Lethal Ladies was my first ever NaNoWriMo effort. A friend was a Municipal Liaison for Ottawa and convinced me to try. The goal, that November of 2006, was to write a 50 000 word novel. At the time, I was writing mainly fanfiction, though the later works were starting to go beyond the original work. I was creating new plots and new characters to run alongside the original work's storyline. At that point, I figured that all I needed to do was create my own setting.
The characters for Lethal Ladies came from a Shadowrun idea I had. I decided to file off the serial numbers by moving the time to modern day, relocating from Seattle to St. Louis, removing all traces of magic, and turning my shadowrunners into a legitimate private investigation firm that does extra work for knowing clients.
The first of the Lethal Ladies introduced is Rose Velasco, the owner and senior partner of Velasco Investigations. Rose started in the Shadowrun idea as the Yellow Rose of Texas, a street samurai inspired by a Rick Harris illustration in a Shadowrun supplement. The changes made were to remove the cybernetics, age her, and give her a family and new background. The age will come in play soon enough. Meanwhile, Tyler, the admin assistant and office manager, was created specifically for the story.
Rose's afternoon appointment is with a potential new client, Ray Sexton. Sexton wants the special services, the ones that don't get placed into the filing cabinet. The Atlanta cola company rumours is just that, a rumour. Rose is savvy enough to not admit or deny the rumour, though. The references allows Rose to verify the person who asks for the extracurricular activities. The risks involved in the extra work require ensuring that the person asking is legit and not a plant.
Elena was also from the original Shadowrun idea. There, she was an Eagle shaman. Now, she's a Russian immigrant and Rose's partner. Amber, of the caffeinated buzz, was the rigger* in the Shadowrun concept and has become the company's driver and mechanic. Amber and her coffee become a running theme through the story. Right now, suffice to say that Amber likes her coffee strong and black. No idea about her men. Allison was the hacker in the original idea and became Velasco Investigation's network administrator. When the characters get a full introduction in the story, I'll elaborate further.
The discussion between Rose and Elena about Sal Becker is to establish that the company and the Lethal Ladies have done under the table work before and were successful. The call to Sal, one sided, was an exercise to see if I can manage a telephone call that was informative but without Rose repeating everything Sal said. The aside to Elena was the only time Rose repeated anything. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if the conversation worked.
The chapter ends with Rose having to go pick up her teenaged daughter, Maria. This was more to show that there is more to the world than just the office. The mention of Maria also created some plot lines later and helped establish Rose's age without mentioning any numbers.
Tomorrow, details about the job.
Saturday, over at MuseHack, a look at superhero adaptations now that the Avengers Adaptation series has wrapped up.
Coming soon, more character creation thoughts, and more NaNo prep work.
* A getaway driver with implants to interface with the vehicle at the machine level.
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