Story Sketches

Here’s a little info on my creative process and an example.

A lot of my ideas start with simple phrases that I like. From there, I push out to every corner of that idea, working it until it’s as fully developed as I think it should be. I call these my “story sketches.” One friend with whom I shared a story sketch recently told me it was more like a fully-developed plot and likened the concept to a TV show. Also I like to throw in metaphysical underpinnings if there are any that differ from our world, which from my writing prospective is agnostic. I rarely write from my personal metaphysical prospective because I find it a bit boring and that ground too well trod.

“Ugly in L.A.”

So here’s a simple phrase, “Ugly in L.A.” This popped into my head several years ago to explain what most of us look like to the motion picture business - which is really just slightly better than average, or say 6-8 on a scale that goes to Hollywood 11. It also means that someone is not quirky or distinctive enough to be a character actor. This idea is the top floor on a notion I’ve long held - that real life begins when you realize you’re not special.

“Ugly in LA” very quickly became about Nashville-native James L. “Jim” Thomas who returns from LA ten years after being a costar on a TV show and a spin-off that was cancelled after a half season. Jim did commercials and worked background afterward but, lacking funds to produce his own endeavors, he burned out. Back home he got into legal hot water and hired a semi-retired detective, Jack Hansom, to help him out. Afterward, Jack noted that Jim basically solved his own case and hired him on as an investigator. Jim is able to use his minor celebrity for traction in higher social circles than Jack can reach at this stage in his career with something of a tarnished reputation after an affair with a client many years earlier. It’s not that Jack had far to fall, it’s that such things were counted as more damaging two decades ago when Nashville was more religiously conservative. And in Nashville, once you’re have a reputation, it’s forever.

Jim’s parents are deceased but he has a married sister, Laura, in Poughkeepsie, NY. He lives in a mortgaged townhouse on Nashville’s south side, “owning” both units and renting one out at an affordable price. He keeps up the home but it’s a bit of a money pit.

Although a few people still identify him as “Casey,” his character from the TV shows, and he occasionally works background on Nashville-based film productions, the Hansom Security Agency pays most of Jim’s bills. People will also occasionally call the business Handsome Detective, which is on some of Jack’s old business cards. Woman walks in, “I’m looking for the Handsome Detective,” you get the rest.

The subject of “Ugly in LA” is the Kristy Pappas, a 22-year-old real estate agent who is being harassed by an unknown person she believes may be a man. She’s receiving nasty emails at work, phone calls late at night, and a few weird but non-threatening letters. Pappas is somewhat neurotic and a little off-putting due to her Nashville society background but desperate because the harassment led to her resigning her first job with a big real estate agency, who she now owes money. Jim starts looking into it simply by following her to see if he can identify any suspects.

There are several ex-boyfriends, a couple old family friends (one of whom obsessed over another friend’s daughter), a former roommate, and unfortunately basically any loony who might have seen Kristy on a grocery-store shopping cart ad she took out. Jim also discovers that Kristy’s father was not present for her delivery and thus her birth certificate lists only her mother’s name.

Jim discovers that Lorraine Pappas died several years ago but her father is successful developer Gerry Pappas. Gerry made sure that she went to all the best schools and she graduated from Vanderbilt, going almost immediately into the career of her choice. Meanwhile at Handsome, it’s not unusual for Jack to back away from cases, but Jack backs far away from this one, of which Jim takes note.

Other aspects of the story include Jim being self-conscious about his hairline, his older car, and his flagging love life. He sees an old flame at the Greek Festival, while investigating Kristy’s social circles, discovering that she’s married with children, and leaves it alone apparently going unnoticed by her.

Eventually Jim uncovers that Gerry Pappas is behind the harassment, paying one of her ex-boyfriends to do the work and throw off his scent. He wants Kristy to come home and work for the development business. This is due in large part to his low-key controlling nature and difficulty trusting people. Jim finally confronts Gerry without exposing him. The harassment stops and Kristy is happy to pay the full fee.

The epilogue is that Jack has an invitation to Kristy’s mother’s baby shower in his desk drawer. Why is left unclear, but it’s not because he is the unnamed father on the birth certificate. He got one of Lorraine Pappas’s girlfriends pregnant around the same time but she had a miscarriage and they broke up.

Other stories could include a bicyclist hit and run, tracking down a piece of sentimental property after a burglary, problems with renters, a literal missing cat, digging up dirt on a local politician, reclaiming a songwriter’s lost legacy, being hired on a fake case just because he was on TV, pulled back into high school drama, getting closure for a paralyzed mall security guard, break-in cars while snow shuts down the city, and anything else that’s not a direct rip-off of The Rockford Files. In fact, it would be a running gag that Jim has never seen The Rockford Files.

The Handsome Detective: Ugly in LA, like any of my other ideas, might work as a series of paperbacks or a comic book.

And that’s a story sketch, written today, purely for fun. I do this primarily for my own amusement so I don’t judge my sketches too much. I enjoy them in the moment and keep them around for later revisits and my own amusement. They never need to see publication or go any further, but it would be nice if one or two of them do at some point. Like our children, we all want our ideas to make us proud. Or at least most of us do.