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[jay-ell]

Tried to post this earlier, but my browser crapped itself. 

Basically, I have been digging around, and Felice Louria was in the NY DOL at the same time that Frieda Miller was there.  They both worked for minimum wage laws, possibly in the same department at the same time.  It is hard to imagine them not knowing each other.  I am trying to trace Felice Louria's family history such that I can determine how many family members she had in 1953 but it is difficult since the decennial census data for 1940 and later have not yet been released.  This also makes it difficult to confirm when exactly she went to California; I think I would have the last piece of hard evidence in my favor if I could prove that she lived in NYC in '53, making the point of origin for the telegram in close proximity to her home.  I have a citation from an individual writing a scholarly article in the mid 1960s thanking her and some of the author's "colleagues" in the NY DOL for their input, indicating that she still had connections there, but census data indicating a home address would be more irrefutable.  (It isn't clear whether she is one of the DOL colleagues or part of a distinct category.) 

The dots do connect, and I wrote to my adviser about this and he was very impressed with our combined efforts.  He called it "excellent historical detective work." 

So....thanks!  You guys rock so hard, I can't even begin to say.

[littlefallsmets]

Early-teens series of novels:

A bunch of teenagers from all over the country and the world, solve mysteries together, strictly through a message board and the accumulated knowledge of all these different people in different places with different resources.

Call the message board something sassy-but-parent-safe like "getaclue.com"... call the series "Get A Clue!"... create a bunch of teenagers who are equal parts stock-character and pluck and...

Start printing money at the cost of your creative dignity.

If you don't end up as rich as JK Rowling, you at least end up as rich as RL Stein.

Which, unless RL Stein doesn't actually exist, is still more than enough.

[CortJstr]

Early-teens series of novels:

A bunch of teenagers from all over the country and the world, solve mysteries together, strictly through a message board and the accumulated knowledge of all these different people in different places with different resources.

Call the message board something sassy-but-parent-safe like "getaclue.com"... call the series "Get A Clue!"... create a bunch of teenagers who are equal parts stock-character and pluck and...

Start printing money at the cost of your creative dignity.

If you don't end up as rich as JK Rowling, you at least end up as rich as RL Stein.

Which, unless RL Stein doesn't actually exist, is still more than enough.

Dammit, now I have the Bloodhound Gang theme song stuck in my head.

Also, I only actually read one of RL Stein's books in like 4th grade but it was hysterical at the time. Oh man, so many puke jokes.

[wombat]

The problem with this concept is that it's really hard to make sitting at a computer dramatic, no matter what's supposed to be going on. I'm sure all of you with a better memory for movies than me can remind us of examples of this fact.

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah but the message board interactions would just be, like, chapter breaks.

One page of message board interactions and then... a chapter of one or more of the characters going out and learning something or preventing a murderer from escaping by tripping him with marbles or something.

And the chapter breaks would be easy to write and count toward the page count!

[V-Adore]

Books in message-board style can work. I recently read the novel Train Man, translated from the Japanese, which is written entirely in the format of a Japanese image-posting forum and uses it very well.

What I'm saying here is: LFM, hold onto the dream. Maintain your integrity even in the face of such trials as "possibly having to write the book in a normal style." You can do it.

[jay-ell]

You could totally have a tie-in message board where you hire people to write in-character and interact with the fans.  And you could serve ads off of it and it would also be a promotional thing.  And you could have threads that are mini-mysteries for the fans to solve with their combined brain powers. 

There was a video game one time that tried to be immersive, where you entered a bunch of personal information and played through the adventure-style game, the main server would actually call you or send you email with clues, and you were supposed to look things up and try to solve the mystery this way.  I heard it sucked actually -- sort of low production values.  But it was a neat concept, I thought. 

[theinevitable]

there was a really brilliant Daily Victim where the guy was in that game, and thought that all these Completely Insane things happening to him were part of it. "oh my god, after I killed the pilot I landed the plane by myself! I took out like three of the SWAT guys with that gun they gave me... it was so realistic!"
at the end, they call him to say "your adventure is just beginning!" and he's like "holy shit, that was just the intro!?"

[Doc]

Sounds awesome JL.

Cool idea LFM, but where do the cat cock conversations fit in?

[littlefallsmets]

That would be in "Case #23: So THAT'S what a furry is."