Building Character, Beau Johnson

Okay.  I’ll admit it: you are my creator.  Satisfied?  You need to see it written down like this?  Is that why?  Gives you something concrete?  These are the hoops, then, yes?  Mine; the ones you’re putting me through?  Doesn’t matter, as you will do what you do in order to sell your product and I will continue to do what you allow me to contribute.   However, know that I am aware now---that before I hadn’t a clue.  With age comes wisdom and this I’ve learned from you.

    It wasn’t always like this.  Remember at the beginning, when you had me speaking with that drawl?  Or was it a twang?  What was that: the Deep South?  Whatever it was, some of your critics lambasted you for it; not so much now, not since you’ve become “big”.  Others thought the drawl added to my character, which was how it played and why, eventually, they let you be.  I know that now---having come to realize.  You were young when you started out is all, the dream of me but a bubble expanding in your mind.  How many had come before me, I wonder?  This is something we’ve never talked about.  Was there someone ahead of me; a trial run so to speak?   Would you even tell me if there were?  Okay.  Okay.  I digress, as I might be getting a wee bit off track here.  

I want to talk about us: our past and future specifically.  The past we’ve touched upon; how you wrote me starting out.  I’ve grown a lot since then, developing quite a few tricks. For these attributes I will always be grateful.  It is some of your later choices…these which have been causing me grief.

Remember my second case, the one with the dame whose husband had faked his death?  That was a good time---one I look back on fondly.  We saved the girl and won the day.  The man had been into the sharks if I’m correct; into them for fifty large.  By faking his death he couldn’t have known what he’d begin; that his disappearance would activate his wife the way it had.  Like Dillinger, she was relentless, but beyond her means at the very same time---a complex character if there ever were, but one you pulled off with aplomb.  If I’m not mistaken, her name had been Deville, Nancy-Dean.  It is times like those which cause me to scratch my head at the junk you are attempting now; these cases you run me through…these one dimensional antagonists you expect me to fight.   Frankly, it’s beneath you, as I know you are capable of more.  It is what I admired about you most; how I always felt safe within your hands.  This includes the incident involving Sadler---when you chose to bring him back from the dead even though the process proved odd and somewhat contradictive to my previous outing.  Did I say anything at this?  No, I trusted you, that the story demanded his return.  And when I foiled what the villain had planned---did your pulse not race along with mine?  

This is what it’s all about, isn’t it?  We are the good guys---our lot to triumph over the evil that strives to invade the day.

    Or so I had thought.  

It is with what I now know that will prove your undoing.

    You didn’t think I’d find out, did you?  Or even if I did, what would be the point?  I’m only a character, correct; the makings of your mind?  You would be right at that but you would also be wrong.  I will explain it all, but first I need to get some things off my chest---my penis, for one.  

How could you?  Seriously, have you no shame?  One day I have a six inch member and the next it’s two?  Two Inches?!  Hard?!  Is that even possible?  And you called it Penis Recindis; clever.  I imagine your audience ate it up as well, and why you decided to switch genres completely.  Why you chose to bring me along I will never understand.  I’m a detective; what you made---a private eye.  How your demographic even sees me in this new light is beyond my comprehension but part of the reason you did what you did, no?  Why you sold out?  Couldn’t hack it in the hard-boiled section anymore?  What, the well of stories run dry? Is this why you jumped ship; why you decided to drag me along through the mud?  As this is what you’ve effectively done; slandered me, defaced me.  Though what I have a hard time wrapping my head around is why they continue buying your books after what you did to me, a character twenty years in the making; a gumshoe who broke the cases which couldn’t be broke to a man now offered as punch lines to this new age comedy writing that is all the rage.  So, yes, you sold me out.  Me: your greatest creation.

    At first I thought this was why I was so mad.  When I realized you’d never even considered consulting me---this is when my dander went up.  Do you think that’s fair; that you didn’t even think to give me a heads up?  Very selfish if you ask me, especially for what I’ve given you.  Without me you wouldn’t have any of the things that you do; wealth, your wife, your home.  I don’t care what you say, I have paid for half of these things, me doing most of the leg work---literally.  This is something you have forgotten, I think; a situation which needs to be rectified.
    While we’re at it: tell me about the midget fiasco?  How did you even come to that?  After a lifetime of being 6’1 how do you think it would feel to be reduced by half?  Not too pleasant, I tell you; scary, even.  And I feel for the little people, truly, having seen the world from their perspective now.  But this does not constitute humour, not in my book; not the least bit funny in any make or form.  You should be ashamed of yourself, and perhaps you are---the reason you’ve never returned to this particular story beat.  This does not excuse everything else you’ve done to me, though; not the thing with the cannibals or the travelling through time.  These experiences are trite at best and lack the necessary punch you’ve had in the past.  I’ve said this already, but I feel it needs to be stated again: you are above this, David; the swill you now write nothing more than bloated tripe.  You are a novelist---an Author.  At least you used to be.  Can you recover?  Don’t know, and frankly, at this point in time, I don’t really much care.  You’ve had your chances; more than enough to put right which once went wrong.  
    You want to know what did it; the straw you say?  

The one that broke the camel’s back is when you went and made me female.   A woman, David!  My God, what were you thinking?!  I’m male, have always been male.  Since the day you birthed me onto the page.  Did you think I would take this lying down; that the reprisals would be none?  Wrong---so very, very wrong.   

    I bleed now, David.  Did you know that?  And sometimes there are cramps.  As I said before: this is not humour---not what funny’s about.   I am coming for you, though.  In a way you’d least expect.  What I’ve been doing, you see, is using the skills you endowed me with in a way I never thought possible; I have been investigating what it takes to excel at your vocation; detecting, learning how to write.  It’s all there on the page, right in front for me to see.  The time you take off between books about me is what gives me what I need; the time to hone my new skills, the ones you soon shall see.  I improve at night as well, when you are asleep and unaware.  I can almost see the door; the one I am creating.  It opens to your world---soon I will take my first step through.  

You had better find a way to contain my narrative, David; this being all I think I will say.  Anymore and I might tell you of my hands and how I see them around your neck.  Not as woman’s hands, but as man’s, and ones that do nothing more than squeeze.

    Soon, Maker---soon.