JAYNE AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING FERN

Every time I talk to a group of readers and/or writers I know one thing for certain: At some point in the chat someone in the audience -- you know who you are -- will ask the impossible question: How do you plot your books?

The simple and most honest answer is that I have absolutely no idea how I plot my books. But no one ever seems satisfied with that. Sometimes I try to explain that, for me, the process of plotting is the closest I will ever come to an understanding of Chaos Theory. Nobody likes that answer, either.

But just to prove how weird plotting is for me, I'm going to try to give you a brief glimpse into how I worked through one -- just one, mind you -- plot point for my new Amanda Quick Arcane Society novel, THE PERFECT POISON. For those of you who read the story and enjoyed it, this is how the fern got into the book.

I started out with the idea of a heroine, Lucinda, who possesses a psychic talent for detecting poisons that have a botanical base. That led me to the notion that she should have one of those lovely Victorian greenhouses of her very own. Pretty soon I decided that it would be really cool if everyone believed that Lucinda had poisoned her fiance. Next thing I knew I was dealing with a Renaissance era ring that could be used to conceal the poison, blah, blah, blah. But that road takes us into a different part of the story. We're sticking with the fern here.

Anyhow, eventually it occurred to me that one of the more interesting curiosities of the Victorian period was the passion for ferns. I mean, the whole fern thing was HUGE in those days, especially among women, in part because it was deemed a respectable, ladylike pastime. Women collected and classified ferns. They pressed and dried them and illustrated them in notebooks. They grew ferns in the drawing room and in aquarium-like structures called Wardian Cases. They designed gowns with fern prints on the skirts. In short, they were mad about ferns.

There was even a name for the fern craze that swept Victorian England: Pteridomania.

All in all, introducing a fern into my story began to make perfect sense. But it could not be just any fern. It had to be one that my heroine had discovered. Where? How about the Amazon? Plenty of opportunity for finding an unknown fern there. And given my heroine's talent, her fern should definitely have psychical properties. Sure. Like what?

Dang. First, I needed a unique name for my fern. For those of you who dozed through the class on botanical nomenclature, naming ferns (or plants of any kind) is a very arcane and complicated process. There are Rules. What's more, those rules change every few years. But for this problem I had a terrific answer. I consulted my wonderful sister-in-law, Wendy Born (a fern expert) and she teemed up with another fern expert, Barbara Knapp. They gave me a fabulous name for my mysterious fern: Ameliopteris amazonensis. Neat, huh?

Wendy and Barbara also gave me lots of information, not only about ferns but about other rare and exotic and potentially dangerous plants that might have appeared in a Victorian greenhouse. At one point Wendy took me to a nursery that specializes in carnivorous plants. Trust me, you haven't lived until you've walked through the nursery called California Carnivores in Sebastopol, California. Naturally the wonder of seeing all those flesh-eating plants led to another plot element....

But again, I digress. You see how hard it is to focus when you're trying to plot? One idea leads to another and then hops to something else and gets tangled up with another possibility and there you are, heading off in different direction again.

Back to my fern. Something bad needed to happen to this extremely rare specimen. Right. It gets stolen.

But how the heck do you find a missing fern? I mean, it's not like you can expect Scotland Yard to take that sort of theft seriously. Wait, how about using the Arcane Society's new psychic investigator, Caleb Jones? Oh, sure, like Jones is going to want the case. He's busy trying to track down the dangerous Doctor Hulsey who is working on the forbidden psychical enhancement drug. Give me one good reason why Jones might be interested in Lucinda's missing fern.

Sex. Right. That works.

Besides, he's a Jones, of course, and everyone knows he's a little different. He falls for Lucinda, big time. But this is the lady who is in the habit of poisoning her admirers. Then again, it's not like Caleb Jones is going to pick a boring lover now, is it?

Where was I? Oh, yes, my fern. You see how mushy and convoluted and chaotic this process is for me? The astonishing fact is that it all seems to come together at the end. I have no idea how I get there.

But I will tell you that my Ameliopteris amazonensis was way too much fun for one book. Yep, the fern gets its own cameo in the second book of the DREAMLIGHT TRILOGY (first book is FIRED UP in January. Book II is the AQ that will be out next April. And while I'm on the subject of the trilogy, Book III will be my Jayne Castle, summer of 2010 book and, no I don't have a title for it either. I'll get back to you on that). Are we sufficiently confused yet?

Where was I? Oh, yes, the cameo appearance of the Ameliopteris amazonensis. Look for it next April. Maybe I'll call that book THE RETURN OF THE FERN. Has a ring to it, don't you think?

Okay, so titles aren't my forte...

Your turn. What do you find chaotic in life?

Jayne