Backstory: The Painless Murders · 7:27pm Dec 8th, 2021
In the story One of Us I introduce a private detective, Dark Steel, that Quicksilver and Misty hire to help them find Tinker Cob. He was a fun character, but didn't get nearly enough screen-time. So I decided to tell the story of the search for Tinker from his point-of-view. That story because Dark Steel and I talked about it's genesis in a previous blog: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/950516/backstory-dark-steel
The editing process for this story was less painful than typical. As it was finishing, I had the thought that it could be fun to write more stories using Dark Steel. About a week later my editor noted that the style of writing used seemed to work well for me and I should consider writing more stories using him.
So before Dark Steel even started publishing, I was working on a murder mystery. My original intent was a more traditional format, with lots of suspects all brought together at the end for the big reveal. But as I began to storyboard the ideas, it turned out to be more linear. There was no way to introduce a bunch of suspects that would be natural.
This story was totally unique in one other way. I've talked before about how many of my stories develop as I'm writing them. That is, I sort of let the story lead me where it wants to go. That wouldn't work here. I needed to have a clear idea of the entire story before I started or it would get lost. So before the first word was written, I outlined the entire story from murder to reveal noting every key point or clue I would need to hit as the story progressed.
And thus was the creation of: The Painless Murders.
Of course the editor objected to a few of the steps in my carefully made plan resulting in some pretty big changes in the final act. But overall the final story was more or less as I envisioned it.
And in anticipation of your next question: yes, there is a third story in the Dark Steel spin-off series all written and edited. The plan is to publish it in January '22.
