The Jungle By The Numbers

Law of the Jungle is my fifth story for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and wouldn't have been conceived without that magazine existing in the first place. In 2024 I attended the Edgar Awards as a guest of Ellery Queen, a tradition they offer to the top three finishers in their Readers Choice awards. “Teddy's Favorite Thing” finished third that year, so of course I went, and one of the joys of that trip was meeting Richard Helms, who had also scored a Readers Choice award of his own for "Spear Carriers."

Richard and his wife were fine people and pleasant dinner companions at the Edgar banquet, and it was nice to be able to tell Richard how much I enjoyed his story, where a Broadway actor stealing away from his show to buy lunch while wearing his cop costume gets into all sorts of trouble thanks to mistaken identity. Several months later, I listened to a podcast reading of Richard's story while out on a run, and by the time I dragged my sore feet home, the idea for “Law of the Jungle” had sprung to life.

Richard's story got me thinking about how we can take on a different identity when we wear a costume, triggering a memory of attending a Hollywood Hallowween party dozens of years ago. I didn't want to go to the party -- I don't like parties at all -- but I forced myself to get out of my comfort zone and rented a gorilla suit for the evening, as one does. When I got to the party I discovered one of life's truisms, which is that a man in a gorilla suit is welcome wherever he goes.

That night was transformative for me, because I didn't have to be myself. Instead, I was a man in a gorilla suit, and a man in a gorilla suit can do whatever he damn well pleases -- like dance, for one thing, something I'd never done at a party before or since.

I had a good time at that party, and I expect I got drunk -- not drunk enough to throw up in a swimming pool, as does Rich, the hero of “Law of the Jungle,” but close enough. Neither did my night in a gorilla suit get me caught up in a crime drama around muggings and the culture of costumed performers on Hollywood Boulevard, but we have fiction for those things, and I'm delighted EQMM liked where I took Rich enough to buy his story.

A second EQMM connection to the origin of this story is with the cast of characters. Probably because I imagined Rich living in my old apartment in the San Fernando Valley -- and because I had that same apartment in mind when I wrote "As You See The World" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025), I recognized that this story's Rich was the same indifferent boyfriend as in that earlier story, and that the reason he'd spurred himself to go to a party in a gorilla suit in the first place was because his girlfriend, Mía, had left him flat.

From this, all the pieces were in place for my first line:

"A night in a gorilla suit made a new man of Rich."

This story took about twenty hours work over a dozen sessions, beginning in September of 2024. It was 134 days in the market, and EQMM was the first place I put it in, after briefly considering it as a candidate for Michael Bracken's Mickey Finn anthologies.

9/18/2024

A thousand words the first day, we are on our way.

9/19

A brisk session nets another thousand words. No real knowing if this is working or not but I’m just going to press through to the end and see what it gets me.

9/23

Two hours for another thousand words and not sure where this is going, but that’s OK, for now. Acutely award that a thousand words a day will get me to first draft of a novel in 3-4 months.

(I used this story to delay starting my new novel, and it was wearing on me).

9/25

First long, sloppy draft is “done” at 6700 words. Will read, revise, and cut cut cut tomorrow, then let it sit for a bit. I hope to carry this 1K-word-a-day velocity into Free To Play. I don’t know if this story is a success but it did let me experiment with weaving points-of-view and I think this is the way forward for that book.

(Free To Play is my second novel, as yet unpublished, but I did just sign an offer of representation for it this week, about which more another time. Mía has proven herself a good luck charm, being both an inciting character for “Law of the Jungle,” and a supporting character in Free To Play, which did indeed use the wandering points-of-view I first used in this story).

9/27

Multiple reads and revisions. I’m happy with it for now. It can ferment for a good while — still waiting on “Destiny” to get resolved at Queen, then “Whitey” goes in after that, so “Law of the Jungle” probably stays in the barn until next year. And I’m really out of excuses about avoiding Free To Play. That’s what Mondays are for.

10/24

Re-read the story, just because, casually cutting words. Will need to get it down to 5K if I am going to submit it. Liked it.

12/15

Got a lift from selling “Agua Fantasma” and decided to put time into reducing “Law of the Jungle” by 1K words. This will trim up the story for EQMM and other markets — every story is better when it is shorter and tighter. Carved it down far enough that I can still add 50 words or so when I do the final read.

3/10/2025

“Whitey’s Elephant” came back, breaking my heart after months in the queue at EQMM, and setting off a chain reaction, part of which was wanting to get this story in over at Queen. Spent two hours reading it to myself and making minimal revisions and reminding myself that I’m still a good writer. Sent it to Rita for a read and then I’ll put it in.

There's quite a bit there that I had forgotten, like how I used this story both as a trail run for writing from multiple viewpoints, and how it was an excuse to delay the start of Free To Play. I'd forgotten that it sat so long, too, while letting “Whitey's Elephant” clear the queue at EQMM (before that story found a very worthy home at Cold Caller).

One last anecdote: I read the opening of this story at an open mic reading night on the first day of the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference, where I received some nice feedback, which I never implemented ... because I learned on the way home from the conference that the story had been purchased by ElleryQueen!

Life can change in an instant, like that, and you don't always have to wear a gorilla suit to make it happen.