Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Unicorn Challenge.
Hosted by jenne and ceayr, it is an image-prompt bloghop with the simplest of requirements: stories not to exceed 250 words.
[ed. thanks to ceayr in advance for giving me a chance to riff on his ‘Corn]
“If I see one more fuckin’ primitive, ‘oh-so-whimsical’ art display, I’m gonna break some shit up.”
Muttering out-loud produced the desired therapeutic effect. My first-year instructor at Langley used to insist, ‘Talk to yourself in public, sing Gilbert & Sullivan in the shower, whatever it takes, people. In the spy game, stress has killed more agents than bullets’.
So here I am making a pickup that should’ve been a cherry run for the nearest local agent: go to a gift shop in Grand Loch Banallity, find a red suitcase, find a jade camel figurine and deliver it to someone by the name ‘Raconteuse‘ at a bohemian nightspot called the SSC&B
“Who doesn’t love a voice-over?”
When I first turned to face the street and take a selfie to document the replaced Red Case, the only person in sight was a homeless man in a trench coat, rummaging through a trash-bin on the far sidewalk.
“Keith, don’t just stand there, take the lass’s phone so she can let her friends back home see fair Alba.”
Had the woman been wearing a Lee Penny around her neck and the white-haired man, a sporran, they couldn’t be more Highland tourists on an off-season holiday.
“Having a blether with yourself? Ain’t not a bad thing, hen.” She smiled with a glint of store-bought teeth.
I considered shooting them both, just on general principle; but at that moment two SUVs bracketed the old man and my retirees were whipping out serious side arms.
About clarkscottroger
So the prompt has given rise to high jinks in the Highlands this week, Clark.
Neat tying in of the SSC&B and that Raconteuse – always up to something!
Sentence of the week – ‘ She smiled with a glint of store-bought teeth’ – truly frightening. 😉
And a brilliant glimpse of the character of the spy in the first and the beginning of the last sentence.
Grand Loch Banallity will never be the same again.
high jinks! surely the sign of a healthy and successful bloghop
now, about the tying in… As I make no secret, writing fiction (in general) and creating settings (in particular) in the blogosphere is so damn cool. I will resist the urge to go at length about the fun of having durable fictional locations and characters that, after a certain length of time become increasingly real, which, if nothing else, makes the process less drudgery.
for instance, this week my first goal was to write a story-story. c’s stories tend to be story-stories, i.e. strong protagonist (often 1st POV) clean arcs, totally satisfying (conflict) resolution.
so, it made sense to take the scene (which being so clear, at least the geography and such*) and try to write a story-story.
I started with the line ‘Who doesn’t love a voice over’ because someone said that earlier in the day (might have been me, but, whatever). Then I spotted the red suitcase in the image. So then the fun began. Chris has been writing very wide-ranging (geo and narrative) Six Sentence Stories (and ‘Corns) so, I thought why not try and connect some of the ‘real’ fictional people and places.
(My protagonist is Rue DeNite from a few stories centered on the SSC&B)… but, and I’ll stop here before I go all War and Peace on the comment, my choice presented fun challenges: how to introduce the phrase that started it all and how to tell the Reader that the protagonist was female. (This is before the old couple showed up, providing the solution to both problems.
Now the tie-in to the ‘original story’ I’ll save for ceayr. Don’t want to go on and on… I did see he noted that the location (of this week’s image) is from one of his stories. That’s the fun.
*that’s the thing, the clearer the physical scene, the easier to use, thereby reinforcing it’s realness… so more can be added in detail in the medium of word limitation
What a great mix and match. There are several people in different stories – and putting them together – what fun!
ikr? thanks for the inspiration (your work with stories (Sixes and otherwise)) has done so much to make ‘real’ the work of our collective imaginations. very cool
Jings, Clark, my guy was more George Smiley, and your story is all Wild West (Highlands)!
But fun follow-up, much enjoyed.
Fyi The photo was taken where Kirsty and Doctor Finlay had their, erm, altercation in Beginning of After.
sorry, my MC (Rue DeNite) was in a bit of a bad mood… sometimes she takes the shortest path with assessments.
(I suspect I know the answer, but your guy ever needs backup, Rue would be happy to lend a hand(gun)
Excellent!! I love the fiction/crossovers/locations and such