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| Ann and Dan Andriacco - as seen on the big screen by Shannon's students |
Did you ever look
at a map at the end of a journey and marvel at where you were on the way to where
you are? I had that experience recently with a short story.
The students in Shannon Carlisle, BSI’s fourth grade classroom at Moore Elementary School in Franklin, TN, where it is always 1895, last week read and discussed my 780-word short story “The Adventure of the Amateur Players” from my book, BakerStreet Beat. The story features a group of crime-solving kids called the Deerstalker Club, led by the pompous Toby Motherwell.
Meeting in
small groups, the students identified the different elements of the short
story's plot. Shannon then wrote those elements on one document as a story
map. The map follows the Freitag Pyramid of dramatic structure, which I learned about in freshman English at Elder High
School, 1966-67. And yet I never think of dear old Freitag while I plot -- it just happens!
Two of Shannon's students
wrote to me, “We liked how even a short story could be
suspenseful. And once Toby asked two questions and observed the ‘suspects’ in
the room, he quickly knew who stole the money. Clever character!”
He certainly
is!
My first
attempts to write novel-length detective fiction in the early 1980s were a
series of Deerstalker Club novels for young people. The narrator, Billy
Piccolo, is the son of a newspaper journalist, which happened to be my
profession at the time. Ralph “Ski” Wysnewski is a budding actor. But perhaps my
favorite character is Sara Moon, who is every bit as smart as Toby and
has a knack for pricking his pomposity with a few well-chosen words of her own.
The three Sherlockian-infused Deerstalker Club books – The Riddle of the Silent Dummy, The Secret of the
Seven Sherlocks, and The Enigma of the Elusive Unicorn – were never published.
But I’ve always loved the characters. And the adult Toby Motherwell makes a cameo
appearance in my 2015 McCabe-Cody mystery novel Bookmarked for Murder.
I’m happy that
the students at Moore Elementary School like these old friends of mine from long
ago.
You just never know where your words will be studied, Dan! Thank you for creating the Deerstalker Club. Analyzing the plot elements of your short story was a fine learning activity. Now the Sherlockians, of 221b Baker Street, at Moore Elementary, are writing short stories of their own.
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