Harry and Cricket are a couple. Husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, take your pick. There will be lots and lots of obsticles put in their way, they will fight every now and then, but they will remain together, now and forever. So Harry had to be just as likeable. A little rough around the edges, but if he ever comes off as a jerk, he'll have to make up for it by the end of the story.
My second unshakeable guideline is: Cricket will always solve the case. Why? Cause the stories really revolve around her. It's all about the fembot. She really is the more cleaver of the two, and that's just the way it is.
The setting, America after a civil war that no one remembers how it started, was someplace I could place my own twist on good vs. evil. It's actually the Metropolis version. Hard working pepole getting by in the old cities, lazy people living carfree without privacy in the new domed cities (Logan's Run with out the age limit). This is something I'm trying to bring out more in the Nightingale re-write. Someone posted that it would be very hard for a robot to survive in the enviroment I created in Old Chicago, and I agree. That's why Betty Stevens is such a critical caracter. A robot specialist who came from New Chicago, couldn't stand to be there, and "escaped". She's going to be more and more important as the stories go along. Her daughter, was sort of a last minute add-on. Someone who Cricket could relate to, and given who her mom is, broken robots are just an everyday sight to her. I'm not yet sure how much 'page time' April will get in future stories, but she will be in them.
My arch villan, The Chairman -- not the most original name I admit but it seem to fit. He'll be plotting to take over the world more or less, and Cricket will always stop him. He's really the launching point for the many traps I'll put poor Cricket in.
You won't see Carl Throckhammer much. He was the client in the first story, and will be doing his own foiling of ColbalCon. Though at times, you won't know who's side he's really on. More of an enigma than a character.
So that's the set up and my reasons for writing the way I am. Now I realize that this is still basiclly ASFR, the S meaning sex, but the relationship between Harry and Cricket, at least i the stories I want more romantic than sexual. Like I said, they are a couple, they are in love, so sex is kina assumed, yes? It I didn't make Cricket a 'bombshell' or 'knockout' becaue I thought it was much more fun if just about everybody (except Harry and a few others) never really take her seriously, and then they're agast when she gets to kick butt. Or when she solves the mystery when no one else has a clue. Lastly, one one my goals with to create a gynoid who readers could really fall in love with. And want to have more adventures with.
Now given all this, what do YOU want to see in a story like this? Is this even a type of "series" you want to see? I'm trying to put in the obvious, malfunctions, start-ups, shut-dows, a few meltdowns, a little T and A maybe, but I just can't put much in.....just not where i'm going with it. Once I'm finished with 'Nightingale' I'm going to see what I have, and shop it around either as a short story or novel. I really want to put something out we can all be proud of. And I'll dream a little here....I'd love to see Cricket on the big screen (or even small screen) too. Who knows. Anyway, I'll go back to writing fiction now and I hope you all enjoy it
