Concept Sketch by Jesse Rubenfeld

If you’re new to How to Kill a Piano, you won’t know what all this rambling is about as all traces of what I’m talking about have been replaced. If you’re a How to Kill a Piano veteran, you might be confused on where these new characters came from. The truth is, they’ve been here all along. They maybe hadn’t figured out what they wanted to be called until now. It’s a good time to give the story another listen from the beginning.

This week I’ve taken to rename two characters. Why? Originally when I introduced the two gentleman that deliver the piano to Uncle Charlie’s door step, they were to be a simple nod to C.S. Lewis. I never intended these to become or even be the characters or demons from C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape letters.” These simply aren’t characters in their written form that fit my story.

I do love taking bits of history and myth and mashing it all together. When researching different names for my particular two demons, I kept returning to C.S. Lewis and his wonderful satire. The names “Screwtape and Wormwood” (Lewis, C.S. “The Screwtape Letters” Geoffrey Bles: 1942) always flowed well when spoken out loud and felt great to me.

As the story developed and the these two characters became a stronger focal point and even more important figures of the story, Screwtape and Wormwood not only no longer fit. They needed transform even more and become what they are now known as: Scrootius and Absinth. I love the idea that when Scrootius is frustrated with Absinth that he refers to him as “My dearest, Abby….” It’s charmingly condescending. And isn’t that what you’ve come to expect from Scrootius?