The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz: The Lost Voices

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

This week, I wanted to end the Brennan and Riz celebration with a bit more in depth talk on the things that didn’t make the cut in the first few stories. Like the character that was cruelly cut from Girl in the Water due to word restrictions, to a bit more on the eight characters removed wholesale from Goblins in the Tunnel.

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 2

Everything is coming together on this release, as I received the proof copy of the Brennan and Riz story, the ‘Black Cat on the Prowl’, and as usual, my publisher has done a stellar editing job. I’ve approved all the edits and sent it back so it’s full steam head for the second volume in this mighty anthology series (yes, you can have a series with just two volumes so far… Don’t judge me.)

This should be hitting in July at some point, so if you want to read an exclusive Brennan and Riz adventure, then make sure to pick it up! As a fantastic bonus, you’ll get so many other great stories to boot!

Crossing the Tees 2019

If you live in the Teesside area, please check out this years Crossing the Tees literary festival. There’s some great workshops on for modest prices. My publisher is also holding a workshop or two, so attend and see if there’s anything they can help you with! That’s not all, the Short Story contest is also open again for entries, with the deadline being Midnight 31st July. All you need is a 3000 word story. Give it a go, as you never know, it’s through this competition that Brennan and Riz were given to the world (for bad or good, you decide).

Creator Chaos

 Well Thursdays All About Me recording went off without a hitch and it’s currently being edited, so keep an ear out for when it appears to listen to! I hope I did a good job answering your questions!
The latest episode of Creator Chaos is out now, so give it a listen and let us know what you think of Kelvin’s singing voice- I mean, what you think of the content!

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, hoping to resume it soon!
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

If you follow the #CharacterChaos tag on Twitter, I’ve chosen to answer this months questions as the main characters, Drake and Ava.

Search the tag to see what they’ve got to say for themselves! It’s been fun using these two for this month, as I feel I’ve gotten to know them a lot better and in turn, helping to focus on their paths going forward.

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz: The Lost Voices

So last time I spoke about how Brennan and Riz had their start in a Sci-Fi world before being reborn as the duo you all know and love. This time, I thought I would discuss the parts that don’t make the stories, that for whatever reason, don’t make the cut.
When writing to a word limit, you get used to the fact that the first draft will rarely be what you ultimately hand in. Sometimes you can skimp past by just cutting extra descriptive words, but sometimes you have to be a bit more drastic and say goodbye to characters.

In the case of Girl in the Water, I had to say goodbye to a character called Mari, who would have been the third partner in Brennan’s little gang. This was before I brought Valarie back of course, who would go on to take that position.
Here is the only part of the story that still exists that features her presence. The following extract would have taken place just after Brennan’s first encounter with the Water Ghoul.
--
The phone was still ringing. I knew Mira didn’t like answering her phone the first time but I never realised how long she left it till now.
“Yo, you’ve reached Mira, not giving you a last name don’t bother if”
“Mira, it’s me, Brennan.” I interrupted her rehearsed script, it normally lasted an hour.
“Bren, long time no speak...How’s all that stuff I lent you?”
“Not calling about any of that, I need information.” I hear the sound of muffled laughter before Mira returns, composed.
“You want info...from me? I don’t want another I.O.U to add to my collection.”
“I’m on a good job at the moment..”
--
Of course, the plan was to have Mira go through the records for Brennan, and deliver him the information that he finds on his own in the actual story. She did go through a couple of revisions, as I tried to work out how I wanted her, but ultimately, she had to go to fix the story flow, and free up words that were needed elsewhere.
Her place in the group was taken by Valarie, and a little bit by the a new character that gets her proper introduction in the prequel (hint, she’s the woman who Brennan and Riz are terrified of and who they are in great debt to).

In a twist though, I have revived her, as Mari, Valarie’s London based best friend. So she went from being associated to Brennan, to being besties to Valarie, creating a very strong partnership, that will get fully explored in Valarie’s own stories.
Now, moving on to an even bigger change in the name of word count, let’s look at Goblins in the Tunnel.

Originally, the casting looked like this:
--
Characters
Brennan
Riz
Valarie
Mark West
Tobias Fern
Shawn Knots
Harry Knight
--
This is the first form the cast list took, Mark West would have been a business owner who’s basement linked into the tunnels, so he was looking to turn them into something he could profit from. Tobias was the surveyor he’d hired to accomplish this goal (but that’s not all, as I’ll explain in a moment). Shawn and Harry, were thieves who had come down to the tunnels to see what they could steal, though given that’s what Brennan and Riz were there to do in a sense, that’s why they were quickly swapped out.

Here follows a more detailed cast list that also expands on who the characters are. This is something I do when planning, mostly with small stories where getting the most for the least words is often crucial.
--
Mr Clint Harding – Owner of a local business, looking to capitalise on the tunnels under his existing business. He’s showing the tunnels to an investor.

Mr Earnest Beckett- A rich investor wanting to put money into Clint’s business venture, or at least that’s what he’s claiming but really wants access to the cult chamber that had been sealed when the Castle was torn down. Is killed by Red Caps that have been hibernating since then. A member of Umbral.

Leo Smith- 19 years old, bartender of the North Eastern Pub. Ends up following Brennan into the tunnels with Katlin, Connor and Sara.

Katlin Rhodes- 18 years old, Leo’s crush, goes down into the tunnels along with her friends.

Connor Edwards- 19 years old, Leo’s best friend and person who dares him down into the tunnels.

Sara Macy- 19 years old, Connor’s girlfriend and the person who eggs them all on into the tunnels, following her boyfriends lead.
--
I changed the names of all the secondary characters, as you can see. Instead of the thieves, I added four teenagers who had wandered into the tunnels to prove their bravery. Interestingly, only one of them would make it into the published story, and that would be Leo, who leads Brennan and Riz into the basement, and leaves them there. Also Earnest Beckett, member of Umbral.

When I first conceived the story, Umbral was going to be an over-arcing threat that Brennan and Co would tumble with time and time again. Sort of like any good super villain league or Spectre in the James Bond franchise. This came with problems though. It felt that any time I would want to include these guys that I would have to have some laboured way of reminding readers of who they were if they were reading the stories out of order.

The more time I gave to sort this issue, the more it fell apart, so ultimately, the concept was abandoned, but if someone you had been following the character chaos hashtag on twitter a few months ago, you might have heard Valarie talking about Umbral.
I did what all great writers do and took something that I had left at the wayside, dusted it down, and gave it new life. In this case, Umbral went from being a cult to something much nastier.

There is a short piece of the story that features these characters, minus Earnest and Clint, and it marks the first time that the large group encounters the Red Caps.
--
“Bren...Wat’s dat noise?” Riz’s whiskers twitched nervously as the rumbling reached fever pitch. Using the Runes again, my hearing was so focused, I heard the rumbling for what it really was. A stampede of armoured little feet. I turned back to the now large group and uttered one word.
“Run!” I grabbed Riz by the scruff of his neck and ran away from the noise. The rest soon followed.
A second later and it became apparent that the horde of, whatever, was gaining on us as over the rumble of feet, we could now hear voices. Angry voices, ones calling for our blood.
As I was running ahead of the others, I trusted Riz to let me know if anything happened to those behind me. This allowed him to see what was following us.
“Ah shit...Red Caps” My thoughts echoed what he’d said. Shit. I still didn’t look back, and I’d hoped the others hadn’t either. They had. The teenagers were the ones who went the craziest.
“What are those things?”
“Don’t let them touch me!”
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“Go! Go!” I head a thud...
--
In true horror movie fashion, some of the teenagers would have been picked off, one by one, leaving two alive. Again though, problems arose, ones that threatened the whole structure of the story. I detailed these problems in one of my earlier blog posts, explaining why I cut the teenagers. I think this was to the benefit of the story, allowing it to run faster, and making the action more claustrophobic.

Well that’s all we have time for this week, so I hoped you enjoyed this little look at the deleted parts of the published stories. I was finding my feet with these first two stories of Brennan and Riz, as such they were the ones with the most edits.

Join me next week, but till then, keep writing.