Have a Whimsical New Year!

Writers can be odd creatures at times. Our minds drift from angst to whimsy, and our flights of fancy can be dizzying.

Recently, with the deaths of Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, George Michaels, and the year-end summaries reminding us of other beloved celebrities lost in 2016, things have been a bit sad. The best antidote I can offer going into the new year is a glimpse into the madcap minds of Penna & Silbrith.

Rarities in the Miskatonic Library Vault

For the significance of the library and the dark secrets its books contain, I was inspired by references made by other Cthulhu Mythos writers. When Lavinia alerts Neal to the dangers of books in The Locked Room, she has good reason for the warning.

Stargazing in Caffrey Conversation

We've sprinkled references to astronomy beginning with The Woman in Blue. My initial inspiration was the canon episode "Where There's a Will." In that story, some of the scenes were shot at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. The plot, which revolves around hidden coded messages, a sundial, and a sextant, not only gave me the idea to develop Peter's interest in astronomy for our series but it also sparked the creation of Azathoth. At one point, Neal refers to Peter's "astronomical puzzling expertise." From that one phrase popped out an entire hutch of plot bunnies.

Neal and the Unknown

How would you react if for no apparent reason you began to dream about worlds you'd never visited? What would you think if you alone could see creatures unlike anything you've ever heard of? That's the situation Neal has been grappling with in Arkham Files. He's narrowed down his choices to (1) he's hallucinating, (2) he's the victim of supernatural forces, or (3) he's somehow become able to perceive other worlds and extraterrestrial beings.

Echoes of The Woman in Blue

In Arkham Files: The Locked Room, Diana returns to the team's initial encounters with the unknown cybercriminal they dubbed Azathoth.

Neal and Peter and Regrets

Recently it hit me that a couple of classic holiday stories are about regrets. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey wishes his life had been different. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge has a chance to contemplate his life and wants to make changes.

Road trips with Peter and Neal

Shortly before the announcement that White Collar’s run was ending, there had been rumors about plotlines under consideration by the show’s creative team. One rumor mentioned Peter and Neal on a road trip. As much as I loved the show's use of the New York setting, there was so much possibility for the characters learning more about each on a visit to a new location. I regretted that a road trip episode didn't make it into the final season, and was inspired to send the duo on a few trips when I started writing about them.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

On Halloween, Penna forwarded me a tweet of a traditional Scottish prayer:

"From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!"

It was the perfect message for the day I posted the first chapter of Witches' Sabbath, and it also made me think about our characters' fear triggers.

The Hidden Power of Flowers

Neal avoids the use of firearms even though he's an expert marksman. Instead, he prefers the non-lethal weapons at his disposal—a glib tongue and lightning-quick reflexes. Criminals could view him as a lightweight, someone who can be easily intimidated. Compared with the arsenal Dean and Sam Winchester carry in their car trunk, Neal's defenses may seem no stronger than those of a flower. But the potential power of flowers shouldn't be dismissed.

Titian and Vampires

Witches' Sabbath is the second story in the Crossed Lines series—a fusion of Supernatural with Caffrey Conversation. The premise is about crossing lines or, as Egon in Ghostbusters would say, blending the streams. The process was started in the first story, Whispers of the Night, when I mashed the FBI world of Peter and Neal with the rogue warrior domain of the demon-hunting brothers Dean and Sam Winchester. In Witches Sabbath, Neal's home turf of art is added to the cauldron.

Caffrey Conversation Halloween Trivia Challenge

Welcome to the first Caffrey Conversation trivia challenge! Can you guess when these spooky events occurred and to whom? Click on the question to find out the answer. I've listed the stories in chronological order below to help refresh your memory. Good luck—let us know how you did!

Swordplay in Caffrey Conversation

The image of a swashbuckling Scarlet Pimpernel is very appealing to Neal Caffrey. The canon writers took advantage of the concept during the Season 2 episode "Point Blank" when Neal slashed a banner with a sword to swing off a balcony in an Errol Flynn maneuver. For someone who dreams of being a swashbuckler, fencing is the ideal sport, and the writers knew it. In the Season 3 episode "On Guard," Neal showed off his expertise with a foil when he fenced under his alias of Gary Rydell. We've maintained his skill in our series.

Unraveling Kate

The character Kate Moreau heavily influences Neal’s actions in the first two seasons of White Collar, and yet we see very little of her. She appears mostly in brief, cryptic moments and in Neal’s memories. While Neal is certain she’s on his side, Peter is equally certain that she’s using Neal. Neal’s memories of her raised as many questions for me as they provided answers. How was I to untangle the strings from the series for Caffrey Conversation?

Warning: spoilers for Caffrey Conversation stories and the first two seasons of White Collar. 

Neal and the Columbia University Tunnels

Columbia University has been much on my mind recently. In my current story Raphael's Dragon, Neal is about to finish his first year of grad school. Two years ago, on October 23, 2014, I posted Complications, the story that started Neal's adventure at Columbia. Complications was a first in a couple of respects. It was my first fanfic and it was Neal's first opportunity to correct a deficit in his resume, namely a lack of a degree. In canon, Neal ran away before graduating from high school. The only degrees he had were fake. That someone as brilliant as Neal didn't have any legitimate degrees was emblematic of the bittersweet nature of the series.

Building Blocks of Choirboy Caffrey

After I posted Caffrey Conversation, I still wasn’t thinking of it as the start of a series. However, I had one tiny idea I thought could follow that story, almost as an epilogue. Initially, Choirboy Caffrey consisted of only one or two scenes in my mind, simply showing Neal meeting with Ellen Parker at a concert in St. Louis to get the pager they discussed in the first story.

Game Theory, Caffrey Conversation Style

Board games are one of the many delightful White Collar canon themes we love to keep alive in our series. Mozzie continues to play Candy Land with June. He plans a con by using Monopoly. In the Caffrey Conversation AU, we've expanded the gaming concept to include not only board games but other types as well.

The Many Folds of Origami

Neal's connection to the art of paper-folding can be traced back to the flashback episode "Forging Bonds" where when he and Alex communicated via origami flowers. In "Bad Judgment," Kate left Neal an origami message in a bouquet of flowers at her father's grave. When Neal stole a painting in the first season episode "The Portrait," he replaced it with an origami butterfly.

Why Neal plays the Hospital Game

One of the recurring elements in the Caffrey Conversation AU is something I call the Hospital Game. As far as I know it’s original to our series, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that other stories have something similar. My version was inspired by a specific episode of White Collar, common themes of fan fiction, and my own experience. Each of those inspirations brought with it a reason that Neal plays the game. However, I wasn’t always consciously aware of those reasons, instead relying on an instinct of “that feels like something Neal would do.” Let’s take a walk down memory lane to explore why I had Neal play hide and seek when he’s in a hospital.

The Power of Two

If there's a magic number for White Collar, it has to be two. The series is based on the strong relationship between Neal and Peter. Almost as important is Neal's friendship with Mozzie. In canon, much of the tension arises from Neal being pulled back and forth between his two friends.

Neal’s first days on the job

At the end of my story Choirboy Caffrey and at the start of By the Book, Neal is making the adjustment to a job in what could be the ultimate bureaucracy: a government agency. It’s a big change from his prior experience. In many ways his adjustment to working for the FBI in our AU mirrors what we saw in canon, with the challenges of being accepted and trusted by his peers, but I threw in a few extra elements.

The Arkham Round Table

Penna and I often compare working on the Caffrey Conversation AU to the team experience of screenwriters on a TV series. Many times we feel as if the characters are participating in our conversations. With the Arkham Round Table, I've extended the concept to the story itself.

Happy 50th Anniversary to Star Trek!

As I wallow in a Star Trek marathon this weekend, I’m also pondering the White Collar canon and Caffrey Conversation AU connections to the series.

When You Have to Take Down a Friend

In Raphael's Dragon, I pay tribute to one of the classic canon scenes of White Collar. In "Countdown" (Season 3, Episode 10), Peter suspects Neal stole the U-boat treasure. He calls on his former mentor Phillip Kramer for help, and Kramer warns him how it will hurt to arrest Neal. He says that Peter won't be slapping handcuffs on a criminal but on a friend. In Kramer's view, it's only a matter of time till Neal returns to his old ways.

Neal’s milestones box

At the end of Caffrey Flashback, Neal receives an item left to him by Byron. It’s something Silbrith and I refer to as a milestones box. In our stories, Neal uses it to store mementoes of his successes or of significant moments in his life. In a reference back to canon, Neal uses origami to represent those milestones, and Silbrith has been collecting amazing examples of origami for her Pinterest boards.

When I wrote the chapter introducing that milestones box, I shared with Silbrith how it was based on something in my own life, and she encouraged me to explain its origins in my chapter notes. However, I never got around to describing those origins, partly because I wasn’t ready to share the story with a wider audience. But now I am.

The Dutchman and Goya: A Moment of Serendipity

Curtis Hagen is one of White Collar's main villains. His sardonic wit has made him a fan favorite. In our series, he makes his first appearance in The Dreamer. Since our stories are set pre-canon, Peter doesn't know the identity of the master art thief and forger whom he's dubbed the Dutchman. It was up to me to figure out a way for Neal to uncover his identity.

The fear of starting something new

From elementary school through high school, I was a good student. Yet every fall as the new school year loomed, I worried this would be the grade that got the best of me. Maybe it would be too hard this time, or I would forget how I’d managed to succeed so far. Now as I face the start of a new job, I feel that same concern. Even though the interviews went well and my experience and skills are a great match to the job description, doubt lingers: What if this time I can’t do it?

The same holds true with writing. I set progressively more challenging goals as I worked through the stories of the Caffrey Conversation, and at the start of each new story I wondered if this time I would fail.

Raphael's Dragon: The Secrets Neal Keeps

In Choirboy Caffrey, Penna references "The Gift of the Magi," a short story by O. Henry, to compare Neal and Peter's differing attitudes toward problem-solving. Neal believes the tale is a beautiful example of how a couple showed their love for each other through the sacrifices they made. Peter hates the story. He thinks the couple should have worked together to arrive at a solution. Peter makes the case that partners need to consult with each other. Neal protests that life isn't always that clear-cut. Peter says it is if Neal doesn't overcomplicate issues. But then Neal's life is all about complications, isn't it?

James Bennett: Can Neal’s father be redeemed? Should he?

The response to Silbrith’s post about bloodlines was fascinating. So far we haven’t done anything with the character of James Bennett other than reference what Neal and Ellen would have known pre-series in canon. What would happen if our versions of Neal and Peter investigated – and perhaps even met – James?

Bloodlines

"Could she here deny the story that is printed in her blood?" Leonato spoke those words about Hero in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, but he could have been speaking about the Winchester brothers or Neal Caffrey.

Caffrey Conversation meets Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I will struggle with character names. So when I started writing By the Book with its New Year’s Eve party scenes, I nearly despaired at the thought of naming a bunch of partygoers, much less remembering all of their names.

Dorky Dancing

Who doesn't like a little humor mixed in with the angst? The writers of both Supernatural and White Collar excel at using both. For this first story in the Crossed Lines series, I hoped to follow their example.

Neal Caffrey's Unusual Job Interview

Like the pilot episode of White Collar, the first story in our AU is about an extraordinary job interview. In canon, Neal is offered the chance to get out of prison and to consult for the FBI if he helps them catch a notorious criminal. In the story Caffrey Conversation, Neal’s help in catching a criminal inspires Peter to offer immunity and a job.

Crossing Lines

The worlds of White Collar and Supernatural are a universe apart. With rare exceptions, Neal and Peter's work for the FBI is centered around the five boroughs of New York City. Their investigations seldom deal with violent crimes. Neal may chafe at the restrictions but he's well aware that he must abide by the rules and regulations imposed by a massive bureaucracy. In contrast, violence and bloodshed are routine for Dean and Sam Winchester. They're road warriors in the literal sense of the word and cruise the country in their '67 Impala as they hunt supernatural foes. Dean and Sam act outside the law, adhering to their own sense of justice. They're suspected felons and generally have hostile relations with law enforcement agencies. Is there a way to mash these two worlds together?

Playfulness and Puppies amidst the Angst

There’s a moment in the pilot of White Collar where Peter grumbles that he should send Neal back to prison, but Neal, Elizabeth and Peter’s dog all look up at him with puppy-dog eyes and you know he wouldn’t really do something so mean.

Well, there’s also some fast talking from Neal involved, but it’s a turning point. Up to then we’ve seen the characters being serious and angsty and witty, but in this scene with Satchmo we witness a vibe that’s more sweet and playful. In writing about these characters, I’ve found it helpful – even necessary – to bring in that element to balance out the angst.

June Ellington: Sometimes Magic Happens

I fell in love with White Collar as soon as I saw the pilot. Not only was I thrilled to find a mystery series that didn’t revolve around murders, but the characters were also fascinating. Episodes featuring June Ellington were a special treat. She brings something magical to the stories.

Magic. Really? Let’s back up a few hours. I was drawing a blank on what topic to blog about today, and Silbrith mentioned that we hadn’t written about June yet. An hour later, Matt Bomer tweeted a birthday greeting to Diahann Carroll, the actress who portrays June. See? Magic.

The Plateau of Leng

Toward the end of Visions from Beyond, Neal visits the infamous Plateau of Leng, a creation of H.P. Lovecraft. The location appeared in many of his stories. In the novella At the Mountains of Madness, it was a region of Antarctica. Other stories placed it in Central Asia or in the Dreamlands, a region accessible only in sleep.

Secrets and Lies

In White Collar, the secrets and lies were sometimes fascinating, and sometimes frustrating. How many times did we want to yell at the screen that Peter and Neal should just talk to each other? How many times did Peter admonish Neal that keeping secrets hurt rather than helped, and then went home and kept secrets from El to protect her?

That’s what was in the back of my mind when I created a version of Neal who couldn’t lie to Peter.

The Church on Prospect Hill

In Chapter 5 of Arkham Files: Visions from Beyond, Diana uses an incident that occurred in The Mirror to provoke a response from Azathoth.

Fireworks and Romantic Sparks in Caffrey Conversation

The Fourth of July is around the corner, and many people will watch fireworks to celebrate. It brings to mind how we’ve used fireworks in our AU. They’ve appeared in their literal form as our characters attend fireworks shows, but have also appeared metaphorically to indicate sparks of romance.

Our younger version of Neal has many amazing skills, but doesn’t have a lot of romantic experience. After much fretting about where we wanted to take the romantic subplot – or if we even had the courage to attempt a romantic subplot – we kicked things off with a fireworks bang in Caffrey Disclosure.

Arkham Files: The Dynamic between Neal and Peter

In Arkham Files, Diana takes the relationship between Neal and Peter that she's familiar with at work and tweaks it. Her goal is a serious one. The cybercriminal Azathoth has made a series of threats against Neal and Peter. Diana volunteered to write stories as a device to provoke Azathoth out of hiding. When Agent Tricia Wiese, the FBI profiler assigned to the case, heard about them, she realized Diana's fics could also be used as a tool to positively influence Azathoth's behavior.

Music in Caffrey Conversation

It's no surprise the Caffrey Conversation AU is filled with songs, given how much Silbrith and I love music. But our use of music is more than an indulgence. We use it to define our settings, to describe and solve cases, and to reveal things about the characters. This post will cover a “greatest hits” of the music in the AU, tracing the original uses and hinting at what’s to come.

Dante "Mozzie" Atwood, Karl Jansky Professor of Astrophysics

When Mozzie designed his character for Arkham Files, he wasn't interested in a slight makeover. He demanded a transformation. An astrophysicist with the intelligence of Albert Einstein and the looks of Viggo Mortensen was the profile he presented to Diana. She compromised and gave him part of what he wanted.

The Challenge of Elizabeth Burke

It’s Father’s Day, so I’m writing about Elizabeth Burke. Odd choice? Perhaps. She did set up Neal’s first Father’s Day with Peter early in Caffrey Disclosure, so that’s part of my angle.

The strong marriage between El and Peter is an element I loved from White Collar and kept for my AU, but I soon hit the same challenge that plagued the show’s writers: How do you keep her relevant and involved in the stories without pulling silly stunts?

Elizabeth Wayland Burke

When White Collar agent Diana Berrigan transposed her colleagues and friends into Arkham Files, she made her boss, FBI agent Peter Burke, an acclaimed archaeologist. She could have left his wife Elizabeth's career alone. An event planner would have blended well into the setting, but Diana wasn't satisfied with the obvious choice. She has greater ambitions for Elizabeth.

Peter Burke: AU versus Canon

Through the six seasons of White Collar, Peter seems to morph in the hands of different writing teams. When I read WC fan fiction, often I can tell which version of Peter the author is embracing or reacting against. Someday I may write the story that sometimes swims into my mind featuring a brotherly relationship between Peter and Neal, but for the Caffrey Conversation AU, the father-figure version of Peter won out. Other than consistently feeling like a father toward Neal, how else does AU Peter differ from canon?

Arkham Files: A Leap Backward

The Caffrey Conversation series begins in fall 2003 and as of The Mirror, we've advanced to spring 2005. This week I posted the first chapter of Visions from Beyond, the first Arkham Files story. If you'd like to visit the world of Arkham Files, you'll need to reset your clocks.

Meredith Caffrey: Villain or Victim?

When White Collar was canceled, one of my regrets was that we wouldn’t get to meet Neal’s mother. If I could peek into Jeff Eastin’s mind, I’d certainly want to find out what he envisioned for her backstory. Without that resource available to me, I had to invent my own version, and that led to the character I named Meredith.

The Burke Family Cabin

Scouting locations for scenes in our stories has been unexpectedly fun. Early in the writing partnership with Silbrith, I described the need for a cabin in upstate New York, and she found the perfect spot. It’s a cabin owned by Peter’s relatives, and was introduced in Caffrey Flashback. As the characters prepared to leave the cabin, Neal echoed my wishes when he said he’d like to return someday.

Russia in Caffrey Conversation

White Collar bad guy Matthew Keller has a long history with the Russian mob. In the Season 1 episode "Bottlenecked," the mob was after Keller for failure to pay a debt. Later on, in the Season 2 episode "Payback," Keller attempted to escape from prison to avoid being transferred to Barksdale Supermax Prison where he feared the mob would exact its revenge. In the Season 3 episode "Checkmate," Keller regained the Russians' favor when he claimed to have stolen the U-boat treasure in order to return the priceless works to Russia.

Henry Winslow: Neal Caffrey’s Alternate Me

When I decided to turn the Caffrey Conversation into an AU series, I wanted to make my AU a little more upbeat than the TV show. For instance, I wanted Neal to have options beyond working for the FBI or going to prison. One way I accomplished that was giving Neal immunity for his crimes. Another was by giving him a friend who was neither FBI nor criminal: Henry Winslow.

Adventures in Collaborating: A Honey of an Idea

New readers to our series may be surprised by the references to Hawaii and honey. Can we blame them on Lolana?

Lolana was Mozzie's dashboard hula doll in the TV series. He claimed she could be from any tropical island Neal desired. Penna and I chose Hawaii, and Hawaii has been one of our most enjoyable collaborations to date. In fact, Hawaii was probably the first example of bunnyball, our name for the game where we toss plot bunnies back and forth and watch them grow.

Robert Winslow: The Villain Who Snuck up on Me

Writing villains is hard for me. In fact, you could argue the story Choirboy Caffrey doesn’t have a villain at all, and the bad guys in By the Book are just case-of-week variety criminals. However, I knew that White Collar has a tradition of recurring villains we loved to hate, like Fowler, Adler, Keller and Kramer. How could I live up to that? It was a particularly difficult challenge for me.

When an Original Character Talks Back

Last week Penna wrote about some of our experiences in sharing original characters for our series. Readers frequently write Penna to praise her original characters. It's such a compliment and richly deserved. Most readers of fanfiction already have strong feelings about canon characters. Creating equally strong emotions for new characters is quite a challenge. But Penna succeeds in crafting such complex and vivid personalities that they've been readily embraced. She recently received a high tribute when a reader wrote that Henry seemed so real, she had a hard time believing he hadn't been part of the canon episodes.

Turning Daydreams into the Caffrey Conversation stories

Some aspects of the Caffrey Conversation AU existed in my mind long before I started writing the stories. One of those elements was Neal and Henry's band: Urban Legend. As I listened to songs, I'd imagine Neal and Henry performing, pondering who would perform which parts. I even went so far as to create an Urban Legend playlist. As Angela became more real to me, I added songs for a female voice to the playlist. (Definitely a Mom thing. She liked to see that women got a fair shot, whether in music or Top Chef or anything else. So Urban Legend needs a female member, the White Collar team needs Tricia, etc.)

A Klingon, a Vulcan, and a Viking Walk into a Bar

In her April post about why she loves loopy Neal, Penna explored some of the many uses she's made of a loopy Neal. We've both found loopiness a handy tool to bring buried emotions to the forefront, set a mood, provide revelations, or simply add a little lightheartedness to a tense situation.

Writing as Therapy: Origins of the Caffrey Conversation AU

The first story in the Caffrey Conversation series took me through a wide array of emotions. I started writing it six months after Mom’s mastectomy; the doctors said she was doing great and they’d found no more signs of cancer, and we were ecstatic. Three months later I was almost done writing the story, and we learned the cancer had spread to her brain and she had only weeks to live.

Sharing an OC: For the Birds

When Silbrith told me that one of her favorite of my OCs (Original Characters) is Agent Tricia Wiese, I was surprised. Tricia started out mostly as a placeholder; I felt the White Collar team needed a female agent so it wouldn’t be an all-male team until canon character Diana joined them. I fully expected Tricia to fade away once Diana arrived.

Second Chances

Penna and I are firm believers in second chances.

In the first story of the series, Caffrey Conversation, Peter gives the Neal the opportunity to turn his life around when he offers him a job with the FBI. In subsequent stories, Penna allows Neal to experience the love of a family after an isolated and difficult childhood. Neal dropped out of high school before graduating, but in our AU, he succeeded in being admitted to the graduate program at Columbia University.

I Love Loopy Neal

Neal Caffrey can be an intimidating character. He’s so handsome, so skilled at so many things… I fear if I met him, he’d be unimpressed and quickly bored.

Loopy Neal, on the other hand, I might be able to keep up with. That singing, earnest version of Neal introduced in the episode “Vital Signs” was a gift for fans, and for fanfic writers.

Backstage at Arkham Files

When Diana decided to write fanfiction to help expose Azathoth, a maniacal cybercriminal with a penchant for the world created by H.P. Lovecraft, she didn't know what she was in for.

Mozzie and Peter: Finding Common Ground

Silbrith's recent post about Mozzie inspired me to think about the interactions between that "imp" nicknamed Dante and FBI agent Peter Burke.

An Imp on His Shoulder

Oh, Mozzie! Such a gift the creative minds behind White Collar gave us when they created him. Whether he's devising a con, obsessing about his latest conspiracy theory, unraveling an abstruse code, or misquoting one of the greats, Mozzie is an imaginative genius. In Chapter 9 of The Mirror, he has the opportunity to display his mastery of yet another skill when he assumes the role of a birdwatcher. Speaking from personal knowledge, I can testify to many birders also being known for their obsessive behavior. It's no wonder that Mozzie excels at it.

Playing Hide and Seek in the Caffrey Conversation AU

It’s Easter, which means I’m seeing many references to the tradition of hiding eggs for children to seek out. And that reminds me of how the game of hide and seek has become a recurring theme in our Caffrey Conversation AU.

A Flip of the Canvas

"Why would you forge an artwork?"

That is the question Elizabeth Burke asks Neal Caffrey in Penna's story By the Book. It's a natural question. Neal is a gifted artist. What caused him to use his talent to imitate others? The conversation that follows between Neal, Elizabeth, and Peter reveals not only why he chose that path but how he developed his skill.

Happy Birthday to Neal Caffrey!

In White Collar, Neal Caffrey told Peter Burke that his birthday is March 21, and if you follow the White Collar Closure twitter account you’ve seen they are gathering signatures for Neal’s birthday card.

(Warning for spoilers for several of our Caffrey Conversation stories.)

I gave Neal a surprise birthday party near the end of my story Caffrey Flashback, where Neal and friends and family sing and dance and eat a great meal and swap stories. Thinking back to that chapter, I’m reminded of the differences between canon Neal and the version of him in our AU.

A Tale of Two Saras

In the TV show White Collar, the relationship between Sara Ellis and Neal Caffrey ia one of the most complicated of the series. Sara's an insurance investigator who found herself attracted to Neal even when she was at odds with him. At times, she protected Neal, but in other instances she sought to have him arrested.

Baby Bear: When Characters Talk to Writers

Often Silbrith and I describe our characters as talking to us, demanding that their stories be told. My favorite example of a character talking to me was Baby Bear.

(Warning: mild spoilers for Woman in Blue and Caffrey Aloha.)

The Baby Bear joke originated in late 2014, when Silbrith sent me the final chapters of her Woman in Blue for edits. There’s a scene where Peter and Neal are stargazing, and Peter points out constellations that he identifies with himself and Elizabeth. Hers is Ursa Major (Mama Bear), and Neal tells Peter he refuses to be Ursa Minor. But alas, poor Neal, once that idea was in my mind it wouldn’t let go. I’d just started writing Caffrey Disclosure, and in the second chapter I decided to reveal that when Neal was a baby, his grandmother called him Baby Bear because of the way he growled when he was unhappy.

Raquel LaRoque

In writing The Mirror, I drew inspiration from the White Collar season three episode "On the Fence" which also featured Ancient Egyptian artifacts. A key character in that episode was Raquel LaRoque, played by Eliza Dushku, and I've included her in my story as well.

Caffrey Conversation Background

Today I’m starting the outline for my next project, after taking a brief break from writing – although I spent quite a bit of time in research and upgrading my hardware and software in anticipation of the new project. In other words, it didn’t always feel like a break…

I suppose it isn’t surprising that I’ve been thinking back to prior writing projects, pondering what made them fail or succeed, in the hopes that I’ll go in the right direction this time. The Caffrey Conversation series is absolutely something I think of as a success, and here are some things that I think helped me get off on the right foot with the initial story.

The Campbell Apartment

The Campbell Apartment, one of New York City's most famous bars, is the setting for Neal's meeting with Matthew Keller in Chapter 5 of The Mirror. Neal mentions the bar as being a favorite of his former boss, Vincent Adler. Vincent Adler, the corrupt CEO of a hedge fund, and Matthew Keller, a thief, were the two principal villains in the TV show White Collar. Their storylines didn't cross in canon, but in The Mirror Peter is suspicious of a connection. Later events in the story will determine whether or not he's right.

Origins of Neal Caffrey's Grandparents

In the Caffrey Conversation series I created an extended family for Neal. The first of these characters who popped into my mind was his grandfather, retired ambassador Edmund Caffrey.

Kate's Story

In White Collar, Kate Moreau played a pivotal role even though she was in only a limited number of episodes. Neal fell in love with her when he worked for Vincent Adler under the alias of Nick Halden and she was Adler's assistant. Both Neal and Kate were burned by Adler's Ponzi scheme. In the aftermath, she and Neal remained close until he tried to con her. Once Neal was arrested, her feelings toward him were rekindled. So how does Kate differ in our series?

Collaborating on a series

Working with Silbrith on the Caffrey Conversation series is unlike any writing project I’ve ever tried or imagined. Recently she asked if I know of any similar examples of writers collaborating in the same way. At first I went blank, and then realized that writing for a television series is the best model for what we’ve been doing.

Where the Conversation is Now: Partnership

I’m a fan of author Jayne Ann Krentz – especially her work under the pseudonym Jayne Castle – and I’ve often envied her friendship with other writers. I’ve wondered how they met and if what they have is something I could achieve.

Writing is generally a solitary endeavor. It doesn’t feel lonely, as I’m spending quality time with fascinating characters when I write, but on returning to the real world it’s great to have a friend who gets it. It’s also rare, at least in my experience. So I’m frequently amazed that I lucked into a writing collaborator and friend in Silbrith.

Love Letters from a Pharaoh

The romance between the boy king Tutankhamun and his queen Ankhesenamun is the subject of the exhibition Love Letters from a Pharaoh in my latest story, The Mirror. The objects on display at the exhibition are described in Chapter 3. They are all genuine artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun with the exception of the mirror, which I invented. The mirror's description is based on a mirror from the same Eighteenth Dynasty.

Keeping the Conversation Alive

When Penna offered to be my writing mentor, I was staggered by her generosity. It was the chance of a lifetime that I'd be a fool to pass up. But having a grasshopper clinging to your coattails can be seriously annoying. The constant scraping of wings. The pleas for help. The wails of anguish. Speaking as a grasshopper who has developed angsting into a new art form, my greatest fear was that I'd drive her away.

Braque's Violin and Candlestick

In Chapter 2 of The Mirror, Neal receives a call from Chantal in Paris about a painting he and Klaus Mansfeld stole three years ago. That painting is Violin and Candlestick by Georges Braque. The work, painted in 1910, is considered to be one of Braque's masterpieces and a definitive example of Analytic Cubism. Some of the objects are recognizable, but the composition is fractured into facets with different planes and perspectives. This creates a sense of movement to the piece. Braque, a musician as well as an artist, often incorporated music instruments such as the violin, mandola, piano, and guitar into his paintings. He once remarked, "The distinctive feature of the musical instrument as an object is that it comes alive to the touch." It's speculated that by including music instruments in his works he aimed to inject that same animation into his paintings.

Where the Conversation Went Next: Mentoring

A few weeks after Silbrith volunteered to act as my editor, she mentioned writing missing scenes for one of my stories. I was filled with curiosity and convinced her to send me one of those scenes. What I remember most about the one she sent was the sense of place it had – Silbrith used to live in NYC and that fact was apparent from her evocative descriptions. She brought back memories of my last trip to New York and made me want to return.

Of course I had to encourage her to keep writing.

Where the Conversation Started: Editor/Beta

This month we hit the two-year anniversary of when Silbrith reached out with an offer to act as my editor. It seems like a great time to reflect on how our conversation started and how it evolved.

Hugs for Writers

All writers need a little encouragement from time to time. Perhaps you crashed into a writing wall or your muse wandered off, abandoning you with an incomplete chapter. Penna and I have been sharing images to help each other recover from writer's blues. We know many of our readers are writers too and we decided to make a new board for our pins on the Caffrey Conversation Pinterest site. It's for the moments when your character sulks in a corner and refuses to talk to you or when the plot you've been carefully constructing for months implodes from a gaping plot hole in its center. Whenever you need a pick-me-up, we hope Hugs for Writers will help.

How Silbrith got into fanfiction

Without fanfiction and Penna's encouragement, I would have been like so many others—spinning stories in my head but never taking the time to write them down.

How Penna got into fanfiction

I tend to go through phases in my reading habits. For several months I'll devour mysteries, and then it will be on to science fiction, or fantasy, or romance, etc. In the summer of 2012 my mother told me she had breast cancer and asked if I would travel to where she lived to be with her for the mastectomy. I wanted something different to read during the travel and the wait in the hospital. There'd been a lot of press about fanfiction recently, and I decided to explore that. White Collar was one of my favorite TV shows, so I selected it as my starting point, and downloaded several stories to read during the trip.