The Sculptor of Frog Lane continues to be enormous fun to write and has sailed by 35,000 words this week. My instinct is that this will be slightly longer than my previous novels - all three of which were around 100k-110k.

In chapter three, John has just been made to pay for entry to the Great Exhibition to avoid being caught stealing the money he used to pay for entry to the Great Exhibition. Although the world of this novel exists in an alternative history, all the displays John visits are real and were present in 1851, including Samuel Colt, leech-powered weather prediction, and the invention of emojis.

Yes, emojis were invented before email, the internet and mobile phones. Intrigued? It's almost as if that was my plan. Read on...


III – Thursday, 1 May 1851
 
“But where does the key go?” the elderly gentleman asked, pointing to the pocket watch that lay in his palm and which he held as if it were delicate as a quail’s egg.

“Ah, monsieur! That is our innovation. If you pull gently on the stem, it moves into the first position where you can turn it to wind the watch.” The vendor’s accent was a muddle, with English being at least his third language.

“Oh my, I say, that’s a clever thing.”

“And if you pull slightly farther, you hit the second position, where using the same mechanism it is possible to change the time.”

“So there’s no key at all?” the elderly gentleman said, finally arriving at the conclusion he had been given two minutes earlier and was written on a sign above the stall – keyless pocket watches.

I've been working steadily on The Sculptor of Frog Lane for the last couple of weeks and I'm very happy with how it's been going. Chapter 2 steps further back in time by 12 years and introduces the second narrative character (there will only be two) on her flight from recent disaster in Paris to a new life in Bologna. This chapter also introduces some of the mechanisms of magic to the world, as when we meet Alice Black she is already a skilled magician.

II – July to August 1839
 
Her dress was long, black and plain. It was made of heavy wool, and it had been a great comfort in the Mont Cenis Pass when she crossed the Alps from Lyon to Turin. The Emperor had built the road so that a coach could make the journey reliably in summer, but even Napoleon could not ensure summer would reach into the mountains, and there had been cold wind and rain for the whole of her journey.
​
There was nothing she could do about the temperature of an entire mountain range, and nothing she could do about the temperature of a single carriage without becoming the subject of unwanted attention. What was necessary to cross the Alps was endurance. So she huddled in the coach between two elderly Milanese ladies to avoid being groped by the men travelling with them, and mostly succeeded.

My drawing of Connor Maxwell from The Wicker Man Preservation Society. Also my first drawing of 2025.

Here's Chapter 2 of the untitle Egyptian spy thriller. While Chapter 1 was about Gatsu and the slave child, Chapter 2 moves forward in time by about five thousand years and focuses on Maloof and his new boss. Comments very welcome.

2

​​In the years before the Rose Revolution there had been a lot of money to be made building mansions. On the airport road they sprung up in hundreds – conveniently located for people who did not really live anywhere and might need to come and go quickly.

They stood apart from the apartments – which were themselves a world of experience away from the normal accommodations of the city of Cairo and had been designed to meet foreign living standards. As in London – and many other cities besides – these luxurious homes were mostly empty; a few had never been lived in at all. They were investments for people used to owning money rather than making it.

​In Egypt, buying a home would have been unusual until the late twentieth century. By tradition, a great patriarch would purchase a square of land and he and his sons would build the family home. As his sons grew up and married, they would construct their own homes over the first, so each large family might in the space of two generations erect its own tower block. The practice began in mud brick and was continued in concrete and steel. Such family homes were easy to spot; their flat roofs were marked by clusters of rebar rods rising into the air in expectation of the next home and the next generation.

I mentioned previously that I was working on another project at the same time - alongside my Egyptian spy thriller. This one is set mostly in London in 1851 around alternative history events following on from the Great Exhibition. While it begins very real world and normal, it will eventually switch into a steampunk fantasy. I've included the full text of the draft first chapter below. Comments welcome, and if you want to read more in future, please follow on dfpiii.bsky.social or x.com/dfpiii. Or both. I'll post updates to both. 

I – Thursday, 1 May 1851
 
Charlie found the body first thing and ran up the City Road to get a copper. The other boys waited on the tow path because they had nothing better to do, but soon decided they were guarding the body and made a game of it.

The Regent’s Canal was black and still, and the man floated face down, just below the surface. He had white hair, a long black coat, and his trousers were neatly rolled up to his knees, as if he’d planned to dip himself into the canal only that far.

“What do you think happened to his feet?” asked Aidan. 

“Must have been wearing very fancy shoes,” said John.

“You wouldn’t cut off a man’s feet to steal his shoes.”

​“Of course not,” said John, but with consideration he added, “not unless they were very fancy, and he had tied the laces very tight.”

I've been working on a book on-and-off since before I wrote The Wicker Man Preservation Society. The core idea is to tell a "spy story" in multiple timelines set in both the ancient period five thousand years ago and the near future, moving between those time periods. I thought I'd share the first chapter.

If you like this and want to know more if/when this goes anywhere, follow me on socials for more news in future on x.com/dfpiii and dfpiii.bsky.social.

1

“This symbol makes the mmm sound,” said Gatsu. The papyrus scroll lay across his knees and he pointed at the hieroglyph with a finger that was crooked with age.

“It looks like an owl,” said the boy. He knelt, sitting on his heels in the dirt in front of the old priest, and read the symbols upside down.

“It is an owl,” said Gatsu. “The owl makes the mmm sound.”

“But an owl makes an ooo sound. Why is the mmm sound an owl when an owl does not make an mmm sound?”

“Gods!” Gatsu said and lifted his ancient face to the newborn sun. “How can I teach such a curious boy?

I first played (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons as a teenager, and one of the main differences between the D&D I play as an adult and what I played back then is description. “Inside the room are six orcs. Roll initiative.” This is pretty close to the adventures run, and participated in, by a teenage murder hobo.

I recently started running a low combat, high mystery campaign set in real world Victorian England in 1851. As the tea parlours and opium dens of smog-ridden London contain - so far - zero orcs, it’s made me reflect on how much has to be done through description. I’ve created some rules for myself as I plan and deliver each session, and I thought I’d share my rules in case they’re useful to anyone else.

DFP’s rules for descriptions

1. Description must serve a purpose
2. Description should always use multiple senses
3. Description should not override player autonomy
4. The overall effect of description should convey activity which occurs separately from the players

Description must serve a purpose
For me, there are four good purposes for description: to provide information; to establish tone and create character; to provide opportunities for interaction; and to deliberately deceive.

Providing information is probably the easiest of these and needs to preempt the obvious player questions. Is there anything trying to kill me? Is there anything here I can have sex with? Is there any treasure I can steal? How big is this orc sex dungeon and what equipment do they have? Is it obvious that what’s going on is consensual? And so on.

Game Master’s love to use description to set tone and develop character. Whether it’s the warm and welcoming halfling tavern at the end of the adventure, the warm and welcoming ancient black dragon they slew, or the warm and welcoming sphere of annihilation they looted from it’s hoard - we all know description matters, but not all descriptions are equal.

Good descriptors of tone and character are about what your players can perceive about the world, not what your players feel about the world. You probably thought “warm and welcoming” was a pretty bad description for a sphere of annihilation, but fine for a halfling tavern. And when you thought that, you were wrong. It’s a bad description for all three of those examples - even the ancient black dragon.

Let’s assume what we want our players to experience is a warm and welcoming tavern. Instead of saying warm, we could mention a large fire burning in the hearth. Easy. Instead of saying welcoming, we could have a tavern patron shout “Norm!” as our characters enter - providing one or all of them are called Norman, or something similar. Why is this better? Because now our players have a better shared concept of the world, and that improves their ability to interact with each other and with that world. You’ve probably heard this concept described as “show, don’t tell” in writing. While it’s most commonly quoted in relation to character dialogue, it’s also true of objects, places, appearances, etc.

Six years after Good Witch, I've written another book. It's called The Wicker Man Preservation Society and it's in all the places you would normally get books, in all the places around the world. I've never been an effective salesman for my work and I do not expect to get better any time soon, therefore I have to rely on people who have read it, telling other people who haven't read it to mend their ways.

Here's the page on Amazon.com, and here it is on Amazon.co.uk.

That's all. Thanks. (I'll probably put the cover here).

Hello. The following short story was produced for a thing, with a strict limit of 1,200 words. I thought I'd share it here.

Your Servant
By David F Porteous

Sigurd McAlpine left as confirmed bachelor, dashing colonel and heir to some small fortune. He fought Napoleon – successfully by all accounts – and returned from France, no more married and no less dashing, to find that his father had passed during the Battle of Waterloo itself. And everyone agreed this was rotten luck.

The new Lord McAlpine occupied the suite of rooms at the family castle in Dumfries and had been installed at the estate barely a week when the gift arrived.

Crated carefully and packed about with straw, it was a large Venetian mirror of antique construction; rectangular and bordered with gothic angels and swirls of brass cloud where some original gilding remained. The glass, though darker than contemporary mirrors, had a warmth and character that spoke of true craftsmanship. With the mirror came a note in a familiar, terse hand.

McAlpine, a gift of France – to me, and now yours. Regards, Wellington.

In truth, McAlpine had no great association with the Duke of Wellington, and while he had performed his orders to the Field Marshall’s satisfaction, they were not friends. So the gift, lavish in itself, was all the more valued for being unexpected. McAlpine wrote a brief note of thanks – Wellington would appreciate no other kind of thanks – and had the mirror hung in the drawing room, where he might remark on its provenance to anyone who visited.

Dumfries did nothing to compete with London for company, and McAlpine was not surprised when no visitors came. Still he enjoyed the mirror, and would find himself staring into every day for no reason.

It was a week after he received the Duke’s gift when the second mirror arrived. Smaller than the first, just as well packed, its frame was wooden, but carved in some dark wood not native to Britain. With this mirror came a letter.

My Lord, I understand that you fought with my husband at Waterloo and will be aware that he died fighting for his King and Country. In his will he left you this remembrance of him. Kind regards--

The signature had been smudged, as if the woman who wrote it had been crying, and McAlpine could not guess as to the name. Half a dozen officers of his acquaintance or in his service had perished at the Château d'Hougoumont and the letter might reasonably have been from any of them. The mirror was hung in the drawing room also, though in a place of lesser importance than that afforded to the mirror sent by Wellington.

McAlpine gave the coincidence no more thought until the following week – when a third mirror arrived. This one was plain, of no great age or value, and McAlpine sent it to the attic, returned to its packing, after reading the note.

Sir. My son died at Waterloo. He was in your regiment. This mirror was his only possession of value. Your servant, John Michaelmas.

McAlpine had vague recollection of a Michaels or a Michaelmas – a sergeant, or a corporal – but there was no return address, and he put the thought of replying from his mind as he put the letter into the fire. The sincerity with which the three mirrors had been offered to him put a joke beyond possibility, yet he could not escape the feeling that he was being mocked.

Business called him to Edinburgh and McAlpine spent a month in the city meeting with merchants and lawyers, settling bills and receiving investments, putting the last of his father’s estate to rest. He returned to Dumfries to find the head of his household – an aged castellan who wore the livery of a London butler, in style forty years previous – almost in tears and obviously fearful of some ill-treatment from his master.

In the Lord’s absence, some fifteen mirrors had arrived, the latest only an hour before McAlpine’s carriage. Their sizes varied, as did their quality, from handspan vanity mirrors to pieces almost as proud as Wellington’s. Each came with a note.

Dear sir.

My Lord.

Colonel.

You knew my father.

My husband.

My brother.

My son.

He was killed at Waterloo.

He fell defending Hougoumont.

He died.

He died.

He died.

A bayonet.

A bullet.

A cannonball.

In the fire.

The fire.

In fire.

He died in the fire.

Your servant.

McAlpine burned all the letters. The mirrors he distributed as best he could, until he felt every room was crowded with reflections of himself. Perhaps not dashing as he had been, perhaps running to fat as his father had, and perhaps his eyes were marked from lack of sleep.

When had the dreams begun? Was it the night after the battle? Or only some days later? He remembered the order which had come from Wellington.

Hold position at any cost.

An axeman broke the gate. He held.

Cannons smashed the walls. He held.

The French set fire to Hougoumont. Still he held.

In the sound of rifles and screaming he heard the distant fife. Then he was no more dreaming, and he stood in the Château, and also in his bedchamber. The windows were blue-black and a half moon illuminated the slumbering fields and forests of Dumfries. But the mirrors blazed with light; through them he saw Waterloo, as much as could be seen through smoke – guns as far away as thunder, and fire so close he could feel the heat on his face.

The marching music of the fife – high, shrill, like the song of a bird – was coming from the drawing room and he ran there, covering his mouth against the smoke. In the Wellington mirror he saw their approach.

They were not the relief troops that had come to hold the line that day; in bloodied livery, their death wounds worn like medals, advanced the fallen. He recognised their faces, though they were slackened by the grave; grim and grey as hanging meat.

A dead-eyed sergeant gripped the frame of the mirror as if it were a window ledge. He put one leg over, and stepped into the room. His throat – torn like sacking – flapped when he spoke, and his words were incomprehensible. But he stood straight at attention, as he would have in life, in the presence of his commander.

They all stood at attention.

McAlpine saw the colours carried by his dead regiment and knew his duty. With his nightshirt for a uniform, and with the sergeant’s assistance, he climbed through Wellington’s mirror and returned to the battle.

* * *

At the speed of law it was eventually determined that McAlpine had abandoned his life, or fallen to unknown ill-fortune, and an executor was appointed to determine the legitimacy of claims and pass the estate to the Lord’s legal heir – whoever that was found to be.

The executor, pouring over the papers of the estate, found the note that had accompanied the first mirror, and the tear-stained letter that came with the second – both written in the familiar, terse hand that matched the signature and ledgers of the Lord McAlpine.

​Understanding some of what had transpired – these events being far from unusual after the war – he burned all remaining notes and, assisted by the butler, smashed every mirror to pieces.