Even the Queen of Suspense has her lapses. Violet Crepuscular has just admitted as much.
“I admit I had a little lapse,” she confides in her readers. “I thought I took care of this, oh, two or three hundred chapters ago–but it seems to have slipped past me. I think it had something to do with that medieval witch and necromancer, Black Rodney.” Some 400 pages have gone by since the last mention of Black Rodney.
To some of us it would occur to correct the lapse, but Ms. Crepuscular says “I didn’t get where I am today, correcting lapses. By Jove, have you all forgotten that Lord Jeremy Coldsore has to fight a duel? Against himself! That, my friends, is how you write suspense!”
She goes on to insert a recipe for clam and toothpaste chowder. The editor throws up his hands and leaves the room. A mouse comes out, looking for crumbs.
“I promise to have the whole plot straightened out by next week,” Violet assures the reader. “See what it does to your concentration when everybody’s a critic taking pot shots at you! It’d serve you all right if Black Rodney turned up in your la-dee-dah gated communities!
“And don’t even think that Lord Jeremy is going to allow himself to back out of that duel with himself. Not with a pedigree going all the way back to the Crusades!”
The mouse sits up on its hind legs, richly entertained.
That mouse had better watch his step or else he’ll wind up in the middle of what passes for a plot in Violet’s novel.
And we have thunderstorms rolling into the area this afternoon, so I may have to shut down the system for the duration — my computer system, that is, not the storm system, although I wish I could do the latter instead of the former.
We had some of those last night–thankfully, no harm done.