Bursting Box Publishing

Happy New Year! Let’s celebrate a brighter future by starting with lucky 7! Chapter 7, I mean, as this chapter is where things pick up a bit more with Mr. E.

Oh, Mr. E. How much fun I had with you.

Before we get started, please be aware that this is CHAPTER SEVEN. If you haven’t read the book, “Don’t Date the Haunted,” I highly suggest you do that BEFORE reading this post. Spoilers ahead! Ye have been warned!

Alright, now where were we?

Mr. E

I love his name. All of his names. It’s so messed up and perfect for him.

I modeled Mr. E after the classic Noir Mystery Private Investigator. In fact, it wasn’t until my final draft that I solidified his real reason for interviewing Pansy. In the earlier drafts, he was simply (and persistently) curious about Sean’s death. He suspected there were details left out of his report and that Pansy knew the answers. But he also didn’t believe in Hauntings or the Supernatural.

For a fun idea, I’ve considered including Mr. E (by one name or another) in all of my novels. I enjoy looking for Hoid in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books, and thought if any character in “Don’t Date the Haunted,” could “world hop,” it would be Mr. E. So far, I already wrote him into books 2 and 3 of this trilogy, and he’s name-dropped in Dead and Back Again, books 1&1.5.

As for the interview/interrogation itself, I chose Sean’s death as March 15th as an allusion.

“Beware, the Ides of March.”

– Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

I have it marked in my calendar along with other nerdy days of note, such as March 14th (Pi Day), Super Mar10 Day, and any Friday the 13th.

Anyway, Theo comes along and recognizes Mr. E as Mr. John, because that’s the name he goes by while in Fantasy. Theo’s dad (AKA: Duke Konrad Fromm, The Horse, of Margen) has hired Mr. “John” in the past, so that’s how they know each other.

When Pansy runs away from the conversation, both men look at her like they want to chase her “for reasons [she] couldn’t tell.” If you’ve finished the book, then you probably know why each man wants to follow after.
If you finished the book and still don’t know why (or you want the spoiler), highlight the box below.

Mr. E wants to follow her because he’s her Watcher, and he has more questions about Sean’s death.
Theo wants to chase after her because he’s curious about her variable aura, and he experienced love at first sight with her. He really wants to figure out how that’ll work since she obviously didn’t experience it in return. Poor Theo.

Date preparations!

Pansy’s not the type of girl to spend a lot of time preparing for a date. Even when she dated Sean, their relationship was very casual. They mostly went to the local dojo to exercise or study (for school, from the medical textbooks of Sean’s dead parents, or from “Oz’s Haunting Survival Book”). You can read more about their relationship and romance in their prequel in From Horror with Love!

The rest of this chapter actually didn’t change very much between edits. Actually, the biggest change was Pansy’s curse words.

Pansy’s Curse Words…

I went through a couple rounds of ideas before deciding on the final set. See if you can pick out the theme of her expletives from my very terrible first draft:

The cart slowed as we approached our destination.  Theo jumped out first, then turned to help Heather down.  I was next closest to the door, and Theo held his hand up to help me out of the coach.  I resisted the urge to wave his hand away.  I can exit a Horsefly buggy by my-
My thoughts were interrupted as I stumbled over the threshold.  I fell forward with a shout of, “Agra Vation Beetle!”  I didn’t fall far with Theo right there.  He caught me in his arms as my face pummeled into his chest.  Thorn Bug, he’s strong….

Very first terrible draft of “Don’t Date the Haunted”

Yep. To my shame, she used bug names to curse.
I personally don’t like to use the typical swears. They don’t offend me (even when watching Zombieland), but I find them crude and, honestly . . . boring. I couldn’t have Pansy swear by the moon or curse with monster names like “werewolf!” or “blood sucker!” because there is a trope in Horror: if you swear by it, it’ll come after you.

There’s a British folktale about a woman who often said “Let God open the earth and have it swallow me, if what I tell you isn’t the truth.” Of course, when she lied about stealing, God did just that.

So, no swears like that from Haunting-conscious Pansy. I’m not sure how I landed on bug names of all things, but it might have been influenced by my reading of Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson at the time. Just like the Grandpa’s cursing with sci-fi/fantasy authors, I never repeated the same curse twice, and I tried to make them applicable to the situation she was in.
Horsefly>>they were in a horse-drawn carriage
Agra Vation Beetle>>she was aggravated
Thorn Bug>>they’re one of the strongest insects.

You wouldn’t believe the random bug trivia I know because of that research.
P.S. When Heather mimicked Pansy’s cursing in chapter sixteen, she initially said “Butterflies!” and “Ladybugs!”

My next round of curses from Pansy involved anatomy. I figured that was more appropriate to her medical-studying character. That stage didn’t last long enough to be saved in a draft. I finally concluded with simple replacement words that work as follows:

H*ll =	Horror
D*mn =	Condemnation
Sh*t =	Crap
G*d =	Supernaturals

Much simpler, but appropriate for Pansy’s character. Personally, I think replacement words are more fun and colorful. My own vocabulary includes words like “dang,” “snap,” “oh my goodness,” and “curses.” Yep, it’s only dropped once in this book, but I gave one of my favorite “curse” words to Theo. Being from Fantasy–where people can be literally cursed–I thought it was appropriate for him.