06-01-05 @ 9:39 am EDT

Typed offline yesterday, then I chickened out and didn't post it. Huh.

Time for a new entry.

Do you know that, since I type these up mostly offline, I have some back entries I've never even gotten to post yet? A few are unfinished; I never got the chance to finish and post them, as other things got me too upset to want to share them anymore, so they've been sitting on the hard drive getting moldy. Someday I'd like to post them, if I could only finish them. But I don't feel like that today.

Just wanted to take note of an idea I came up with for a story in my D4D series, not that I ever WRITE any of those anymore...

The tentative novel title is Missing Pieces, though God knows why I've called it that. It's yet another Minot spinoff, meaning it's one of the D4D novels that take place in Minot with the ND police and not with Damien in Michigan. I still list these stories in the D4D series even though they're pretty much a spinoff, seeing as Damien doesn't appear in most of them (he's been in two so far--Minot itself and Four P, I believe.)

The rest of this entry will be practically babble in an incoherent language to any Skew readers since none have read the available novels in the series (only three of which are done, and only one of which, Minot, has the tiniest shred of goodness to it), so you've been warned. This should also have spoilers for Minot and the story in question but bla bla bla.

Firstly, Minot needs to be rewritten if only to change the ending. At the end, Chief Bowen tells Damien et al. of what the doctors have said regarding Lt. Kincaid. That part needs to be changed. I've finally decided that I want it to be a bit more realistic and Kincaid simply cannot be a cop with what is said about him at the end of the novel. So that part will change to something more tolerable. Kincaid likely has severe PTSD only he reacts to it in the opposite way from Det. Kristeva (someone who was once in the same boat as Kincaid--trying not to give away TOO many details here). Whereas Kristeva acts out (and in), and deals with a lot of rage and fear, Kincaid has flattened affect, and acts much like an emotionless robot, unruffled by anything. As seen in Minot he IS capable of very brief blasts of fury, but they are very short and very rare. (Witness his flipping out when he catches Damien in his room--cool as ice one moment, screaming tantrum the next, then back to cool as ice.) Kincaid is somewhat like the TAC character Lt. She'hekha, who has also rather tuned himself out in regards to anger and fear, and instead acts unusually even tempered despite what happened to him when he was young. (One of my favorite reviews ever in fact was based on this; a reader of "The Lieutenant's Tale" remarked on how realistic She'hekha's reactions were in that story. "If somebody tells you he's not showing enough emotion, don't listen to them," the reader advised. "Some people react to severe abuse by breaking down and falling apart; others react by becoming emotionally numb and distancing themselves from it, as happened here." I liked this review because it captured spot on what I was hoping to achieve with She'hekha--most of my abused characters, like Kristeva, react in the first way, but I wanted to create someone who reacted in the second way--hence was born She'hekha, and also Kincaid.

Well, back to the storyline...

In Missing Pieces (or whatever, these titles make little sense to me even), Damien et al. return to the storyline, and it focuses more on Kincaid again rather than Kristeva, as all of the Minot-based stories have been tending to do lately. There are some interesting ties here though because on looking at the D4D timeline I noticed that Det. Singer, who was involved in what happened to Kristeva, disappeared about a year before Sgt. Kincaid (Lt. Kincaid's foster father) committed suicide. Meaning that Sgt. Kincaid could very well have been involved in the search for Det. Singer! Very interesting. That could have had something to do with his own death. Bla bla bla. So even though the story focuses more on Kincaid again, it still has a bearing on Kristeva himself because all of this crap is tied together. I told you this entry would make no sense if you have not read the story...and even if you have. :P

Well, in MP I should like for Kincaid's real identity to finally be revealed (he has no memory of anything before around age sixteen, I believe, when Sgt. Kincaid rescued him on a raid on a cult), when he comes across a missing child picture online (guess who). Maybe that's where I got the title? I can't even remember by now. Kristeva is enlisted to help figure this mess out and more things about Sgt. Kincaid and Det. Singer (whose body was found in one of the earlier stories, and who Kristeva himself is finally starting to remember...this is the subject of a short story I was starting to write but have yet to ever get back to). It's already been shown/hinted that Singer, an undercover detective investigating cult child abuse allegations, was killed by the cultists after getting involved with a woman working for them; the cult enlists women to act as bait for men, in this case cops, to lure them away from their objectives and pretty much get them killed. The women utilize sex and drugs to weaken their victims' resistance until they're finally--well, murdered. o_o Sorry this is so confusing, I'm trying to explain a whole bunch of different storylines here in one entry and I still haven't gotten to the point. Cripes. Anyway, this is what became of Det. Singer, who was deemed a liability after he rescued Kristeva (then a boy) from drowning by the cult; he ended up missing. Turns out that the woman enlisted to seduce and drug HIM actually fulfilled only half of the bargain, and tipped him off that he was in trouble, never giving him the drug, but by then it was too late and he went MIA.

Cue Sgt. Kincaid's part in the whole thing...much like Singer, Sgt. Kincaid rescued Alan Kincaid (last name obviously not his) from the same cult, on a raid, and took him in...the younger Kincaid ("Kinnie," they call him in the story) couldn't remember much of what happened to him, but now Sgt. Kincaid was deemed a liability like Singer, and again, cue a woman to seduce and drug him...see Black Binder item "Mark Kincaid/Melissa." Over time the drug wore down his resistance and she planted suggestions that he should kill himself...eventually he did just that, and everbody wrote it off as suicide due to depression over what he was learning had happened to Kinnie, who was starting to remember things. Sgt. Kincaid's suicide clammed Kinnie up again so the cult didn't go after him. Fast-forward to Minot, when Kinnie is again remembering things, and then through the rest of the Minot novels, when Kristeva appears again and starts to remember things too. Fast-forward once more to Missing Pieces and the story picks up again with Kinnie.

I would like to bring back in some of the old characters from the original story--Officer Jenner, Mandie, Mitch, and Ace. Jenner and Mitch are of course still in prison; Mandie is in hiding, and Ace is now some sort of whiz Web designer or something, a real turnaround from the slacker/stoner type he was in Minot. ^_^ I just thought it would be funny to have him show up again like that. He wasn't even a very important character, either. In THIS story, somebody is attempting to take out everybody involved in what happened in Minot, which means that Lt. Kincaid, Jenner, Mandie, Mitch, Ace, Jenner's ex-wife and daughter, Chelsea, and various others are in danger. (Not sure about Phil Falcon, Chief Bowen, Dr. Steiner, and Officer Hawthorne; they were only peripherals. *shrug*) Damien and Det. Mulroy, maybe some others, return at the request of Kincaid and/or Kristeva (Det. Reichert and Officer Joe Silvertree are involved in the story too, oh yeah, and Det. Devetko and Stan Brooks...holy cripes, look at all the gay people!!), and plans are made to figure out what to do. (Yah, I'm always hazy on real plot; that's why these things are best off not written.) An attempt is made on Mitch's life in prison--he's shanked or shivved or whatever by somebody on the inside, and moved to the infirmary; Jenner is moved to a more secure location, and his ex and daughter are taken into protective custody. (Yes, Jenner is a bad guy; but he's still a liability, and still has SOME morals. He's been doling out info to the police ever since being incarcerated, BTW, much like David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), but has always been evasive and roundabout...that's just the kind of person he is. I should clarify that Jenner was never actually in the cult but served more as just a hitman for them. He's an opportunist, not a Satanist.) Mandie appears after the cult makes an attempt on her life and begs for help from Kincaid simply because she has no one else to turn to. Much chaos ensues. Blabbedy bla. That's about as far as I've gotten and probably as far as I'll go.

One thing I've never figured out his how the ill-fated July ties in to everything, and how she knew so much about Kincaid. She owned a cult dog, Blossom, but that's all I really know of her. Is she related to any of these people involved?? Something to explore. (I'm still also very much leaning toward the idea of giving Kristeva an unknown half-brother whom his father...um...fathered by another woman in the cult.) The thing I REALLY blathered about all of this for regards a pairing I thought would be quite interesting in its possibilities. That pairing is...

LT. KINCAID AND MANDIE!!

:O !!

I know...for anyone who has read Minot this would seem VERY, VERY weird. However, Mandie has changed a lot since the original story...not nymphing around grabbing guys between the legs and dropping her towel and such anymore, for example... o_o ...and I don't think she was ever much of a slut to begin with, she just played the part. I really don't understand HER role in things much, either...I mean, was she bait, much like Melissa and the other woman were, or was she just a hanger-on? I know she hung out with Jenner and Mitch at times but that's all I know. She doesn't strike me as having been bait, since she never actually seduced anyone involved. I think she just hung out with the wrong crowd, and Jenner utilized this. The whole "I'd-love-a-foursome-with-Jenner-Bowen-and-Kincaid" thing of hers strikes me as having just been...well...Mandie's way of being Mandie. O_o I KNOW Kinnie and Bowen never slept with her, and I'm fairly certain Jenner never did, either, no matter what was insinuated in the story.

Hm, I'm wandering into "too much information" territory here, I realize.

Anyway, I had originally intended to pair Kinnie up with a therapist who had been brutalized herself (see the by-now very outdated and very lame "Alan Kincaid/Jenna"...no, no intended similarities between her name and Jenner's, shut up), but blah, that idea never caught on with me. Poor Kincaid hasn't ever formed any attachments in the series (cripes, even the royally messed up Kristeva, and sex-addict REICHERT even, have paired off!), and now Mandie is supposed to come back, and SHE hasn't really paired off with anyone either. Wouldn't they make one of the cutest most dysfunctional couples ever?? I know--I'm still leery about it. I do not know how well the two could pull off a relationship...but a fling might be nice.

An idea, at least.

Jeez, this is how long it takes me just to get to a point like that? No wonder I never finish these entries.