Got excited about my Legrasse pitch. Started writing, setting down plotlines more solidly, got to the outline... then something came up.
My character can't be an Inspector. There are no entry-level Inspector ranks in the US (where the story takes place).
To add insult to injury, there seems to be no Inspector rank in the city it takes place in!
This is... less than ideal. And relocating the story would be slightly odd, breaking away a bit from established Cthulhu Mythos, and I don't want to do that. I'd like to remain as true to the spirit of Lovecraft's work as can be.
Seems like I'll have to overhaul a good chunk of the setting before I can make it public. This bites. Have you ever been faced with such an issue? I know it makes me want to drop the idea for now and move onto one of my older pitches... but damn, that energy was good. There was a good vibe to it.
Signed,
Bummed Christian
Comments
05:44 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
At least one of those punctuation marks in previous comment should be a '?'.
05:47 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
Yes, *technically* there's no rank of Inspector in the city the story takes place in, but also *technically* there's no such thing as a fucking huge ancient squid-bat-lizard apocalypse god that talks in all apostrophes. So my suggestion is to run with it.
06:04 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
In the United States, the term inspector can have very different meanings depending on the law enforcement agency. For example, in the San Francisco Police Department, Inspector is the normal title for a detective, and the investigative branch of the SFPD is called the Bureau of Inspectors. In the Berkeley, California, Police Department, Inspector was once the title used for an investigative supervisor, who commanded a specific specialized detail, like Homicide, Robbery, or Property Crimes, within the department's Detective Division. They ranked between sergeants and lieutenants. The title has since been phased out, and the duties are now performed by detective sergeants. In the Hayward, California Police Department, the rank of inspector is a civil service rank above a detective and below that of a sergeant. In the New York City Police Department, Inspector is a high-ranking executive position, two grades above a Captain, and one grade above a Deputy Inspector. In the LAPD, the rank of Inspector, one grade above captain, was changed to Commander in 1974, because LAPD senior officers preferred the more military-sounding title. So basically... I'd have to look up the pitch and which city this is set in... but more than likely it's just as simple as a name change to detective or just leaving it as inspector anyways. Either way, I don't think readers will be to anal about the whole thing as long as the story is good. :D In the FBI, an Inspector is a special agent whose main duty is inspecting local Field Offices and Resident Agencies to make sure they are operating efficiently. Since FBI Inspectors are not tied to any particular Field Office, they have, in the past, also been used as trouble-shooting investigators on major cases.
07:59 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
Thank God for Wikipedia, huh Bryce? :D The reason why I can't really run with it is that since this series could very well be re-worked as a TV series, if I don't ground this is 21st-century facts, I'm going to get chewed, and ground down and digested by peers and critics. Can't go in half-cocked, so I have to take another shot at it from a different angle. I'll be able to work something out, for sure, but I can't focus on that right now, which sort-of sucks. My one viable option right now is to place the character outside the framework of conventional police forces, and that changes a lot of the dynamics inherent to the plot that I wanted to exploit. Hm. Well, no one ever stated writing would be easy at all times!
08:06 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
Fett, no one ever said writing would be easy at all! Still, I wish you luck with it.
15:15 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
Most people, if they didn't look it up, wouldn't know the difference. Those that do are either in the field, too anal, or have far too much time on their hands.
15:49 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
What is the old saying "The truth never got in the way of a good story." I don't think this should be a problem. I think if you ground your plot in more reality elsewhere, through police procedure, real life accounts, etc., people will be willing to forgo the Inspector flub. Its part of the willing suspension of disbelief.
16:32 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
I agree Cancerbaby. Of course you want to keep the facts as real as possilbe but at the same time, when your dealing with a quote unquote fucking huge squid-bat-lizard apocalypse god the truth becames a bit more flexible.
Like RPulfer pointed out, the truth and a good story don't necessarily go hand in hand. If hollywood can change history so can you.
16:49 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
I've found that many fans separate fact from fiction within fiction. What I mean is that they won't have any problem accepting that there's a huge squid-bat-lizard attacking the protagonist, but if the protagonist fires a gun that goes 'boom' instead of 'bang' there'll be people nitpicking that the author's obviously never heard a real gun be fired.
03:34 Fri Jul 18th, 2008
I agree with genrewriter. You can be reading a perfectly good story about vampires and ghosts or whatnot, but heaven help the author if they put the start of the baseball season in October.
09:26 Fri Jul 18th, 2008
So he's not an inspector. But he insists on everyone calling him one. Bam, character quirk.
Move on to the next problem!
If you're editing yourself now becuase TV critics might point it out when it becomes a TV, I can safely say, with all confidence, you're thinking WAY too far in the future.
10:23 Fri Jul 18th, 2008
Is the term "inspector" necessary specifically? Perhaps the character is a "detective" instead, which is pretty widespread.
18:12 Fri Jul 18th, 2008
Yeah, I considered that, too: Detective <=> Inspector.
Still debating. But I may have found something else, a new angle to exploit that sort-of makes it all work out. My only problem is that I'd fall into another iteration of the modern PI, and that's something I have personal issues with. It's not that it wouldn't work out, but rather, it would harken too much to Legrasse's forebears and their ways back in the days.
Since the whole pitch is set in the Cthulhu Mythos, I want to depart from the established Mythos POV from the independent researcher or private investigator, and be a little more "legally established", without necessarily embarking on the path the X-Files have trailblazed in the nineties.
I think what frustrates me most is that I have a killer precinct dynamic set up and now I need to fit Legrasse in there somehow... I get the strange feeling that Lovecraft was wrong about that Inspector detail back in the days.
21:36 Mon Jul 21st, 2008
More likely, it is just a term that has passed out of use since Lovecraft's day.
21:44 Mon Jul 21st, 2008
Might be, but I'd be hard-pressed to find evidence of that. It's... arcane.
It's good to see you alive and fighting, Jason.
21:48 Mon Jul 21st, 2008
Fighting indeed! Check out my new blog, and you'll see I'm back in the fray, big time!
22:07 Mon Jul 21st, 2008
I guess what a lot of us have been trying to say, Fett, are you getting caught on a real problem, or are you creating one
23:05 Mon Jul 21st, 2008
Oh, trust me, Mek... I am the KING of creating troubles for myself.
After all, as I'm sure Alan Moore *could* say, why make things simple when you can make them overly complicated? :D
But really, I've figured out a way. Now to re-write. But I got snagged away from Legrasse onto a Hept-Seshet rewrite too. Bummer.
Please login or register to comment
mekikas
05:43 Thu Jul 17th, 2008
Couldn't you work the character. Maybe he is an inspector from elsewhere on some sort of profession development exchange or something.