Treats from the Chocolate Box

At last, the Chocolate Box exchange authors have been revealed, and I can share the stories I've written for this year's event.

This year my assignment was to write a story for a Star Trek fan. I'd offered to write a story for the original series (TOS), but after reading my assignee's prompts, I was drawn to an idea for the alternate series (AOS) based on the recent movies. In the end I wrote one of each.

"The Late Ambassador Spock" is set right after the Star Trek Beyond movie, with Spock grieving and McCoy fretting. Silbrith, who bravely edited all of these stories, helped tremendously as I tried to balance the voice and humor of these characters' interactions from the movie with the seriousness of the situation.

"Foibles" is a TOS story with Kirk, McCoy, and Spock teasing one another over dinner. This is a shorter story, and that's part of my approach to the Chocolate Box exchange. I love writing lots of treats for many participants, and that means I need to overcome my natural inclination to plot out loooong stories.

I indulged in one story in the "Original Works" fandom. I'd nominated the category of "Author & Plot Bunny" and thankfully one participant requested it. Three of us were inspired to gift her stories or art for that prompt. Mine is about an author whose plot bunny turns out to be a wild hare. Feedback on "Becoming a Plot Bunny" is that the story was sweet and a little sad. I included a penguin reference in the story; that's a tip of the hat to Silbrith, who designated 2019 the Year of the Penguin. The more penguins we can include in stories or in our conversations, the better.

For the first time, I received a second assignment partway through the exchange. If writers default on their assignments, other writers can pick up the assignment. I volunteered twice, and was selected once, resulting in "The Professor Proton Resonance." My assignment was a crossover between Stargate: Atlantis and The Big Bang Theory where the assignee wanted Rodney McKay and Sheldon Cooper to be featured. Having written two Star Trek stories, my first challenge was to make sure I was writing McKay and not McCoy. It was a fun prompt, and I decided these two characters should annoy each other at first, and then bond over their love of Professor Proton, a character portrayed by Bob Newhart on The Big Bang Theory. They also mentioned Bill Nye the Science Guy, who guest-starred as himself on both shows.

And that brings us to "I Dream of Janet." This marks the third year in a row that I've written at least one story in The Good Place fandom. Bill Nye snuck into my mind again, this time because both Michael and the Science Guy wear bowties. The prompt for this story was the friendship between Janet and Michael. They are two weird and wonderful characters who have fun conversation about costumes and games. I set the story early in season 2, when Michael is beginning his transition from villain to hero.

Penguins appear again in my next story, "Bah, Humboldt." This one was inspired by a request for a Psych and White Collar crossover. Shawn of Psych and Neal of White Collar have similar backgrounds (their fathers were cops, they each ran away at the age of 18) and it's natural for fans to wonder if they ran into each other during the escapades of their late teens and early twenties. Both shows gave only tantalizing glimpses of what they were up to at that age.

I decided that one of Shawn's ~100 jobs was feeding animals at a zoo, giving me the opportunity to create the character of Pilar the penguin. That's where Neal and Shawn first meet, and I gave Shawn an opportunity to practice his fake psychic role in 2003. Then we fast forward to 2009; the White Collar pilot aired about a week after Psych's popular "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark" episode. I imagined that Shawn's father insisted Shawn take time to recover, resulting in a trip to New York that coincides with Neal's escape from prison. This is a story I'd like to return to again, filling in the blanks of the conversation I didn't show between Shawn and Peter.

That story put me into a White Collar mood, and so I wrote "Shoe Size" set in season 1. In the pilot episode, Neal commented that when Peter was chasing him, the agent studied him so carefully that Peter probably knew his shoe size. That comes in handy in my short little story set in the winter. Interesting side note: I haven't come across any images of Peter and Neal in the snow. Did we really have no winter weather episodes in all 6 seasons?

Last, but not least, a prompt for Jane Austen's Emma inspired me to write "To Be Fond of Dancing." Emulating the voice of one of my favorite authors was both daunting and enjoyable. This was the first time I'd given serious thought to pairing Emma with a character other than Mr. Knightley, and it helped me look at the novel with fresh eyes. In the story, the young ladies of the community gather to practice their steps ahead of a dance, and we learn that Jane is in love with Emma. I was moved by the comments on this story on AO3, and how the readers appreciated the hopefulness of it.

Across all of the stories, the most common descriptions in the comments seemed to be: fun, adorable, sweet, and hopeful. That pleases me so much, as those are all things I want to give readers.

I had a blast revisiting fandoms I've written in before, and also branching into new fandoms. Reading stories by other participants has helped me discover more authors I want to follow. It's been a marvelous experience, and I'm looking forward to joining the exchange again next year.

Here's the page with links to my Chocolate Box stories.