Jack of Harts

Skin Deep Havana starts with the exact same premise as the original spy story for Raconteur’s supernatural spy anthology. A pair of spies making their way through Le Tropicana in Havana as they are looking for the McGuffin. The thing that is important to the search of the story but not important in itself. The story starts with them dancing through a party. THE party. Havana in 1956 when everything is good, the Communists were a pale threat on the fringes of society, and everyone in Cuba had new cars and time to play. When Cuba was the jewel of the Caribbean and rich people came from around the world to play around in the nicest parties in the world. Two people trying to find someone in all that party.

Now in the final version I just finished and submitted, that McGuffin became the Selkie that the anthology wanted. And she became VERY important in the end. And so the McGuffin of the first treatment became found REALLY early in the last treatment of the story, so it could be built up to be reliably… big at the end.

This is one of the many ways that stories can change during the writing of the stories. Especially when the anthology they are meant for changes.