The Book of Masks Homepage

Seventeen-Hundred Words of Improvised Back Story

New commission/storyline starts:

Interactive: "A Kind of Professional Consultation" 
Public: "A Kind of Professional Consultation" 

This was a really hard chapter to write, and frankly I'm surprised I got it done in time to be published today. (But maybe, on reading it, you'll think it should have cooked longer.) Everything in it kind of surprised me.

Not until I sat down to actually write it did I realize the impersonation that was going to occur inside it. But given where the story has been commissioned to go, it was just obvious what had to be done first.

Then as soon as Will put that mask on, I had to find out for myself everything that would be inside it. So I spent a massive amount of time setting up a kind of thing that I've been tiptoeing around up until this point.

Even the revelation at the end of the chapter—which may seem too pat and coincidental—was a revelation to me. I already have a map of Saratoga Falls all made up, and many, many months ago, when Sydney first appeared, I started sketching in ley lines using suggestive-seeming landmarks around the city that could be used as anchor points.

And today, when I extended out those ley lines to see where else they would intersect, I discovered that one of the intersections was just north of—

But that would be a spoiler. Read the chapter to find out.