daibhidc | A work in progress, or how my mind works

It's been one of those weeks where I ignore all my year-old WIPs because I've had A New Idea, write a handful of introductory paragraphs, and then realise I have yet to attach that idea to anything that might be called a plot. I don't know when or if I'm going to get any further with it, but I'm quite pleased with the thinking behind it, so I thought I'd share. (It's a Kim Newman Diogenes Club/Drearcliff School thing, so if you don't read those, it probably won't mean much.)

Initial thought: You know what would be fun? Writing a fanfic set at present day Drearcliff. No, better yet, 2000 Drearcliff, because then I can use characters from Anno Dracula 1999.

So that's Nezumi, obviously, and her roommates are given as Clara Fields, Erzulie Bronze, and the Trenchcoat Twosome.

Quick Google to check none of them are pre-existing characters, because Anno Dracula. Nope.

Clara Fields is only mentioned as taping Nezumi's shows for her. She's probably the "basically normal" one. Also, when I Googled, the first hits were for an Irish sugar refinery, so maybe she's Irish? Definitely need more development there.

Erzulie Bronze is apparently fast (and presumably strong) enough to spar with a vampire. Aha, she must be the descendant of "Mr John Bronze of Harlem" who is briefly mentioned in Haunting. And a quick Google for him confirms my suspicion that he's an African-American Doc Savage (apparently his daughter Nefertiti appeared in Newman's contribution to Stephen Jones's Lovecraft Squad as some kind of Cleopatra Jones pastiche, which makes me very tempted to write Erzulie as Tigerlily Jones; talking like she's in a blaxploitation move when she wasn't even born in the seventies).

The Trenchcoat Twosome. Well, we're told that they're Drearcliff's current generation of mystery solvers, but beyond that they aren't even given names. Given that Drearcliff girls often have meaningful or punny names, maybe they're actually named Trench and Coat!

No hang on. Not "Coat". Coates. She's the daughter of Alexander and Vanessa Coates, of course, and is quick to refer to her family connections. This is one of the few things about her that annoys her best friend Trench, who can only boast an aunt who used to hang around with a dodgy MI5 agent.

And beyond that, all I've got is a vague note that one of the other teams in the Great Game this year is the Coal Hill Computer Club, captained by a boy named Jerome, who Coates says is the son of a member of the exclusive Not An Associate Member Because They Turned It Down list.