Remember that post about info dumps? Well, I’ve just cut two, and it’s breaking my heart. One of them was a cute little scene that I really enjoyed writing, but even as I wrote it I knew what it’s ultimate fate would be.

The other though…the other was about how Kaati picked a primitive lock with the claw of its little finger. I spent well over a week refining the description, trimming it, massaging it, loving it. But this morning I finally admitted the truth: describing the lock and how it was picked had absolutely nothing to do with the story. It may have added a little unnecessary background to the story, but nothing substantial. Nothing necessary.
So I killed it with those bloody great shears. But as the pieces lay twitching on the cutting room floor, I realised that I could write a post about them. Just in case anyone ever needed to know how an ancient lock worked…mwahahahaha!
Okay, ahem, way back in the mists of time, the Egyptians invented a lock that looked something like this:

The yellow bar is the locking bar. It goes through the door and into the doorframe. At the top of the locking bar are three holes and a long slot. When the locking bar is lined up correctly, the three pins inside the lock drop down into the holes in the locking bar and stop it from pulling out of the doorframe. Effectively this keeps the door ‘locked’.
As you can see from the diagram, the pins do not extend all the way down into the locking bar. This is so that a key can be pushed through the slot. The key has three teeth, each of which lines up with one of the ‘pins’.
When you want to unlock the door, you insert the key and push it up so the pins pop out of the locking bar, allowing it to move. You can then pull the locking bar out of the doorframe with the key:

To make the lock work for Kaati, however, I had to simplify the design at bit. This is what the iVokh lock looks like:

Instead of three pins, the Vokh lock only has one. When Kaati sticks its small finger in the keyhole, the tip of its claw fits underneath the pin. When it pushes its claw up, the pin slips out of the locking bar and unlocks the door.
-grin- I feel better now.
cheers
Meeks
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:20 pm
I hope you are keeping all of these to include as a bonus chapter – like the outtakes in a DVD
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October 3rd, 2020 at 11:37 pm
I am keeping them. Never really thought about publishing them though. Will think about it. π
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September 30th, 2020 at 4:47 pm
Clever little Egyptians they knew how to build things…but if you do Pub quizzes or the like the knowledge may come in handy…one never knows…be well and stay safe π xx
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September 30th, 2020 at 9:55 pm
lol – feels like I’ll never visit a pub again, but you never know. π
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September 30th, 2020 at 9:58 pm
Cheers my dear.. One day maybe we will meet x
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September 30th, 2020 at 10:58 pm
I’ll drink to that. π
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September 30th, 2020 at 12:16 am
What a great idea to share your dead darlings in a blog post! It immortalizes them for future generations. Lol. And the images made me smile. Well done, world-builder. π
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September 30th, 2020 at 7:29 am
-grin- Thank you!
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September 29th, 2020 at 7:44 am
I know the rest of the world of everyone calls it research, and sometimes I do, too (or no one knows what I’m talking about), but I’ve learned to call it ‘fact-checking’ so I’m not tempted to back-load the story with it. I’ve defined research as reworking a known element (re-doing a search for how things are done with this one thing) versus fact-checking (getting the information needed to ensure validity). Saves me from dumping. Mostly. Maybe. Not always, but a bit of a drop here and there …
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September 29th, 2020 at 8:59 am
Yes, it is a bit like fact checking, and I think it’s critical for the /first/ draft, although that’s kind of a misnomer. I only ever write a first ‘draft’ of the story because I refine, restructure and edit as I go. But there is always a first attempt at a scene. That first attempt is where all my darlings go. Once they’re on the paper/screen, I can then decide if the reader needs them or not. Mostly it’s not. -sigh-
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September 29th, 2020 at 6:21 am
Oh gosh, I share your pain! Sometimes, if a bit of research has taken me a ridiculous amount of time, I look for a way to ramp up the stakes to justify keeping it in. So in your case, if there were a way that Kaati’s life depended on opening that lock, if every second mattered as its claw scrapped and fumbled… well, then you’d have a reason to keep that bit in π
*hugs*
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:02 am
-giggles- High Five, Chris! That’s exactly the path I tried to take, and a small element of the time constraint will remain, but I finally had to admit that it was mostly an indulgence. I have managed to pull that trick off though…elsewhere. π π
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September 29th, 2020 at 5:40 am
That is fascinating! … and, outtakes as blog posts – who’d’a thunk!!! : D
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:05 am
Sneaky, right? lol Actually I’ve done this a lot with my research. I did one on knots a few years back that actually gets some hits. More importantly, it makes it easier to apply the shears if I know that all that research won’t be completely wasted. π
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September 30th, 2020 at 5:11 am
: )
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September 29th, 2020 at 3:17 am
This is quite interesting, Meeks. I had no idea how an ancient lock worked and I think your adaption clever.
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:06 am
Thanks, Robbie. π I was fascinated with old fashioned locks when I was a kid and experimented with ways to ‘pick’ them, so this was a bit of fun for me. π
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September 29th, 2020 at 1:17 am
Thanks for preserving that description of the lock mechanism. Who knows when that will come in handy in an ancient dungeon somewhere. Seriously, your point is well taken: those delicious details that writers find so fascinating tend to fall on deaf ears of readers who just want the story without the background lecture. π
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:14 am
-giggles- trust me, that was a hard lesson for me to learn as I’m totally fascinated by that kind of geeky stuff. Back when I was a kid, I found a book called Swiss Family Robinson in the second hand shop. It was about a whole family who became stranded on an island or something. I don’t remember the ‘plot’ but I do remember how they learned to survive. Oh and the description of a giant anaconda swallowing a donkey whole. -shudder-
Once a geek, always a geek.
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:21 am
Swiss Family Robinson is always a big book here too.
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September 29th, 2020 at 1:55 pm
Really?? I thought I was the only one who’d ever read it. π
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September 28th, 2020 at 6:55 pm
Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie ~ Authors.
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September 28th, 2020 at 8:19 pm
-hugs- thank you both. π
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September 28th, 2020 at 6:55 pm
Most of the time, it’s the interesting facts that we must know about that never end up in the book!
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September 28th, 2020 at 8:20 pm
Yes! -cries quietly- so unfair.
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September 28th, 2020 at 6:12 pm
Congrats for finding a way to use your βdarlingβ not kill it π
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September 28th, 2020 at 8:20 pm
It was pretty sneaky but…unrepentant! lmao π
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September 28th, 2020 at 5:53 pm
I hate to say it, but unless it shows character, advances the plot, or provides something necessary like comic relief, lockpicking is not intrinsically interesting – because you know it’s not going to teach you how to pick locks (though I have one I probably should learn to pick).
I have pages and pages and pages of research on the legal AND illegal opium poppy trade in the northwest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh that I can’t use. But I had to make sure it existed in that state, or the whole movie set there in the foothills of the Himalayas made no sense. And I found out that the Khyber Pass, which has such a lovely name, is way too far west (near Afghanistan, not India) to be used…
OTOH, a tiny piece of research that said that the monsoons in Uttar Pradesh were unusual, and went one whole month later in the year than they had for the previous 5 or 10 – and that gave me all kinds of plot twists and details that were perfect.
You never know. Keep good track of what, and where you got it. And make sure you don’t steal someone else’s descriptions – in case you end up using something. Even that is fun – crediting a specific actual book in a novel gives it a verisimilitude you can’t buy.
If I ever finish PC2, you may remember this discussion.
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September 28th, 2020 at 8:25 pm
lmao! So very true. Pity about the Kyber Pass but well done on the monsoon. I love it when something unexpected becomes pivotal to the story. Sadly I can’t credit anything as it’s alien scifi, but I do love sharing the info on the blog. And you never know, one of my most popular blog posts was about how to upload photos from the phone I had at the time. Never thought anyone else would have the same problem. But they did. π
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September 29th, 2020 at 1:23 am
Immediately the reference that popped into my mind was that of the famous Khyber Rifles, I think it was a movie.
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:11 am
You really are a font of interesting info. I’ve never heard of the Khyber Rifles. Was that a native regiment like the Ghurkas?
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:19 am
hmmm, I don’t know….It probably was a 1950-ish Hollywood movie about smuggling rifles across the border. I’ll have to check it out… by the same token, have you heard of the Guns of Navarone? That used to be my favorite movie. It featured a team that infiltrated an island and blew up an enormous German gun power.
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September 29th, 2020 at 1:55 pm
I have heard of the Guns of Navarone, but not sure if I’ve seen it.
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October 5th, 2020 at 4:34 am
The thing I remembered the most was the climax of the movie. The plot involved various movie heros assembled into a force that got into the island and managed to set explosives around the gun emplacement huuuuuge guns, (what ever its called.)
Throughout the film the pace was quiet and secretive, so that in the end the explosion was deafening. I was slightly disappointed when I watched it recently and it had lost maybe the greater part of the effect without the huge theater screen and blasting sound system.
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October 5th, 2020 at 9:50 am
I know what you mean. My parents took me to the cinema [over 2 days] to watch Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen. Memory is a cheat but still, the small screen version is just flat by comparison.
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October 6th, 2020 at 6:15 am
I used to love going to the real theaters, and if I couldn’t get anyone to go with me I would go alone. My neck now would never stand the angle of looking at the big screen.
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October 6th, 2020 at 8:10 am
That’s a pity, although probably not such a bad thing just at the moment!
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October 8th, 2020 at 3:04 am
There were quite a few theaters, including the Palace, which was truly like a palace…I suppose. I used to love to sit on the gorgeous sofas and chairs, walk on the velvet carpet. I was not a kid…but around 20 years old…and I still get those magical vibes from such places..
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October 8th, 2020 at 9:16 am
lol – I have no memories like that, but I can imagine it. π
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October 11th, 2020 at 4:13 am
The theaters that I loved back in the 50s are still extant today. They are used for various music events, I think granddaughter Jeri has played a show in one of the theaters. Also amateur plays and productions. When the Palace was playing a movie the halls and balconies were empty…except for me.
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October 11th, 2020 at 11:54 am
We didn’t go to the movies a lot when I was a kid, so movie theatres don’t hold the same nostalgia for me. I do, however, remember going to the opera Tosca with my aunt in Hungary. It was breathtaking so I imagine that’s how you must have felt. π
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September 28th, 2020 at 5:33 pm
Wow amazing research. I thought you might appreciate this. Well done everybody.
https://familytreeourstory.com/2020/09/28/michael-mcdonald-2/
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September 28th, 2020 at 8:36 pm
Oh! You just sent me off on a 30 minutes journey into the past! I had no idea that Michael McDonald is the voice from What a Fool Believes. Still one of my absolute favourite songs. Thank you. π
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September 29th, 2020 at 1:37 am
I absolutely love him and The Dooby Brothers. I thought the tune fitting.
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September 29th, 2020 at 9:09 am
Very much so. Would you believe I still have the Dooby Brothers LP in a box somewhere? π
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September 28th, 2020 at 3:33 pm
Clever little Kaati, and clever you! And clever Egyptians, if I am to go overboard with the cleverness praise! It must be so hard to have to cut up your favourites, especially ones that you have trimmed and massaged.
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September 28th, 2020 at 8:38 pm
I had to have a severe talk with myself. π In the end though, it was my bit of fun, not something a reader would want to know so….-snip-
Does the same thing happen with the visual arts??
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