This year I’m sharing 12 short stories surrounding the mystery of the Hatchback Woman, aka The Lady. In 2022, I also posted 2 other tales of hers. So, I thought I’d give you all a peak behind the curtain in a new series (that’ll be rather irregular) that looks at the making of and my reasoning behind the stories. If you don’t like to see how the sausage is made, read no further . . .
The Hatchback Woman had to wait on the sidelines, wondering where she fit into the JIREverse when I first began collecting the stories that existed in the same universe. Because I had published her under another name many years before, I was just assuming she didn’t really fit in.
But she does.
And thankfully, it wasn’t even a stretch once I realized that her ‘oh so can’t be disclosed motive’ tied directly into some of the other key happenings in the JIREverse.
It wasn’t that she needed to be fit into the JIREverse–she had help construct it with her objects the imbue the users with strange powers.
Mirroring the some of the other entities I’ve introduced in short stories and novels, The Hatchback Woman is someone helping another one of the other dimensional entities cross over into our world.
Maybe that was a spoiler. But if you’re reading this BEHIND THE SCENES, you are interested enough in the inner workings of the stories to accept you’re going to read something that might spoil another story.
The conception of the HBW tales was a writing exercise. I created a formula for a series of stories:
- Someone gets a magical object (has to be different way each time)
- The object has a magical power (has to be different power each time)
- The object either makes their life better or worse
Pretty simple. And with that, I knocked out a dozen tales (a few weren’t good enough to see the light of day or were revised into something different). Another author I traded stories with became a big fan, and suddenly I found myself investing more time into the mythology.
There was a time when it was going to play out more like a novel, with a Mulder/Scully team tracking her down and there are remnants of some of those chapters and characters. But my test readers didn’t like this direct approach.
In truth, the mystery of her actions, is she good or evil, is part of the fun for me to write. Is she helping or hurting?
27 tales were published through 2016, while dozens more awaited either another collection or my final judgement call whether or not they steered the story in the direction I wanted. But while I moved onto other projects, I’d write at least 1 HATCHBACK WOMAN tale per year, always pleased to return to the formula/world.
Around the time of story #27, I remember thinking it would be cool to have 100 Hatchback Woman tales. And hopefully, one day there will be. I don’t plan to give up her story so easily.
Even though I know the end game and keep trying to complete the prequel story as a novel, she’s constantly evolving and by accepting a place in the greater continuity of the JIREverse, I’m excited to let her story unfold as it may in the background of other characters’ stories and how their interaction with her changes their lives.
To see the free-to-read tales, click here and begin the mystery if you haven’t already . . . and remember . . .
SHE HAS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
WELCOME TO THE JIREVERSE 