The Stories Behind the Stories
I suppose I could spin a tale about how I conceived these three stories from my own warped imagination, but I’d be lying—not about my warped imagination, but what inspired me. All three came as responses to calls from outside sources.
My local Sherlockian society (there’s probably one in your area)—The Crew of the Barque Lone Star—decided, as a lead-up to their fiftieth anniversary, to publish members’ creative works. The first two, A Grimm Holmes and A Grimmer Holmes, were to focus on Sherlock’s efforts to solve cases based on fairy tales. The final stories in both books were very creative, reaching far beyond the Grimm brothers.
For
myself, I stuck to two familiar tales—“The Pied Piper of Hameln”
and “Rumpelstiltskin.” Of course, I had to weave a mystery
related to the story for Sherlock to solve. Because the “Pied Piper
of Hameln” involves children, I chose to use Holmes’ Baker Street
irregulars (street urchins) in his case. I immediately imagined a
situation where they go missing—and only he can find them.
In “Rumpelstiltskin,” a woman will lose her son to a strange man if she can’t guess his name. My story revolves around determining the identity of a man who claims to be her husband—a WWI vet. If she doesn’t play along with his deception, he’s threatened to take her son—his right as the “father” of the child.
The final story’s inspiration came from a publisher’s call. Mocha Memoirs Press was seeking alternate universe stories about Sherlock Holmes. Again, the other contributors showed amazing imaginations. (Sherlock as a cyborg? You bet!). For myself, I have always been fascinated by vampires. I think I saw the old black and white Bela Lugosi Dracula films as many times as I did some of the old Basil Rathbone/Sherlock Holmes movies, thanks to a local TV program Dialing for Dollars. I conceived of a world dominated by vampires and a case of a murdered one. How can you kill the undead? And why? That’s the basis for “The Adventure of the Tainted Blood.”
The fun of these stories is to let your imagination open the world to other possibilities—a flute that can manipulate children, a man who can take on another’s identity, and a way to eliminate vampires without a stake. And then let the world’s greatest consulting detective apply his methods in those worlds.
Are you interested in alternate universes or crossover stories? What’s your favorite?
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