Yor Darlings is dead

Yor Darlings was dead, lying covered in harsh red slash marks, in a pool of purple prose and printer ink, on the floor by the waste basket, beside the desk of Little Plump Jo, the current Artisan in Residence in Malory Tennyson’s Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies.

But who was Yor Darlings? Why did they die? Who killed Yor Darlings?

The Dabrowski Dogs, Little Plump Jo’s canine writing companions gathered around the body of work, their heads on one side, puzzled.

Intellectual Dabrowski, the Border Collie, took control of the situation. “We need to ascertain the motivation, means, method, and cause of death.”

“Who is Yor Darlings? Where did they come from? Why are they here?” asked Psycho Motor Dabrowski.

“Good questions, Psycho!”

“Everyone look for a murder weapon or any other clues.”

“Somebody obviously had it in for Yor Darlings. They left a message on Little Plump Jo’s laptop,” yelped Sensual Dabrowski. “See this!”

The tab open on the laptop showed the title slide for an online workshop. In big letters it read KILL YOUR DARLINGS.

“Oooo, Oooo, Oooo” howled Emotional Dabrowski.

“Shut up, Emo!” snapped Intellectual. “Make yourself useful. Go and see whether Chekhov’s gun has been fired.”

“Where is it?”

“On the table in the First Act. But don’t touch it. They will want to dust it for prints.”

“How will I know?”

“If it has been fired there will be a spotlight on it and it will look guilty.”

“Oh, ok. No, the spotlight is not on.”

“So much purple. So much purple.” Sensual Dabrowski was rocking and whimpering, staring at the body.

“Cut the hysterics, Sensual” barked Intellectual. “Bag up the red pen. That could be the murder weapon. They can check whether the red marks came from this pen. I’m pretty good at this, don’t you think?”

“That’s Little Plump Jo’s pen. Maybe we should hide it, in case they think she did it.”

“That does not mean Jo used it, Psycho. Lots of people could have touched that pen.”

“But so much purple!”

“You have a point, Sensual.”

“I do?”

“Yes, this is not Little Plump Jo’s style at all! She would not usually write that much description without help from…”

“Imaginational!”

“Little Plump Jo is confessing to Regina Penman” announced Psycho Motor Dabrowski. The dogs crept into the adjoining room to listen. Jo and Regina were drinking camomile tea and eating cinnamon buns. The little Bedlington Terrier, Imaginational Dabrowski was sitting on Jo’s lap.

“She’s covering for Imaginational.”

“Why?”

“Because bad dogs get picked up by the ranger and taken to the pound and some of them are never seen again.”

“And then Malory said I could not write a battle scene to save myself and I could not write a healing scene to save anyone else. And I had not ever written a death scene. He said I needed to have firsthand knowledge.” Jo was saying.

“What will happen now?” whispered Emotional. “Will Jo cry and Regina tell her to turn herself in to the police?”

“Will Jo kill Regina so she won’t be able to tell?”

“Don’t be daft! Our Jo wouldn’t do such a thing. I am sure of it.”

“Or will Regina help Jo get rid of the evidence and drive her away in a getaway car?”

“I’ll help you clean up.” Regina said, picking up the empty plates and taking them to the kitchen.

“She’s going to help her make a run for it” barked Psycho Motor. “What would happen to us? Everyone get your coat and favourite chew toy and be ready to go with them.”

“I don’t believe this. They are going to wash the dishes before they go!”

“They are getting rid of evidence that they were here.”

“You need to be able to write death scenes, if you want to retell Le Morte d’Arthur.” Little Plump Jo continued, as she washed the dishes and Regina dried them. “So, I have been taking some online workshops.”

“Imaginational, is Little Plump Jo covering for you?” Psycho Motor demanded.

“No. Why would she be?”

“We thought you orchestrated the death of Yor Darlings and she was taking the blame for it to save you from the ranger.”

“All that purple!” whimpered Sensual, with a shudder.

“No, I don’t know anything about that.”

“It’s in the writing room. Come and see.”

“Now they are sitting down again. Why aren’t they hurrying?”

“Anyway,” Jo was saying “I found one workshop titled ‘Kill Your Darlings’. It was about editing. It said sometimes you have to take out whole scenes, if they do not help your story.”

“Gotta go! Gotta go!” barked Psycho Motor.

“Use the doggy dog, Psycho! I am not letting you out the front,” said Jo.

“Go in the car! Go in the car!”

“No, Psycho. We are not going in the car now. Regina is here to work on editing.”

“Does Regina use your red pen?”

“Yes. I am glad you are my big brave guard dog, Psycho. But Regina is allowed to touch my things, ok?”

“Regina did it, Intellectual. And now, because Little Plump Jo knows, Regina is holding her hostage. That is why they are not leaving. She said Regina is here to edit and change whole scenes.

Jo said she was glad that I was her big brave guard dog. She was telling us to save her.”

“Good work, Psycho!” barked Intellectual. “Editing must be code for destroying the evidence. I wonder if Regina is a Developmental Editor or a Line Editor.”

“Does it matter?”

“Hard to say. It could determine how much attention she gives to small details.”

“Psycho Motor and Imaginational, stay close to Jo. Find out if Regina is armed.”

“Emotional check whether Chekhov’s gun is still there.”

“It is. Should I hide it?”

“No. Probably better not to draw attention to it.”

“The murderer often returns to the scene of the crime! I will wait for them in the writing room.”

“So the workshop taught me a lot about how to take out any scene that did not move the plot forward, even if I loved that scene. It can mean eliminating scenes, sentences or even characters.

It suggested putting the deleted bits in another file, so that they could be used another time.” Jo was saying. “But it did not tell me how to write a death scene.”

“So then I did an online search for ‘How to write a death scene’.

“I wanted to find out how to write a scene for King Arthur; but I wanted to practice on another character first. Sir Gawain would have been a good one to choose. He writes a letter to Sir Lancelot on his deathbed, asking his forgiveness and begging him to return to King Arthur and fight for him against Mordred. But, there again, I wanted to practice on someone else first.

Lady Elaine insisted that she was not going to do the whole Lily Maid of Astolat dying of unrequited love for Sir Lancelot scene and did not want me to practice on her.

Sir Lancelot’s final penance and death as a holy man and the elegy spoken by his brother are far too beautiful to risk messing up.”

“I did not even want to write a death for any of my non-canon characters who have names and backstories. I have got to know them and I love them too much. So I invented Your Darlings to practice on.”

“And how did that go?” asked Regina.

“I was still really struggling with it. So I asked to see an example and I printed it out. But when I read the result, it looked more like an example of a piece ready to be edited. So I used it as an editing exercise and put lines through all the flowery language. It even had some spelling mistakes. And it was not at all like my style of writing.”

“So you still have not attempted to write a death scene yourself yet? Do you know who wrote the example you used?”

“No. I admit I accepted an offer of help from…”

“YOU?” barked Intellectual Dabrowski.

AI Lemur was squatting beside the purple prose and printer ink heap, pointing at it with his long, bony middle finger.

“You killed Yor Darlings?”

“No. I have told you before. We Ais do not kill. We just point at people in danger and if they die, we did not cause it; even if the Malagasy people think we cause the deaths.”

”I just supplied an example for Little Plump Jo.”

“But so much purple!”

“ I like purple prose – so sue me!”