It started with an idea for a holiday story inspired by A Christmas Carol, where the Caffrey Conversation version of Peter would talk to the White Collar canon version of Peter. It turned into an opportunity to reflect on our role as writers.
The idea of Peter meeting his alternate self had been hanging about in my mind for a year or more. During that time, Silbrith introduced the idea of canon character Diana writing fan fiction as part of a plan to trap a bad guy who is obsessed with Neal and Peter. In fact, Silbrith has gone so far as to write and post “Diana’s” stories about White Collar characters living in a Cthulhu-inspired setting in the 1970s.
Writing about her friends, Diana has accumulated more editors than she could want, all with opinions about what their characters should do. The meetings with these editors, also known as the “Arkham Round Table” sessions, has brought out the authorial urge in all of them. In A Caffrey Christmas Carol, Neal describes them as rational people who suddenly get a crazed look in their eyes when they discuss writing.
Hard to tell if Silbrith and I get that same crazed look, since we generally hold our discussions by email. However, there are certainly times we sound crazed. (Note to self: ask Silbrith if her new washer did in fact open a wormhole as suspected…) I wrote that the members of the Round Table have little stuffed animals that are supposed to act as their muses. Yet another instance of transposing our own practices onto the characters.
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a ghost story, but as I was outlining my latest story I had the advantage of Alternate Universes, both as a scientific concept and as a fan fiction concept. Suppose the astrophysicist version of Mozzie in Silbrith's Arkham Files stories found a way to travel between AUs? That was the inspiration for how a group of characters from the Caffrey Conversation series could meet their counterparts in the Arkham Files of 1975 as well as interacting with the Neal and Peter of White Collar canon several years in their future.
Perhaps the most unexpected part of the story for me was the Round Table conversation about the role of authors. A science-fiction fan in the group suggested that when authors write a story, their initial ideas are the spark of a big bang which creates an Alternate Universe. Readers visit the universe, observing and perhaps even imagining interactions with the characters there, and in the end the experience remains in their memories as a shared dream with the characters and other readers. Authors are the ones with editorial powers, able to interrupt the narrative and make lasting changes.
Or was Mozzie right all along with his Unified Theory of Fiction, when he said the AUs exist already, waiting for the creative minds of authors to find them?
I used the character of Henry to represent the reader of a series or the fan of a TV show. He rails against the plot, insisting that the characters deserve better. He tries arguing for changes, asking others to help him in his efforts. It’s yet another aspect of the relationship between authors, characters and readers. Perhaps I’ll explore that in a future post.
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