Writing Wrongs
Good morning, dear Reader! Today I want to introduce something new that I'm going to be doing here in an effort to spruce up the blog. I've been working on it for a while now, so I hope you enjoy it.As I hinted at before, I've been put on the trail of a rogue InterFiction reporter. Today I wanted to tell you a bit more about him.His name is Henry Fairchild. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out why I named him that). He was hired by the InterFiction Gazette a few years ago, but from his first assignment he's been trouble. As far as I can tell, he's never satisfactorily completed any assignment they've given him... and seems to have figured out how to use his IF Badge to get into realms where he has no assignment! We're not sure what motivates him, but it appears that he is attempting to change things in the literary world... and he must be stopped before he figures out a way to mess things up permanently.This probably isn't going to be a weekly feature (just being honest, here), but we do have access to Mr. Fairchild's journal entries, and I will be posting them on Wednesdays as they are released to me from the Gazette.A little bit about Henry before I share about any of his actual capers. He's not your typical villain. He's a Senior Software Engineer in his late fifties. Tall, over six feet, with dark hair that has a few streaks of gray in it. Despite having worked at a desk all day for the past thirty years, he is quite fit — he has a very active lifestyle and enjoys being outdoors.
One day, sitting at his desk, he is flipping through the InterFiction Gazette, one of his favorite magazines, reading interviews with different characters and various other fantasy-realm-based articles, when he spots an ad informing him that the Gazette is hiring reporters.
He’s always kind of considered the Gazette to be fun, and imaginative (though he doesn’t believe the reporters actually enter into book worlds... because that is just ridiculous), but he likes the idea of meeting authors and interviewing them... so he goes online, fills out the application form, and then sort of forgets about it.
Several weeks later, he is contacted by the HR manager for the Gazette who wants him to come in for an interview.
After the interview, he goes home, and is contacted a few days later to inform him that he’s hired. At new employee orientation he is secretly amused the entire time at how seriously they take themselves at this company, and wonders when the “gag” will end. He figures he can always just walk away. He is given his official badge as well as a notebook and pencils, instructed to wear it at all times, and given instructions on how to use it to go on assignment and return... all of which he only half-listens to, because he is sort of getting the feeling that he’s accidentally joined some weird cult.
He is also given his first assignment, to interview Gimli in Fellowship of the Ring.
At the end of the day, Henry goes home, flips through Fellowship of the Ring, and starts to type up a creative interview with Gimli... but gets tired and goes to bed before he finishes... however, in the early morning hours, he is awakened by a strange, pulsing blue light emanating from the badge he had tossed on his nightstand...
And that is where the adventures of Henry Fairchild truly begin...
And now I need your help... because Henry is about to embark on an epic adventure that will change the course of his life - and it will cause him to become a sort of book-vigilante... so I need to know if there are any things YOU would change about a book you read. Is there a character you would save, a love triangle you would foil before it began, a villain whose life you would make harder, an event you would prevent? Let me know in the comments! I can't promise to use every suggestion I get, because I need to have read the book, but I need ideas, so please lend me yours!