h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Talk about Lee here, yeah?

Arr.

What angle are you looking for, wonum?

Sorry about that. The Weddell turned up demanding attention, just because she'd driven from Glasgow. Some people, really...

Anyway, the angle is indeed the question. You read the stuff, right? Maybe you knew the story anyway.

The first big decision is whether this is about the crime or the punishment. Are we as interested in events at The Glen as events at Exeter Prison? Do we think Lee was guilty of murder, or merely an accessory? Do we need to explore motives, and if so, what are they? Do we believe the hypothesis behind the link?

After that the scope could be :
- just the (non)execution, with minimal reference to events before and after
- factual account of the murder too
- whole life story too
- speculative account of the murder too (the whodunnit)

The style could be :
- straight EG
- story-told
- montage of styles

The context could be :
- human story (what it felt like to be Lee, and/or Berry)
- historical (Victorian morality, scaffold engineering etc)
- modern with echoes (the place now, Fairports etc)

Now, I'll say this once, and then it's back to normal insults, OK?
I was hoping that either of two people would volunteer, and one has. Since it's you, I'm not necessarily committed to getting this in the Edited Guide. If you'd rather free-write, I'll go with that. I think I'll learn more by trying to adapt my writing to your concept of the message and shape, so I don't plan to direct this. I'm counting on you for that.

What do you want to do? Keep it tight, or write it large? Go with a clear structure, or throw in snatches? Do you want a really good EG-Entry, a really good EG-challenge, or a really good UnderGuide candidate?

It's a hell of a good tale, though, isn't it?

Pin

Go large and free, definitely.

We could start at the Crime Scene, next day 15th Nov 1884, and spin that bit out like Micky Spillane's Mike Hammer (got any Raymond Chandler you could browse through? Broads, dames, stoolpigeons, stooges, patsies ...)

Yeah, or not?

We'll make the rest up as we go along.

Flashbacks to the murder, we could spruce up the witnesses statements, fast forward to the trial and execution. I've done time on Portland too.

Sounds good - just what I hoped you say.

Chandler? Well, different. Not something I'd have thought of. 'Lady in the Lake' duly located on the bookshelf. It's a difficult style to parody (I've tried before). It's very pared down, no fat, every word evocative. If you only get close, you sound like a Bogart impression.

I think the style could get tiresome if used throughout a long piece (just a suggestion; you're the boss). Could work in a first scene and in sparing crime-scene revisits - provided it's done well. Need to be careful of distractions. Remember we have an exhilirating plot that will really run its leash if we let it.

I've not really read Spillane. He got on my 2nd Division list, writers who follow someone else's road not nearly so well. Not sure if it's deserved; it isn't always, judging by later-life revisits to Sharpe-who-isn't-Amis, Lodge-who-isn't-Bradbury, etc...

I'm off-topic, aren't I? And I need to go, or I won't be in time to be characteristically late.

I''ll start writing snatches now, but it'll be pretty random. You're editor, OK? How do you want them sending?

I'm a bit distracted right now ... got a job offer on a different continent this morning ...

Do you have a preferred time scale for this, or can you live with long-term development?

T

You mean I have a choice?

I'll just start writing, see what happens.

Hope it's a nice continent. Still, it must be, relatively speaking.

You can go full pelt if you like, but I'll necessarily fall by the wayside.

The continent is upside down but not polar ... cobbah.

In the meantime ... do you need my e-dress?

Vic again? Even if not, one of the better continents. The only thing that's really wrong with Australia is that guy they made half a million of, for some reason. They would have to pick the one who's a complete a*sehole to clone.

(Do we have to asterisk that word, do you reckon? Though it looks quite apposite, with a neat little puckered sphincter in the middle. What's the visual equivalent of onomatopoeia? Stop it, Pin, you're rambling again)

I wrote a few bits. They were OK, but samey. Trouble is, if I write Lee, it'll be like other stuff I've written, and that's not much use to anyone. So I think I'll wait.

I wish there was more going on though. Hootoo seems to get slower and slower. Maybe I'm prone to this kind of thing. My music tastes sort of froze in time after about three years of being seriously interested. I've a nasty feeling my tastes in Researchers are exhibiting a similar tendency.

So, just how long to you plan to be completely useless to me?
Are you thinking about reclaiming your bus (just waiting on Waz, maybe?) or is that too much like an old road?

Bet you didn't predict the Euro 2004 final. I heard today about a Greek guy I know a little, whose mates talked him out of wasting a tenner on them to win. Good job he's even shorter than me, else they'd be in hiding.

Pin (apparently unable to stick to the point tonight)

Sorry. Had a day in the hospital, overseeing parr-Trout adenoid removal. Plenty of time to think about genres and approaches though. I'll list them and you can tick/cross each idea.

Will get on bus. Just wondering whether to launch straight into inspection of inflated rubber objects or whether to be a bit less predictable.

Vic no. Qld yes.

I'm supposing that we're adopting a freestyle approach to this, with little or no effort to maintain viewpoint, style or genre, indeed with deliberate effort to vary it as much as possible. This may result in a complete dog's breakfast, but it'll be a whole lot more satisfying than wholesale regurgitation of the facts, and hopefully more fun than trying (vainly probably) to approach the full gamut from a single angle. In addition I suggest we try to extend to include the whole John Lee story, from conception to coffin, although with obvious extended interest in the murder, trial and attempted execution.

Here're some brainstormed ideas:

1) Conventional: The failure of the execution to be a success is often blamed on the weather, the wooden trap having swollen to become stuck in its frame. Thus, we need to build a picture of Dickensian Exeter, if such a place would exist ... dark, drab, skies fit to burst, steam and stench, soot sodden, the shrillness of train whistles and the clickety-clack of iron on cobble. Post industrial revolution urban gothic. You're still clog-wearing living it up there among the seven hills aren't you?

2) Conventional: Let's suppose the execution was at dawn, or 8am or thereabouts, with all the pre-dawn preparation. It's February in a smog-bound northern hemisphere city; winter, so the night-day interface would be interminable (aren't they?). Objective could be to juxtaposition this and the execution, contrasting daybreak with the speed of the intended drop and the consequent snap of Lee's neck. This could include some execution trivia if you fancy.

3) Unconventional: I am toying with the idea of contemporising the views of hangman James Berry, with quirky soundbites from a homely couch-based interview. "No-one remembers the scorers, only those that missed ... Pearce, Waddle, Southgate, Batty ...". Think in terms of David and Posh, after missing three in a row. Hanging's a penalty, literally and metaphorically.

Berry: "You really should't miss, but if you do, you get immortalised."
Wife: "Yeah, immortalised. Forever."

4) The murder scene, we've already touched on, but I think we should pursue it. Alternatively, how does making P.C. George Rounsfell into a flawed/failed Sherlock Holmes sound?

5) Who did dunnit? It would have been a peculiarly awkward suicide. Veil the sex between (we suppose) Templar and Elizabeth Harris in victorian symbolism. The actual murder we could write as Gothic Horror. I thought that Emma Keyes herself could be Jeckyll/Hyde in nature, conversely puritanical prim and proper, but dark and malevolent when the moon is full. Maybe she attacked the lovers in the pantry? Her character isn't really revealed in what we have, so why shouldn't we make it up?

That's as far as I've got.

... "You're hear (sic) to learn, aren't you? To improve yourself."

How uncharacteristically imperfect.

Waht are yuo anyawy? Soem knid of perefctionits?

Nip

OK, comments on the ideas you posted.

<>
With this story, I disagree. I think this needs planning, and a sparse style.

<>
OK, except I don’t think there’s anything really worth telling after 1907.

Re your brainstormed ideas :

1 + some of 2) Dawn in a drab Exeter – yes, good. And I think it should be echoed by dawn at the gates of Portland prison in 1907 to end the piece.

2) Juxtaposing slow daylight with fast drop – Hmmm. Changes of pace will be effective here, but now we’re onto this general idea, a much more effective device would be the slowing of time when the hood’s over Lee’s head. If your suggestion amounts to “time goes slow whenever you can’t see”, then I agree – denial of sight can be invoked as a device repeatedly (darkness, smoke, blindfolds) and a slowing of time would make a strong metaphor.
<> We’ll need some – see later below.

3) Berry and his Missus as Becks and Posh. Now, what do I say to this one?
OK, I’ve decided to be frank. It’s a terrible idea and we mustn’t touch it with a bargepole.
…Yes, I know you have a reputation for getting away with grossly inappropriate skits, but it just won’t work in this context. This story is dark and serious. Moreover, it’s not well enough known to weave “in” jokes around.
If it’s any consolation, we should write something deeply unseemly together, and I’d love to do it – but not this time. (How about Death-of-Diana as a future one to think about? That’s the kind of subject where a tangential and tasteless treatment might respectively delight and disgust all the right people. But Lee simply isn’t one)

4) Rounsfell as Holmes.
Not keen on this either. Rounsfell was only one of many flunkies who trawled the Glen for evidence, and his actual testimony was brief and conventional. We can get changes of mood and voice and still keep this straight. Cleverness among the different facets will just be a distraction.

5) <>
Same point as before. Parsimony is as important a principle in writing as it is in science. Don’t make up what you don’t need to. The essence of this tale is a powerful and strange story. Powerful enough to benefit from understatement rather than flamboyance in its telling. Strange enough to need a lucid narrator.
Suicide? And Miss Keyse as something other than god-fearing, kindly and frail? Doesn’t wash in either case.

OK? Yes, I know I said you were in charge. But now that I’ve started to think about it, I can see how this might be told. And I’ve done enough overwritten and florid stuff for a while. I want to do something taut and unsettling.

This is my idea of a scene-by-scene structure. Let me know what you think (I know you will – and probably just as rudely as I’ve been) :

- Exeter Dawn, morning of the (so far unmentioned) execution. Dingy and drab as you suggested : leading into the last use of the local scaffold, subsequently rebuilt in the gaolyard.
- Lee’s early life (birth to employment at the Glen)
- Modern scene at the site of the former house : car-park and tea-room [I already wrote one version of this part]
- Miss Keyse admonishes Lee for theft, and docks his wages
- History of trap scaffold development, including Berry’s contribution (drop tables)
- The old maid on the stairs. Events around the fire, prior to the discovery of the body.
- Berry’s arrival in Exeter the day before the execution, and his inspection of the scaffold.
- Lee wakes on the morning of the execution, and the procession to the scaffold [I already wrote one version of this part too. It has strong allusions to Fairport’s ‘Hanging Song’ (though I don’t think we need otherwise mention that treatment)]
- 5 am at the crime scene – told in the form of a police report
- On the scaffold, stopping at the moment of the drawing of the lever for the first time. [I already wrote one version of part of this – Lee’s visions inside the hood. Though very imperfect as yet, I feel compelled to get this right and include it]
- The case against Lee (prosecution’s version of events as presented at the trial). Also alludes to the ineffectual (first) defence counsel, later to be revealed as Templer.
- The first trap failure, confusion, and the first repairs, as observed by Lee.
- First introduction of inconsistencies in the murder account : the Cook and the Gentleman, and the making of the plan to hold the party below stairs, some days before the murder.
- Lee is brought to the scaffold for the second time.
- Miss Keyse confronts the four revellers, and becomes enraged. The scene becomes more and more heated, and the action is cut just before the fatal blow is struck.
- The second trap failure. Berry’s thoughts. Further attempts to fix the mechanism.
- Templer’s graveside. Templer’s father’s account identifies the “gentleman”, and hints that the ruling classes know that the murder was not as straightforward as the verdict made it.
- Lee is brought to the scaffold for the final time
- Back on the night of the killing, Lee takes charge at the death scene. Misguided attempts to fabricate a burglary.
- The final trap failure. The surgeon and the priest take charge of Lee.
- The Home Office, a junior Minister and the Home Secretary (after the meeting with the Exeter magistrate – who is already on his way back with the Commution order). Allusion to the inevitable future appeals, and to the fact that HMG already knows that Lee was not wholly or even mainly culpable.
- Berry fails to eat his dinner on the evening of the failed execution. Allusion to his later rejection of capital punishment.
- 1907. Dawn at the gates of Portland prison

Questions :
1. Which version of the 2nd account should be told? (ie was Lee an unwitting patsy, totally set up – or was he a willing accomplice?) Would the plot still work if this was left unclear? What facts support the interpretation chosen (if either)?
2. How much weight should be given to Lee’s protestations of innocence?
3. How much weight should be given to Lee’s faith?
4. Did Berry take a bribe, and how should we approach that possibility?
5. Is an explanation for the trap failure needed?
6. Is the omission of anything about Lee’s later life valid?

Finished?

Hardly started.
Wassup? I thought you wanted me to be characteristically perfect again

Post 12: "So, just how long to you plan to be completely useless to me?"

A bit longer on the evidence presented thus far.