"The Family Way"

Synopsis: In December 1997, hoping to give his pregnant wife some relief from her morning sickness, Marty accompanies Jules, Verne, and Emily on an afternoon trip to the Hill Valley of 1912 in honor of Emily's recent birthday. But when a medical emergency forces them to stay longer than planned, and seek the help of the local doctor, they find themselves suddenly interacting with Emmett Brown's parents... and making changes they never intended in the lives of the young couple.

Length: Approximately 74,000 words

Written: August 2001 - February 2002

Revised: February 2002

Author's Notes: This was a story that was almost lost, due to my naive belief that I'd "remember it later." I have a habit of "mental movie-ing" upcoming scenes in stories when I'm trying to fall asleep, and one night in the summer of '01 while doing this I got mentally sidetracked by thinking about the character of Jules being the "medic" on time excursions -- and what would happen if he was faced with a medical emergency on one of 'em? And, what if it happened when he hadn't yet finished his med schooling and wasn't a hundred percent educated or certified? From that sprung the type of medical emergency, something I felt should be sudden and require emergency surgery -- like what happens in this story. I had a rather amusing scene of Jules saying something along the lines of never performing surgery before on real life people, freaking out the patient, and my brain chewed on the random amusing thing until I fell asleep. And, when I woke up the next morning, it was completely gone from mind. Might've stayed gone except that I happened to be reviewing some notes I've got on the characters and the evolutions I've put 'em through, scanned Jules' bio, and when I saw the mention I'd made of his med schooling remembered the idea -- and realized more of the picture was visible to me, now. What was once just some randomish kind of funny scene had more background now... and then, once I put some more seemingly unrelated pieces together, I realized I'd had a story that was needing to be told. The tale moved smoothly along until about October, then I hit a snag. Part of it, I suspect, was a change in routine. Honestly, you do not want to know how much writing I got done at a job I worked for 2 weeks before quitting. I had my own office and would often pen out pages while I was supposed to be doing something else. (Hey, I didn't like that job... that's why I left it in spite of the grim economy.) Anyway, around that time I quit and had gobs of free time on my hands, I also started my second original novel in my own series, and that kinda took my attention away from the project for a while. The story remained in pause until January, when I picked it up again. The story also couldn't have happened without the writing of "When Worlds Collide," which seemed to be the thing to kick my butt into gear by making me finally figure out what the family and childhood of my own Doc was like. I'd been vague up until then, but when I sat down to firm things up and connect the dots I'd previously mentioned, things fit together quite nicely, and knowing more about the parents of my Doc let me write a sort of story like this. Finally. The website for The Gamble House (which was the real-life place used as the Brown Mansion) came most in handy when I was trying to get an idea on what the inside of the mansion looked like. (Yes, the films to give us some idea, but that is both in 1955 -- not 1912 -- and a small glimpse of the building at large.) I didn't use the pictures as the definitive way I saw things -- 'cause the people who live in a house can give it a distinctive personality and all -- but I found the floorplan for the first floor especially helpful as a general layout to the rooms, even though it didn't really match what we saw of the house in the film. (And I take what was in the film as the definitive thing.) Yeah, I know, Doc ain't in this too much except for the beginning and the end. (Sorry!) But I hope the presense of his parents can pacify the Doc fans.... and, realistically, this story wouldn't be with Doc. I never plan a story around characters; I plan the characters around the story. By that I mean that the story, ultimately, dictates who is and isn't in it. I never make a choice in going, "Yep, nope, and let's give this person a cameo." In the case of this tale, I knew Doc wouldn't want to visit Hill Valley again after his departure from the 1890s and before his natural arrival in it in 1920. Too many people might recognize him from before -- and, later, there would be the bad possibilities of him interacting with his parents. So to have things happen the way they wanted to, Doc couldn't come along because his character wouldn't; it wouldn't be true to Doc to have him be like, "Okay, sure, what the hell" by that point. And it would drastically alter the story so that it wouldn't be what it is. One last note, and then I will shut up. Titles are evil. But I came up with this early on, when I searched a few quote and clich� banks for something related to families. I settled on "The Family Way" because it had a few layers -- one being that the expression "in the family way" is an old one for pregnancy, and that's going on with Marty and Jennifer now. And the other being that Jules is sort of getting to discover the old way (job) of his own family. And a lot of the stuff that goes on in here is family stuff, family secrets, family battles.... Whatever. It worked and I couldn't think of anything better.

CHAPTERS 1 - 6 CHAPTERS 7 - 12