Origins of THE SIXTH PRECEPT - Part 2

When I decided that “Primary Colors” needed to be expanded into a larger story (I had no input into this – the story ordered me to do so!), I also felt it needed a second POV besides Wayne Petersen. I elected to beef up the character and role of the female police officer (whose name I honestly can’t remember). I also opted to change her ethnicity. I felt that African Americans had made some inroads to greater visibility as characters in films, TV and books but not so much for Asian Americans.

And so was born Kalinda Kim, a Lieutenant on the Pittsburgh police force whom I described as being of Japanese descent. It was sometime later that I discovered that “Kim” was a Korean name and since I had already mapped out the character’s backstory, Kalinda Kim became Kim Yoshima.

In the meantime, since I was changing character names, I began rethinking the name of Wayne Petersen. Since Petersen was, in reality, Bruce Wayne, I came up with Wayne Brewster, which, at the time, I thought was really clever! He was still Batman though and Wayne Brewster was actually a twist on his real name of Bruce Wayne in the story as a way to help conceal his real identity. Kind of like Clark Kent wearing glasses--it really works!

Popeye was still around also in what I considered to be a major scene but, as I discovered, his name and identity also had to be changed--but not for the fun of it. The character of Popeye was not in the public domain and there could have been intellectual property issues if I didn’t change it. More about that later.

Then, finally, around that time, the John Travolta movie, “Primary Colors,” was released and guess what name I felt I had to change next?

So I had my two main characters and a new story title--“A Concerned Citizen.” How would I expand on the original story? Well, therein lies a tale…

CLICK HERE for The Sixth Precept on Amazon.com.