Big Spoilers Ahead.  If you thought you were going to read the Best Story in the World without spoilin’, read this not.

By the time this post escapes my queue it will be just a few days before I get started on writing the Best Story in the World™ (for my husband).  As I’m composing this like ten days ago, I’m just going through my thoughts on the story in a public way, to get blog content out of the deal as well.  I hope by the time you read this I’ll be a lot closer to having this sorted out than I do as I’m writing it.

The latest scoop is that I should be able to take a fairy tale and heavily rewrite / modernize it.  Downside, one I know he likes a lot is The Seven Ravens, and I feel like if I use the most obvious one it’ll be less thrillening.  So lemme check on some other ones…

A lot of them don’t really have the pathos to turn into a really compelling story for adults.  They’re just “here’s some wacky shit that happened.”  The ones with real stakes are probably all taken…  Well, I’m going to change this a lot anyway.  What could I do to Puss in Boots to make it feel more like compelling narrative, where the ending is earned, instead of being doled out by a magic cat upon some lucky bum?

The boy who inherited the cat should have to suffer a lot more, so his fortune at the end feels like a magical transformation, reward for a bad time.  Taken abstractly, this then becomes a story where there are two characters – one a sad mess, one with cool skills who is always trying to help the other, and is rewarded at the end with that help becoming more permanent.

It starts with the boy saying he’ll kill the cat, and the cat says naw, let me help you out.  Which is weird.  But in terms of a modern scenario, I could see that playing out in a context of war, or organized crime.  Crime is less bitter for me to contemplate, so yeah, some kind of mafia thing?

Puss opens with a business dude bequeathing his possessions to three sons, maybe I have three partners in crime kill a rival and split his possessions.  One gets the business, one gets the money, and the last gets a henchman.  He’s like, what good is a henchman?  I should kill him before he has a chance to stab me in the back.  But Hench says I didn’t like my old boss anyway.  Gimme a chance and I’ll make you phat loot.  Hench asks for some cool boots and uses a zany scheme to make money off that, idk.

Henchpuss’s first scheme was to get catch elusive partridges for a king that loved partridges, and then to lie that his boss was an earl who had bagged them as a gift.  The king gave Henchpuss gold.  This reminds me of the Count of Monte Cristo, where somebody is going to use treasure to pretend to nobility they don’t have.  I think I can come up with modern mafia equivalents.

Henchpuss keeps partridging for the Godfather until he’s ensconced in his inner sanctum.  He overhears that the Godfather and his Princess are going to the lake, and tells his Boss to go bathe in the lake.  He steals his clothes and then cries to the Godfather that Boss’s finery got jacked by banditos and he’ll catch cold in the lake.  Godfather gives Boss finery he never previously possessed, and Boss gets cozy with Princess.  This scheme is a little more outlandish, but I think I can do it.

Literally the same day Henchpuss runs ahead to a fiefdom ruled by a magician, convinces the people in the fields to front like it belongs to Boss, and tricks the magician into making himself into a conveniently edible mouse.  Godfather Princess and Boss are still spazieren gehen and roll up on the fields where the people pretend it all belongs to the boss.  By the time they get to the magician’s castle, it’s no longer the magician’s, an Henchpuss says welcome home, Boss.

Boss and Princess get Godfather’s blessing to marry, Boss inherits the Godfather’s kingdom as well, and he makes Henchpuss into his Underboss.  The end.  This is the problem, as I said earlier.  The Boss’s only moment of suffering was getting Henchpuss instead of grander prizes, and his only virtuous deed, for which he was rewarded with a kingdom, was sparing Henchpuss’s life.  Doesn’t feel earned, not to a modern audience.

I think a natural sideplot, in turning this into a mob story, would be for the Boss’s other brothers from the beginning to recur as characters who mess him up, cause big trouble…  Y’know, Henchpuss is kinda reminding me of Yojimbo, in that he farms out his magical service rather than being a boss himself.  Altho unlike Yojimbo, he has loyalty.  Maybe I could lean slightly more Yojimbo in having him fake service to the other brothers, and betray them in the end to his chosen Boss.

For some reason as I’m running through this all, I find myself thinking of the two lessons of Haitian Creole I took in DuoLingo.  Imma mange some mango ak fwomaj…  Brains are the worst.

Problem is my dude specified he isn’t interested in crime stories, back in the previous post, and that’s where I’ve gone with all this thought.  Can this be tweaked?  I think the key thing is that my husband does not relate to greed as a motivation.  He wants things to make him happy, but does not want an amount of things that would require mobster loot, so mobsterism is unrelatable.  Could I replace the greed motivator?

What does my dude even want, aside from surcease of his various pains?  What’s a relatable goal?  It’s why he likes horror – the only goal is to survive, and this is relatable, I think, to living with chronic illness.  Hm…  Survival as the goal?  Is being gangster that dangerous here?  Is there any other motive he could find relatable?  Lemme think of his fave stories again…

Cure has a cop battling a guy that kills with hypnotism.  Gotta stop bad guy, because it is your responsibility.  Mulholland Drive has wannabe starlet falling in love with amnesiac girl, trying to have a career and love, while a very fucked up secret threatens to flip it all.  Hm… not very usable.  Perfect Blue has a wannabe starlet being stalked by murderous obsessive(s) that make her question herself and reality.  um…  Silent Hill 2 has a guy get a letter from his dead wife, and he goes to meet her in their special place, only to be confronted with his dark secret in surreal survival horror circumstances.  Motive: Investigate an impossible thing of great emotional significance…

My Mafia Puss in Boots is lacking supernatural mystery.  Maybe that can suggest a better motive for the action.  Contemporary setting, mobsters doing dirt, what magic can be happening?  Maybe the gangsterism is imaginary, like PvP in a video game, and there’s some question of what’s real vs. video gameness…  Been done a lot.  Kinda tired.

But a number of stories he likes involve that “through the looking glass” other world aspect.  The one where it’s most metaphorical is Blue Velvet, but that’s also one where it works very well.  Jeffrey’s innocence at the beginning of that story is not compatible with the mobster idea.  Or is it?  Maybe the Boss is just trying to fake it til he makes it, coerced by circumstances and sheisty other brothers into criminal world.

I’m kinda liking that, but I’m still in mobland.  The whole thing is taking shape in my head – kinda baroque, but ultimately can be boiled down to a simple story – just like he prefers.  But it’s in mobland, which is not his preferred milieu.

When I do gangster content in my stories, I prefer to keep it lo-fi, janky and skanky.  Like the furry scene in Centennial Hills.  That opens the door to eccentric freaks like you’d find in Blue Velvet, which feels magical even if the supernatural isn’t invoked.  You know, I may be pondering the mafioso because of my recent experience with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.  I’m thinking, I like the idea of a mob princess in the vein of Trish Una.  Hm hm hm…

I can’t make this self-indulgent!  This MUST indulge my husband, above all!  Argghgghhgghhhghhg!

Well, it goes without saying then, that Henchpuss and Boss are going to be gay, and get together at the end of the story.  That’ll be big big husband points.  I might as well ride this Grimm Bros rocket to its natural conclusion, and switch gears at the last minute to something easier if I have no choice.

To that end, plot notions:

Henchpuss is a cool gay hustler in the criminal kingdom of Godfather.  Boss is a guy whose best friends are no-good scum that try to do a hot score by jacking Henchpuss’s boss.  What if they’re corrupt cops and Boss is just on a bad ride, like Training Day?  No, that makes Boss a cop, and I’d rather not have a protagonist cop again.

What if his best friends are undercover cops and he isn’t?  Lol.  Um… No…  OK.  No… Maybe… I can fold in the Wizard.  They should be in the Wizard’s crime family, which turns Henchpuss’s mousification of the Wizard into a betrayal of Boss’s original boss.  And maybe that crime family could be tha cops?  I feel like a crime story without cops is lacking…

But it isn’t supposed to be a crime story, not really.  Alright, so.  So let’s see.

The Wizard is a drug dealer who has done real well for himself in some limited market, like… a college campus?  Wait, I already did that in Mitosis.  Could this connect to the Mitosis Cinematic Universe?  Don’t be silly.  The Wizard is a Faginesque mystery man who has monkeyboys do crimes for him.  The brothers are monkeyboys turned onto a hot score – jack Henchpuss’s boss.  Boss didn’t know the only way to do that was to kill him.  Why wouldn’t they also kill Henchpuss?  They ask Boss to do it and he cheeses.

Henchpuss says buy me some boots and I’ll make you a bank full of money.  Boss says I’ll settle for not getting killed by rival gangs, but sure, have some boots.  Henchpuss scores some fat loot for Godfather and says it was Boss’s doing.  But mob bosses don’t usually love somebody doing crime without permission in their territory.  Let’s say.. Hm.. what can the partridges be?  What is Godfather like?

The obvious thing would be if the partridges are a vice.  Drugs, drink, weird porn, um… Guns?  Expensive watches?  Cars?  Is he on some Gone in 60 Seconds nonsense?  No, that’s cars, which my dude also finds boring.  What can Henchpuss get with nothing but boots, and impress a mob boss?  Lab-grown diamonds with fake pedigree as coming from more valuable blood mines?  Cool designer drugs?  Man…

Samurai swords?  Comic books?  Funko pops?  Used underwear?  Candy?  Expensive coffee?  Tobacco?  Fine art?  Maybe Henchcat’s starting boss was the guy who usually supplies the stuff to Godfather – but no, if he said Boss was supplying around the same time the usual supplier went dead or missing, Boss would be number one suspect.

Maybe it could be a switchback where instead of saying it was Boss, he says it was another brother.  Then when…  No, this doesn’t work either.  Unless… He says Boss stole it from other brother, and this is actually Henchcat getting revenge, while boosting his new Boss.

Mob Boss goes after other brother One.  This isn’t in Puss narrative originally.  What did come next?  Puss ensconced himself in King’s household while continuing to enrich his boss by selling this supply.  But that don’t work because Godfather would feel entitled to this supply.  Maybe Henchpuss just gives entire supply to Godfather and gets big brownie points.  He just asks permission to operate in town, promising not to hit any of Godfather’s enterprises, and it’s granted.

Henchcat overhears Princess lamenting Godfather expects her to marry so she can make male heir for family line, realizes she’s gay, and hatches scheme to have Boss do a lavender marriage to her, but doesn’t spring the deal yet.  Back at Brother Two’s place, B2’s manipulating Boss into helping him avoid mob wrath, but plans on making him take the fall for the score getting jacked, when the Wizard inquires.

Boss gets messed up and almost killed by the Wizard, Henchpuss gets Godfather to save him, and while in their graces he gets fresh finery.  Wizard disappears, killing brother Two to cover tracks.  Henchpuss discovers a clue, pretends to be Boss to get into the Wizard’s inner sanctum, and defeats him somehow.

Then he tells Boss to take credit for whacking the Wizard when Godfather asks, and Boss gets Made.  Henchpuss ends up having to do some difficult jail time but keeps advising Boss on lavender marriage scheme.  When he gets out, he gets with Boss romantically.

Godfather is biggest remaining threat to everybody’s happiness.  In Puss the King dies, bequeathing kingdom to cat owner.  How will he get taken out here?

It occurs to me that Boss is still a bozo letting Henchpuss do all the work.  What does he do to deserve it?  In this version, I think what he’s doing is being beautiful and romantically available to Henchpuss, who is the actual main character – if not the PoV character at the beginning of the story.

Godfather should pay for his misogyny and patriarchy.  Actually, let’s have this be the moment when Boss and Henchpuss get together.  Godfather finds out Princess is gay and is about to beat her or something, when Boss does his first brave thing and distracts Godfather – by kissing Henchpuss in front of him.  Godfather freaks out and goes to shoot them, leaving him open to Princess stabbing him in the back.

Boss is now Godfather and Henchpuss a consigliere.  Or are they?  I don’t get the impression they wanted to be criminals in the first place.  Maybe the gays all just take the money and run.

So there’s Puss in Boots as an LGBT crime story.  That’s pretty cool, but hardly what I was expecting.  But I suppose that means it would be unexpected to him as well, and therefore surprising or compelling.  Now to see if I can inject things from his “fave stuff” lists, reduce influence of “most hated stuff” list.

Aha!  Looking at older posts gave me some hot notions.  Commenter Ian King suggested a crumbling old gothic estate as a location, which doesn’t fit too well, but what about… a council estate?  What if the whole story including rival gangs is much more small potatoes / low rent, and the whole thing takes place in one housing project?  That fits me and my husband’s interest, as poor people, in more familiar environs – in avoiding glamorous depiction of wealth and power, of writing the world as we know it.

Then the name can just be the name of the project.