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.