What A Novel Idea

For those Modern Philosophers who have been wondering what has happened to Detective Bruno and Wally since I posted The Vanishing Corpse and The Vanishing Santa serials on the blog, I have an official update.

One of the reasons why things have been so quiet on the blog lately, save for Aaron and Holly’s Sunday chats, is that I’ve been hard at work on a novel about our favorite detective and his rookie sidekick!

I realized after writing the serials that I still had so many story ideas left for the characters.  Better yet, it was obvious that in churning out the serials, I had rushed the process and not really taken a deep dive on exploring the characters, their world, and the story.

So after some serious Deep Thoughts, it became obvious that those serials could make up the first in a series of Bruno novels!

I came up with a way to forge The Vanishing Corpse and The Vanishing Santa into one story.  This took some hard work, a lot of creativity, and necessitated many new additions.

When published on the blog, the serials totaled about 56,000 words.  Now that I’ve completed the first edit of the novel, the story is at 82,800 words.

There’s a new introduction, an epilogue, and something called an interlude, which explains what happened between the two stories.

Chapters were expanded, supporting characters received larger roles, and characters who didn’t get to spend much time together in the serials, now get to hang out in the novel.

I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am very excited with the first draft of the novel.  I knew I had something special when I brought Detective Bruno and his world to the blog, but I had no idea how large the Brunoverse would turn out to be.

I wanted to share this news because so many of you were supportive of the serials, and reached out to me outside of the blog to encourage me to do more with the characters.

Thank you for enjoying Bruno and the gang so much that you wanted more.  I didn’t know if I had a novel in me, but now I suspect there’s an entire series of them waiting to be unleashed.

As Bruno would say, “Ya ain’t gonna go and get all mushy on us now are ya, Kid?”

No, Modern Philosophers, I’m not going to get all mushy.  I will admit, however, that querying agents has never been my strength, so if anyone has any tips or words of encouragement about the process, I would definitely love to hear them.

Thanks for making me proud to wear my toga.  Hope to have more updates soon!