Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Deleted from Vicesteed, ch. 30

Old chapter wordcount: 8,871
New chapter wordcount: 6,366
Vicesteed Draft 1 wordcount: 207,877
Vicesteed Draft 2 current wordcount: 137,860
Notes: Mostly taking out some unnecessary ruminations and a descriptions of The Juicy Plum. The latter made me a bit sad. Ah, well.
Reason for deleting scene: The searching and ruminating and revelations? Can get boring. Sometimes telling (in one sentence) instead of showing (in three pages) is the way to go. Trust me, there's still plenty left.

Which deleted scene is it anyway?

What would his motive be? None of the testimony that he'd heard pointed towards the valet having a grudge against his master, and beyond that, Johnson did not seem to be a man who could be held in the grasp of passion. No. Johnson had been working for someone else, and with him gone, the best chance Quincy had of tracing that connection was here, if only he could find it.

The desk that Quincy sat at had been spared ornamentation that might have concealed a secret compartment, but he tapped the surfaces to make sure that there were no hollow chambers. He pulled open the drawers: one was devoted to prescription pads, one held the tools of regular correspondence, and one was locked.

His hopes soared. From his investigation bag, he removed a thin-bladed knife that he used to jigger open the lock. His eyes were dazzled by a treasure trove of glistening color. He blinked, and the colors resolved themselves into row upon row of glass jars containing a rainbow of lozenges and syrups. There were no mysterious white powders among them, but Quincy took samples of each pill for analysis, in hope that his chemist could confirm that they contained the same materials. However, even that confirmation would not help Quincy to find out who Johnson answered to.

When all else fails, resort to the old bag of tricks.
Though he had slight hopes for it, Quincy removed the stationary pad from the desk drawer, extracted a thick lead pencil from his bag, and began delicately shading over the top sheet. The imprints leapt out at him.

Per your request...powder tested on client. Result satisfactory, and client requested...no averse side-.... Everything that could be wanted to persuade...will hand over to J prior to treatment...your discretion. ...will be ours.

With every word that was revealed, Quincy's hopes grew. There was another individual involved; one who had authority over both the Juicy Plum's physician and J, which must refer to Johnson. The powder used on the Prince had been tested here to make sure that it would not harm him. Again, everything pointed to the unintentional death of the Prince. They had been planning something larger and less simple, Quincy thought: to suborn instead of to kill. His conversation with Mrs. Crinoline had revealed the Prince's weak spot, and although he was not sure yet how they'd planned to take advantage of it, he was convinced that it had been crucial. That scrawled "will be ours" made him believe that they intended to have a puppet Prince. He tried to remember how addictive the chemist had said the powder was, but he didn't think that the chemist had spoken of that at all.

He stared at the partially-reconstructed note for a long time before tucking it into an envelope and placing it in his investigation bag. The physician had been writing to someone that Quincy was beginning to think of as the mastermind behind it all. "Per your request" implied that the physician had received a letter along with the white powder.

Writing Logs

05/26/10, Wednesday, fell in a funk and did nothing.

05/25/10, Tuesday
* Finished making editing changes to Vicesteed ch. 30.
* Redmarked 1/2 of Vicesteed ch. 31, thus catching up to where I should be for my deadline goal (I couldn't do anything on it yesterday, so was behind).
* Redmarked 1 pg. of "Alien/Whore/Mother."

05/24/10, Monday
* Did lots of research for "Remediation Village"--thinking of calling it "Probationary Remediation Village FR-245, Inner Mongolia Desertification Prefecture" Gives it more of a sense of place. Although now it's too long.
* Typed up a little.

05/23/10, Sunday
* MinnSpec writing group meeting
* Researched Chinese desertification for "Leaving Remediation Village" while eating/waiting in Brueggers for writing group to start. (Phil drops me off after church, which is an hour before the writing group starts. A couple of times he's had lunch with me beforehand, which is awesome, but usually I'm on my own. Brueggers is a good place to wait--good food, free wi-fi.)

05/22/10, Saturday, NO WORK OH GLORIOUS DAY
* Posted writing logs.
* Did 4 crits for MinnSpec meeting tomorrow.
* Attended CoyoteCon.