Hellooooooo! 

Sorry for the delay in chapters and the much anticipated Q&A! 

I just wanted to get through this last week of work first before I got stuck into things again.

I can now say that I am freeeeeee until the 4th of January 2021 (or maybe later depending on if the UK Government can make up its mind about what they want schools to do 😒).

So, to thank all you wonderful readers for your funny comments, kind compliments, much-appreciated votes and striking dedication to this fanfic, I asked if any of you had any questions for either myself or for any of the characters so far. 

This is PART 1 - the Author Q&A (because I was es stupid and lost the Character Q&A answers - R.I.P 😭).

I just finished off tightening up the questions that some of you lovely people asked me! I have added a little extra to some of my answers so it doesn't feel like you're just re-reading what I sent back to you all in the PMs ^-^

Questions from unknown1945 -

Q) Will Mary be in this story?

A) I can tell you all now that Ms Abbington's lovely Maz won't be in this book...

Q) Will John make more of an appearance in this story or not?

A) I have been neglecting him, haven't I? Sowwy Jawn! He will be returning to the story soon - in a chapter or two according to my plans :)

If you do find that I don't make much use of our honorary Hedgehog 🦔 or our wonderful Hudderz, it's simply because there are waaay too many characters per scene otherwise and I personally find it difficult to find that balance when I have more than 3/4 active characters in a scene. And, at the end of the day, the story is focused on Elizabeth and Sherlock after all!

I hope you all understand :)

Questions from frets20 -

Q) What's the character that is closest to your heart?

A) The character closest to my heart...I'm possibly biased but Elizabeth because she is like my baby lol! I love her confidence, her sassiness but I also love that she isn't afraid to show her vulnerabilities and isn't afraid to show her emotions. She's also a very dear character to me because I wrote her as the girl with some of the traits I struggle with - I'm not that confident in real life and I really struggle to let down my walls so the fact that she does that also gives me a little hope for me in the future too - if I can write a confident, open character, then surely I can be her one day too :) 

Q) What does Elizabeth look like (including height, tattoos, piercings and more details)?

A) I personally find that I like leaving character descriptions vague bar skin/hair/eye colour as it gives all my readers the opportunity to let their imaginations create their own versions of Elizabeth - your version of Elizabeth could be totally different to the next person's and that absolutely fascinates me (it's the psychologist in me, sorry XD).

If I had to describe her more in my own vision though then:

● Shoulder-length brown hair (naturally straight) - often wears it down, but sometimes wears it up in a pony-tail unless otherwise described.

● Deep blue eyes.

● Warm ivory skin tone.

● About 5ft6"/1.69 meters tall (which I found out is basically John's height too!).

● Elizabeth wouldn't have tattoos. Being a thief from a young age, she wouldn't see the point in them as Jim also told her that the risk of giving her an identifying feature would be too big to bother.

● Both of her ears are pierced.

● She has two cafe-au-lait birthmarks: one about the size of a 2p coin behind her left ear and the other a larger 'splodge' on the back of her right thigh.

● Hourglass body-shape, slim.

● When she smiles, she has one notable dimple on her left cheek.

● Goes without make-up unless necessary for a role. Putting on make-up helps her slip into any personas she needs to take on for cases/missions.

Q) Who was the hardest character to write?

A) Good question - everyone except from the characters I had total creative control over (i.e not Elizabeth, Shaun, Seb Moran, Rita, The Sandborns, Cleo Black or Amber and minor characters)!

The reason for this simply being because the characters of Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Lestrade, Jim, Irene (even Anderson and Donovan too!) are already established characters with established voices that can be very difficult to match up with their show personas and very easy to take out of character. 

When I'm writing a chapter and I'm writing dialogue for one of these characters, I always have to stop and think "Could I actually hear Cumberbatch's Sherlock actually saying this or Freeman's John saying this?"

If I can't, then something's wrong and I need to edit the speech again. 

Getting in their mindsets comes somewhat naturally when you're constantly re-watching the show to make plans for future chapters 🤣🤣🤣 - in fact, you can probably tell when I haven't watched the show during particular chapters because I know that there are definitely some lines of dialogue that the characters say that they would probably never say - and that's okay A - because I'm not a perfect writer (no one is, not even the greatest writers and that's just being human 😊) and B - because it's fanfiction so some out-of-character things are okay in lil bits and pieces. 

I also have a read of the S1 scripts to absorb their thought processes which are in the BBC Writer's Room library - Moffat's and Gatiss's writing is amazinggggg so I highly recommend!!!

If I had to choose ONE character to call the hardest to write for though...then that would be Irene so far. I really wanted to keep her character as accurate as possible for the reason being out of the sheer respect I have for her/Lara Pulver because of how incredible a character she was! In Chapter 27 - Late Night Meeting, I rewrote that chapter 5 times because all the previous times just didn't sound like Irene enough.

But I got there in the end! :D

Question from JordanDefratis -

Q) Is there a reason you came up with such a specific character as Elizabeth? Whether it be personal or just a random thought.

A) I had the idea for Elizabeth about 3 Years ago when I used to RP with a friend of mine.

Reading Sherlock fics (3 years ago), I noticed that a lot of characters in the fics were...always good? There was barely a bad bone in anyone's body but I LIVE for the bad girl/person with secrets/a criminal history getting with a hero kind of tropes and at the time I was reading and RPing, there just didn't seem to be a lot of characters like her.

So, personally, because I didn't feel like there were a lot of characters like Elizabeth out there, I thought that I would write her story and maybe at least one other person would be interested :)

As Toni Morrison says, "if there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." 

I would also like to point out that 3 years on, I have noticed that characters in fanfics are SO MUCH MORE diverse now and I love a lot of them :)

And that's it!

Thank you so much to unknown1945, frets20 and JordanDefratis for the interesting questions - I loved answering them! ❤

If any other readers have any more questions, feel free to ask them through PM or in the comments and I'll update the chapter too!

Other than that, expect an update and Q&A Part 2 soon 😄❤

Stay safe and well everyone! 

- Mother Mickey :)