This one is pretty epic (for a short story). I wrote it throughout the week this week, about 2000 - 4000 words a day, and finished it up on Saturday.
The idea wasn't too old, I think it came to me whilst I was researching A Study in Blood. I was looking up Victorian London and remembered the story of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee (I'm a bit of an amateur Ripperologist which, by the way, is an actual profession that more than one person has!). The committee was basically a group of local shop owners and businessmen from the Whitechapel district who were fed up with the police not being able to catch Jack The Ripper (or 'Leather Apron' as he was known during the killings) and decided to take matters into their own hands so they took to the streets in groups (mobs) every night and patrolled. It was to the head of the committee, George Lusk, that the 'From Hell' letter was sent, along with half a human kidney... anyway, I'm getting off the point here.
I loved the idea that these men were real life vigilantes, taking the security of their London borough into their own hands, and I thought about what that might be like today. I think one of the most fascinating things about London is the closeness of different classes- Chelsea is one of the richest and most expensive places to live in England whilst Brixton is one of the poorest and worst, and they're literally two miles from each other. That's one of the main reasons I would never live in London- no matter how great your neighbourhood is you're not safe and the riots proved that. I couldn't believe those rich socialites on MIC hadn't ever got in trouble, especially since they seem like pretty good targets to me, but then when I thought about it... they go to the gym every day and they're all toned and stuff, they only eat expensive healthy food, they have masses of free time and they're rich- they're the perfect vigilantes!
I immediately knew I had to write it in such a way as to distance myself from it being comedic- this isn't MIC meets Batman. I put it off for a while, playing with ways of writing it (A diary? a newspaper article?) then it just came to me as a memoir. once I got going the rest flowed pretty nicely. I worried about it coming across as classist, since I don't personally have much of a tolerance for 'youf', but it wasn't until near the end that I got the idea of having the 'hero' realise his failings and therefore clear my conscience as the writer.
I put a lot of modern reference in this one (Facebook, BBM, Google Maps, etc.) which is always a gamble since it dates it, but I liked how it made it sound more realistic, which was the whole point. I took the cover image from Google Maps (cheers Google!) since it fitted with the story and I like how it puts you, the reader, in that slightly uncomfortable (but also hard to resist) place of 'observer'.
Thanks for visiting and, as always, any feedback is welcome!
B A Jones 04/05/2014
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