If you find yourself asking - what was that? - well, that's OK.
Lobo's Den was a bit of fun and a bit of an experiment.
I have, for a while now, wanted to explore Cassie and Don's relationship but struggled with finding the right format. Posting as a regular narrative following the events of that time in Cassie's life would have been, a bit like Cassie's album Haunted, darker and more overtly sexual. I wasn't comfortable going there. At the same time, the story kept nagging at me.
I seem to recall talking it over with my wife one evening and we stumbled on the talk show idea. The idea of telling Cassie's story, limited to the four short blocks between commercials, struck me as a great writing challenge. Could I fit enough narrative into what someone could logically say in a 10-minute TV segment? I actually Googled "how many words are there in a 10-minute speech" (1500 was the most common average). So, I gave myself that limit.
In terms of the larger Wyrd Tales narrative, Lobo's Den is actually very ambitious. I wanted to revisit the prologue of Year of the Wolf, exploring Cassie's story between the events of Raven's Apprentice and the start of my main storylines. I wanted to explore, even lightly, Cassie and Don's relationship and maybe redeem Don a little. He wasn't a great guy, but he wasn't a terrible guy either and she loved him. I wanted to recap on some key events from the first three stories. Finally, I wanted to touch on characters and events we haven't seen in a while, do a "where are they now" and hopefully tease some characters we may see again in upcoming stories. A lot to do in five short chapters.
I'll let you be the judge of how successful I was.
Some of the feedback I got on forums was very positive, with a least one person commenting that they really felt like they were watching the show. So that was nice.
Also from forum feedback, some folks were confused about the "technical difficulties," either forgetting or missing the relations between them and the fact that Cassie really is a witch, and when her emotional control slipped things went Bang. Hard to showcase that in the narrative quite as clearly as maybe I should have.
Ultimately, Lobo's Den was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you had some reading it. It's a format I may use again.
I'm going to be taking a little time off over the winter holidays. I don't expect to post anything new here during December. So, I'll say Happy Holidays now.
Wyrd Tales will return.
