Saturday, October 1, 2011

Giving Brith to New Characters

Two new characters popped into my head Tuesday night.  Both complete and fleshed out.  Had to immediately sit down and write a short story.  Later submitted it, and sooner or later it'll see the light of day.

The two are homicide detectives.  Mike Bean and Marissa Hamm.  Hamm and Beans, as their fellow police officers call'em.  Male and female.  Both of them as fun to be around as being with an old Grizzly who's supporting a major hang over.  They're partners--and not by choice.  Both are verbally loud--maybe even defined as verbally abusive.  And they go at it like cats and dogs.  Like Cossacks and Turks.  Like Packers and Bears.  Every day.  Without let up.  Sooner or later I expect one to shoot or knife the other.  It's inevitable.

And that's the fun in writing about these two.  Sooner or later . . .

But it got me to thinking.  For some time now I've wanted to write stories along the Nick and Nora Charles frame work.  You know, the classic duet of husband and wife found in The Thin Man.
The problem is Nick and Nora were man and wife.  And they enjoyed being in each other's company.  Hamm and Bean are not married.  And they may, or may not
being with each other.

Nick and Nora's lively verbiage between each other was both fun to read and to see in the classic Thin Man movies.  One was as witty as the other.  And both played off each other marvelously.

So why did I not come up with a erstatz replica of Nick and Nora, and instead came up with two people completely at lugger heads with each other?  I dunno.  But my gut feeling is telling me it doesn't matter.  Hamm and Bean(s) are two characters who have something going with each other--in a writer's sense of creating stories.  There's a chemistry there and I can safely say a number of stories are rumbling around in the ole noggin.  Stories that--in spite of all the other writing assignments filling my plate--are going to force me to bring to the forefront and do first.

Hang on.  Wait until this duo sees the light of day.  I'll let you know and you can decide for yourself.  Maybe they're as good as I think they are.  Maybe you'll tell me differently.  Which would be good, by the way.  Imput from readers is what I want.

Oh, by the way . . . the title of the first short-story?  You guessed it;  Hamm And Bean

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