (having let half a dozen pages slip off the pile while looking for a bill I THOUGHT I paid but mislaid somehow) I pick up pieces of paper in the correct order and realize that a line of the limerick goes nicely with one of the lines from the song. If only a plot. . . . And then I spy the page where I have written “Retool Stagecoach as a fantasy story with young flautist in the John Wanye role. Magic pumpkins involved?” In spite of all precautions, a story results.
And that is the only excuse I can offer for being here again.
