The Problem with Secret Identities

The Scarlet Pimpernel and El Zorro were the first two characters who really dipped into a variety of what Overly Sarcastic Productions calls the ‘Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass’ trope. In other words, the main character seems to be a moron (or fop or suchlike) who secretly is a badass vigilante and hero. While this was a cool twist when the stories came out, it’s a very well-known trope these days and, thus, comes with problems.

 

Today’s most well-known example of this CMHB trope is, of course, Batman. Bruce Wayne is clearly a playboy millionaire who doesn’t care much for anything outside of fun, right? So he certainly can’t be the paladin of seriousness that is Batman. Never mind that these two are never seen together. Nobody would ever be suspicious about that (unless it’s the Joker, but what does he know…?).

The first book about the Pimpernel came out in 1905. Then, the trope was all new and shiny, so the reveal that the foppish Sir Percy is the badass mastermind and heroic saviour of French aristocrats called the Scarlet Pimpernel was something new and unique. It was slightly less new and unique when a few years later “The Curse of Capistrano” (later renamed to “The Mark of Zorro”) revealed that ‘wet hanky’ Don Diego was secretly The Fox (that’s what ‘El Zorro’ means) all along.

Modern interpretations of those characters, on the other hand, have to deal with the problem that a) the CMHB trope is well-known already and b) everyone is aware of who really is ‘El Zorro’ (or the Pimpernel, but that’s less well-known). Therefore, modern interpretations usually simply do away with the twist and give the audience the information right away, focusing on the adventure part.

 

By the video linked above, the Pimpernel, Zorro, and Batman are all part of the ‘faker’ sub-type of the CMHB trope. They all do fake their moronic side - it’s a front they put up to lead people astray. After all, Sir Percy is a fop who spends his time on socializing and fashion, how could he be the Pimpernel (who often poses as ugly on purpose)? Don Diego can barely tell which end of a sabre to hold and complains severely about a few miles of riding, he could never be the master swordsman Zorro who can ride all night. Bruce Wayne is spending far too much time in clubs and with his ever-changing female acquaintances to patrol the city, so he can’t be Batman.

The faking can be more or less successful and more or less difficult, but it’s always there and allows for them to appear as being harmless and uninteresting to everyone who hunts the Pimpernel, Zorro, or Batman.

 

To be honest, when I first read “The Curse of Capistrano”, I was aware of who Zorro is. You can’t grow up in the western world without seeing a few movies, TV series, spoofs, or parodies (my favourite one of the Pimpernel is definitely from “Black Adder The Third”). I had already watched the fun anime series about Zorro and seen several of the older and newer movies at that point. Therefore, when I beheld Don Diego in the very first scene of the very first chapter, I didn’t seen the unmanly noble who chatted with a soldier, I saw Zorro in disguise fishing for information.

Yet, if I’m honest, even without knowing who Zorro was beforehand, I would probably have been suspicious of Don Diego soon. There’s just no place for him in the story, unless he is closely connected to Zorro. Diego gets a lot of space in the book, he gets a love interest, and bad things happen to those who threaten or mistreat his friends. He is, naturally, never around when Zorro arrives, despite being there soon beforehand. He never meets with Zorro or just gets to see him somewhere as the Fox is leaving.

Diego is the reason for a love square in the story - Senorita Lolita, the love interest, is courted by Diego (barely, given his general apathy), Zorro, and the captain of the soldiers (the bad guy). She does reject the captain for his behaviour and character and Diego for his refusal to properly court her, despite both being a way to secure a better position for her family. Her heart beats for Zorro - which is only logical, since he’s the hero. Yet, if Don Diego just were a guy who lives there, why his involvement? There’s a triangle in place early on, after all.

Why involve him so much in general? That is where it really becomes suspicious. Having him there in the first chapter to talk to the sergeant is not a problem - it’s a way to dump information into the reader’s lap. That would have been the last we see of him, though, if he didn’t have higher stakes in the story.

Yet, he turns up over and over again and at least once it’s very suspicious that he’s absent when Zorro arrives. When a group of young noblemen on a hunt for Zorro come to the country estate of Diego’s family, he’s there with his father. He excuses himself and goes to bed - before Zorro arrives and rouses the young men to join him in fighting for justice. At this point, given his father’s opinion of him, I would expect the father to order him to stay and act like a proper nobleman for once, which would have destroyed the end (which relies on those young noblemen to a degree).

 

Yet, the CMHB trope is a lot of fun to work with because you can play around with the two different personalities, no matter whether in earnest or for fun. The problem is to keep the twist working.

There are two ways around that I can see. The first is to forego the twist. Show that your crouching moron is a hidden badass early and let the audience go along with them on their adventures. The second is to put in a much more likely moron for the twist and then let them be pure morons instead of hidden badasses while the lesser moron becomes the badass. Both are not ideal, though.

There are more ways to do it, I guess. I will incorporate one in a novel I intend to write in a while, but I’m not talking about it here - the twist shall stay fresh.

 

The original “The Scarlet Pimpernel” gets around an earlier reveal by avoiding Sir Percy’s point of view. Most of the story is told from the viewpoint of his wife (who is unaware of his identity before the big reveal) and his archenemy (who clearly shouldn’t know who the Pimpernel is, either). Yet, this kind of writing means that a lot of the gratifying action is left behind, even though it has the advantage of not giving the reader details on all the complicated plans the Pimpernel hatches. For the Pimpernel, this works. For a more action-oriented character like Zorro, it would not work.

“The Curse of Capistrano” employs a lot of different viewpoints and can do Zorro’s without giving away the connection to Don Diego. Often, he’s portrayed in distant third-person, which means the reader doesn’t get any information on his thoughts or feelings. Yet, the distant third-person comes with sacrifices - the most notable being that the attachment of the reader isn’t as high as it could be otherwise. On the other hand, the distant third-person has a lot of uses in pulp writing as a such and El Zorro is a pulp hero.

 

Does the ‘Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass’ trope still make sense today? Can we still use it successfully? To a degree, yes. It’s not as new or as unexpected as it was when “The Scarlet Pimpernel” or “The Curse of Capistrano” were published. To a degree, today’s audiences will suspect the ‘moron’ of having been a ‘badass’ all along. It’s not as easy to pull off this trope successfully today, but it’s still possible.

A new version of the Pimpernel or Zorro can’t really pull the big reveal off any longer, because their true identities are known. A new character, on the other hand, can still be worked into a narrative without being revealed right away.

Batman, on the other hand, doesn’t really have a big reveal. With his character, it’s usually more about the balance between the moron and the badass, about challenges of being at two places at the same time, about not being found out by the populace in-universe. The audience is allowed to know who he is.

 

If you want to write a character with a secret identity, go ahead with it. Try to put your own spin on it, try to make something new out of the trope. Show or don’t show the real identity of your moron early. Have fun with the trope. There’s certainly even more ways to twist it around than I’ve thought of and the trope is too fun and too interesting to just drop.

Changing Formats

Usually, my novel characters, such as Jane or Inez, stay in novel format while my many novella characters stay in novella format. So far, ever since I realized that “Secret Keepers” was getting too long for a novella, I’ve not had any characters ‘crossing over.’ There are a few short stories about my characters (mostly Jane and her friends) in my “The Stories That Weren’t” collection, but that’s all.

Not any longer, though.

 

After I finished “Theoretical Necromancy Vol. 2” at the end of March, I was still very in love with the shift in relationship between Gabrielle Munson and the gold-tier inquisitor from “Stray”. They meet again in the first story of the second book, “Revenge of the Devil Monks”, and have to work together to survive the meeting with said monks. That, naturally, changes their perception of each other.

After I’d finished the first draft of the second book, I was left with an idea for another story where Gabrielle and he would meet again. At first, I decided to make it the first story of the third novella collection, but I soon realized that, as deep as I wanted to get into the story, it wasn’t going to work in novella format. Therefore, I plotted “The Curse of the Devil’s Voice” as a novel. The plotting is done, the outline is ready for whenever I get around to it and will put it down as a complete novel.

That’s something, I imagine, which will happen more often to me in the future, as I dive deeper into my novella characters. Perhaps it will also happen the other way around - a collection of shorter adventures of Jane or Inez could be possible. A return of Alex in a couple of shorter stories is more likely for me than a second novel about her. I can certainly see that a novel with John or Maddie or Isadora or Jamie and Sherringford might happen at some point.

 

Different formats, however, don’t just mean different length of text. There is a difference between plotting and writing a novel, a novella, and a short story. Admittedly, novella and novel are more similar in plotting than the short story is to either of them. The novella is, in many ways, the smaller sibling of the novel. Yet, a novel has more and more complicated plot points, needs to balance the tension much better, and has to put more work into world-building and characters, too.

The short story - a format I rarely work with, although I can, is very much focused on a very short look into someone’s life (although flash fiction is even shorter). Here, there’s usually only one plot, there’s not much more space. Character development is either the plot, then the whole story revolves around it, or it’s not there at all. There’s no real time and space for it. On the other hand, with the very strong focus on that one plot, a short story can be very intense - it’s not painted in broad strokes, there’s not much time to evoke imagery and create tension. You drop the reader in and have to build your tension immediately. Then, however, a short story can be a very gratifying read (or listen, should your audience prefer audio books and should you have the chance to make some). I know I’m enjoying a well-crafted short story as much as a novel.

 

You shouldn’t be too afraid about changing your format. Yes, it will be challenging to write a new one for the first time. I only wasn’t scared when writing my first novel because I wasn’t aware I was doing so - a little advantage of discovery writing; you never know in advance. If you outline your story, you can follow the different plots and the tension, can see if you’re following an upwards curve in general with the tension (it’s more of a sequence of ups and downs, but the general tendency must be up). If you don’t outline your story, your first novel will certainly demand some re-writing later. It can’t be avoided because you won’t be handling things the way you would do otherwise. It’s much easier to start it slower and raise tension bit by bit if you know you’re in for the long run.

It does help to consume stories in various formats, too. Short stories often come in the form of anthologies, novellas might be published as single stories in e-book form (where the actual length of the text plays no role), and novels are widely available everywhere you can get books. Note the difference between a short story and a novel. If you can, read stories about the same character in both formats (traditionally, I can recommend Sherlock Holmes, although Doyle wasn’t too good at novels; from the bottom of my heart, I’d suggest Jonathan L. Howard’s Johannes Cabal stories).

Write a few short stories, if longer formats are your regular deal - I’m enjoying my quick dips into my characters with my “The Stories That Weren’t” collection which is only for me, although I’ve posted one of them on my blog. It’s, of course, harder to do when you normally write short stories and want to tackle a longer format. A short story needs less time to write, so it’s less investment there. Again, outlining first helps here - write an outline for your novella or novel and see how much you’re motivated to write it afterwards. If you are motivated, go for it, no matter how long it takes.

 

While the difference between a short story and a novel is pretty easy to see, what is the difference between novel and novella? As said above, the novella is the smaller sibling of the novel - they are similar in structure, they both have the time for an introduction and a proper tying up of all loose ends before they finish (something the short story is often missing, due to format). In general, because of its length, the novel can handle a larger cast of characters (but doesn’t have to have one) and it certainly can handle more different plots in it. If you wish to write from multiple character viewpoints, you’re also better off with the novel, because it will afford you enough room for all of them. In numbers, a novella is somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 words and everything above is a novel, but that’s not a rule, more of a guideline. Novels can be a little shy of 60,000 words and novellas can be a little longer than that.

Yet, very much like the short story, the novella is more ‘on point.’ While it allows you to go into more detail and come up with one or two more intricate plots, it still keeps you focused on one or two things, doesn’t allow you to meander around. It’s a good idea to keep to one viewpoint in a novella while the novel allows for you to spread to more of them if you wish to. Whether that’s wise is another question and depends very much on the story you’re telling.

One reason why I chose to plot “The Curse of the Devil’s Voice” as a novel was that I wanted to have two things running with a lot of time to work on: the further shift of the relationship between Gabrielle Munson and Antonio Velasquez (the aforementioned inquisitor who gets a name at the end of “Revenge of the Devil Monks”) and the actual action plot of the Devil’s Voice. I wanted a slow-raising tension for the action plot and I wanted a good development for the relationship. A novella, even one longer than average for me, wouldn’t have afforded me that. It worked with the Devil Monks because the relationship was shifting alongside the plot - you can’t go on considering someone a mortal enemy when you have to rely on them watching your back. To explore their relationship further, I need more time - and a novel affords me the time.

 

Don’t be afraid of changing formats, but don’t think it will be super-easy, either. Learn about the format you want to dip into and, if possible, don’t start your first foray into a new format as a story scheduled for professional publication. I actually didn’t consider professional publication until after I’d written my second novel - before that, I published for free. Read different formats to get acquainted with them. If you can, plot your first foray into a new format well. If you can’t (if you’re a discovery writer), be prepared for heavy editing on a later date (but then, you’ll be prepared for that, anyway).

Old Works, Much Work

I do need something to occupy myself with while I have my period. During the first few days, I can always forget about writing - I can’t focus enough. The last time I had my period, I did go ahead and look over my old stories. My old Loki stories, to be more precise.

 

So far, I’ve only published six stories about Loki - the six collected in “The Loki Files” Volume 1 and Volume 2. I have written quite some more with different versions of Loki. Yet, I wrote most of them between 2013 and 2016 - then I dove into other stories and created Jane Browne and the Knight Agency.

 

Loki motivated me to get back into writing during my burnout. I watched “Marvel’s The Avengers” and fell in love with Loki as played so excellently by Tom Hiddleston. I’ve always had a soft spot for villains and Loki is complicated in the MCU, not a pure villain, but not really a hero, either.

I’m a big fan of Norse mythology, too, so I’m also very familiar with the mythological Loki, not just with the guy from the comics and comic book movies. Loki is a multi-faceted character, which plays into the many different varieties of him I wrote. I’ve stayed away from the darkest versions of Loki (there are a few unfinished stories about such characters on my HD, though), but there are different versions of him, nevertheless. Some are playful, some are resentful and need to overcome that. Some are more mature, some less so. Some are close to the MCU, some are miles away from it. “Living Conditions” even refers to the MCU and their movies while “In The Blood” has a completely different mythology behind it and is much closer to old Norse tales.

Loki renewed my enjoyment of writing. Without him, I would never have started writing other things and I would never have come up with Jane and those who followed her. My catalogue on Amazon and D2D (which is getting something akin to impressive by now) would not exist. Loki also cured my burnout, which I’m eternally grateful for.

 

I originally released those stories on Feedbooks, where I could publish them for free and have other people read them. Admittedly, I haven’t looked into my account there for a long while, but the stories are still there, in the way I did edit them at that time.

While re-reading them, I realized how much both my regular writing style and my editing have evolved since then. I’m still prone to overly long sentences (I always was, in both languages I speak well), but I’m much better at writing more varied sentences now. Over time, I’ve also learned to edit much more precisely. After all, I’m taking money from people for what I write, so it should be in as good a shape as I can make it, given I can’t afford another editor. Luckily, I’m an editor, too.

 

Unluckily, I’m an editor, too, because I just couldn’t fully put down my editor hat while I was re-reading the stories. They are good, I certainly enjoyed them, but the writing is lacking. The grammar is fine, but the sentences are not varied at all. Some expressions need serious work. The stories don’t shine as much as they could.

I can tell that making them shine will be hard work, taking me a lot of time and energy. I’m not sure whether to put in the time, but a part of me wants to. A part of me wants to see the stories shine.

I guess I could put them into an anthology of sorts. They’re not all about the same Loki. As a matter of fact, not two of them are about the same Loki. There’s only two that got more than one story and neither will be in this anthology, as I have different plans with “Swenson & Carter” and “The Loki Files” are already released.

I would, presumably, also have to leave out the three erotic stories, because that would make publishing the rest easier. Yet, I could edit them. I’ve also put together my erotica so far and will, at some point, probably edit that. The three stories from my Loki period can join the others.

The rest goes from light-hearted to more dramatic, but most are on the light-hearted side. As with “The Loki Files” starting off dramatic with “Heart of Ice”, but getting much more light-hearted later, I have mostly written fun stories. I’m not that much into melodramas.

 

A lot of hard work - that’s the point at which I’m a bit unsure. I will have to put more hours into copy editing with this one than I usually do these days. Every sentence will need tender loving care. It’s a challenge. I’m not a fan of editing at the best of times.

The stories deserve it - that’s the other point. I enjoy those stories, despite their age, can hardly fault them when it comes to content. They’re not written as well as I would write them these days, but that can be remedied. I want to see what they can be like.

 

What’s it going to be? An anthology with freshly edited stories? A consolidated file with all of the stories in one place, instead of having each of them, including the very short ones, as a file of its own? Will I publish them at some point (though certainly not this year)?

Currently, I can’t say. It’s an idea, but not something that needs deciding immediately. At some point, I will make the decision. I will at least consolidate them. I will edit them. I will judge them afterwards. Then, they might go into my Amazon and my D2D catalogue. Or they might just go onto my kindle as one file instead of several. I’ll see what happens.

 

Is there a lesson to this post? Yes. The lesson is not to underestimate what you’ve written at the beginning. Over time, you will get better at writing. You will get better with grammar. You will expand your vocabulary. It’s how things go. Your older works, the stories you wrote at the beginning, will show their weaknesses. But erasing weaknesses is what editing is for. Polishing is what you do when you edit. Look over your old stories and see what can and what needs to be done to make them better. Then do it, even if it’s long and hard work. In the end, it will be worth it.

Whodunit and Howcatchem

There are two types of murder mystery stories - the whodunit and the howcatchem. The whodunit is the more common one - the one where the audience can solve the crime side by side with the detective. The howcatchem is less common - here, the audience knows who did it from the beginning and is watching as the detective sets about gaining evidence and catching the culprit. As a commenter on this video about the TV series “Columbo” (one of the best howcatchems around) said: a whodunit is a puzzle game, a howcatchem is a game of chess.

Both of these mystery stories have a clear formula to follow and both are interesting to write. So let’s have a look at both of them and at a case I already mentioned (before learning the expression ‘howcatchem’) which combines both of them.

 

Let’s start with the more common one, the whodunit.

The first act of the whodunit gives the audience the basics they need to know. It’s where they meet the victim and the suspects, where the setting is described. It’s also where the murder happens. The first act usually ends with the arrival of the detective or, in cases where the detective arrived earlier, with the beginning of the investigation.

The second act is the puzzle game the commenter referred to. Through the eyes of the detective or someone close to the detective, the audience gets to gather information on the case. This is when interviews happen, officially or unofficially, when clues are found, when suspects are dropped as it turns out they don’t have motive, means, or opportunity (the culprit needs all three). The second act ends when the detective knows who did it and, ideally, has proof of that.

In the third and final act, the detective then solves the case officially, either simply by accusing or arresting the culprit or, more classic, through the ‘you might wonder why I’ve gathered you here’ scene. In that one, the detective gathers all suspects and then describes how the murder happened, one by one telling the suspects why they’re no longer under suspicion until only the culprit is left.

There are cases where the culprit can’t be arrested and will never be punished, but at least they have been caught - the rest is usually up to politics and suchlike.

 

Now, let’s look at the less common one, the howcatchem.

The first act of the howcatchem often starts with the murder itself. At any rate, it begins with the murder preparations. In most cases, the reason for the murder is established early as well, either before or during the act of murder. Again, the first act ends with the arrival of the detective or, in cases in which they were already present, with the beginning of the investigation.

The second act is what differs most from the whodunit. In the howcatchem, the detective either knows or suspects early on who the culprit is, but they need proof (most howcatchem have a professional detective). Therefore, the second act is the aforementioned game of chess. The detective investigates the culprit, trying to prove the alibi wrong, trying to connect the weapon to the culprit, doing all they can to gain evidence against the culprit. The culprit, on the other hand, does their best to stop the detective, laying out red herrings, going to the detective’s superior, buying false witnesses etc. Each tries to outwit the other one. The second act ends when the detective gains the final proof or the culprit manages to deflect suspicion for good.

The third act often includes a trap set for the culprit (if the detective wins) or shows the culprit triumph as they can walk away unhindered, because the detective can’t prove their deed or because they’re untouchable now.

It’s more common in the howcatchem for the culprit to get away (if they are sympathetic and had a good reason for the deed) than in the whodunit. Yet, usually the culprit is tricked into admitting to their deed or otherwise caught and then arrested.

 

Now for the case in between, the movie “Knives Out”.

“Knives Out” starts as a classic whodunit, setting the scene, presenting the victim and the suspects, creating a reason for the murder (as the victim wishes to change his last will to exclude the family). As the murder is happening, the story changes to a howcatchem in which we sympathise with the culprit (the nurse who accidentally injected the wrong dose of a drug the victim needs). As a matter of fact, even the victim sympathises with her - he comes up with a complicated plan to make it look like he was still alive when she left.

As the detective arrives and the second act begins, we are in definite howcatchem territory and see the nurse do all she can to erase the last evidence and keep ahead of the detective. This is when she has unexpected help from one of the victim’s grandsons. It’s also when we learn that the murder happened too late - the victim had already changed his last will and left everything to the nurse. The howcatchem swings back to the whodunit when the nurse acts differently than the actual culprit expects. When she find another employee who supposedly tried to blackmail her poisoned, she doesn’t run away, but calls the ambulance and the police. She’d rather be caught than let someone suffer and die. This is when we learn the detective knew she was there when the victim died - he noted blood on her shoe the first time they met. Yet, we also learn that she had nothing to do with the victim’s poisoning - she gave the right doses after the bottles had been knocked off the table earlier, she only thought she’d done it wrong because of wrong labels on the bottles. She is not the one who planned to kill the victim (who committed suicide rather than suffer the slow death through the drug overdose).

For the third act, the movie swings back to the classic whodunit. Who did exchange the labels, setting up a murder looking like an accident? The grandson did, then ‘helped’ the nurse to get her caught. He also hired the detective to then absolve him and pin it on the nurse and thought that he was still in for money, which he wasn’t. In the third act, the detective and the nurse manage to trick him into admitting it - since the victim committed suicide, he can’t be sentenced for the death. Yet, the employee who blackmailed him originally and whom he poisoned has died, despite the doctors’ best work, so he will go to jail for her death.

The movie is very interesting to watch because of the switches (and I’m absolutely up for a sequel), but this format would probably not work very often. As usually, the formulas work better when they’re pure and need to be fused carefully.

 

Now you know about the whodunit and the howcatchem and can use them, if you wish to. Both types of murder mysteries have their good and bad sides and both can be very entertaining. Learn from “Knives Out” as well - and not just when it’s about mystery stories. Sometimes, formulas can be merged successfully. It’s not something to do lightly, but it is possible.