How I Got the Idea for Dakota Stevens
by Chris Orcutt
About 12 years ago, I wrote a parody of Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” In the story, a tourist visits an island off the coast of Maine and makes the very stupid mistake of stealing lobsters from a trap. A mob of lobstermen chase him, and he jumps off a cliff into the ocean and escapes on a boat. (But, just like in Bierce’s story, instead of getting away, the pain he feels when he hits the water at the base of the cliff is not a scratch; it’s him splattering on the rocks, and everything that follows from that point is concocted by his brain in the instant of his death.)
He makes his way to the mainland and gets on a bus to Boston. Along the way, he notices that one of the lobstermen, a guy with a corn-cob pipe who looks disturbingly like Popeye, is following him. During the bus ride, he befriends a hot redheaded legal student. She offers him sanctuary at her apartment, and once there, they look up private detectives. The name of the detective he finds is Dakota Perez.
Now, you’re probably wondering, “Why Dakota Perez? I thought this was about how you got the idea for Dakota Stevens.” It is. Dakota Perez is the name of the first son of a gal-pal of mine from junior high. When I heard what she had named her son (this is 15 years ago), I filed away the name "Dakota" for a future character.
Jump ahead to January, 2005. While laid up with a back injury, I found myself staring at certain novels on a bookcase directly in my line of sight. They were all of my favorites: Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming, Robert Parker, Raymond Chandler, Tom Clancy, and others. In the two months I was flat on my back, I read everything each one of them wrote, and when I was finished I had the epiphany that this is what I should be writing—detective/adventure/suspense fiction—not literary stuff.
After rereading all of their stuff, I set out to write a detective story of my own. Over the years, I had started two such novels, but they stalled after a few chapters. This time I was inspired. I began by jotting down the attributes and “stuff” I wanted in my character and the series, and eventually I came to the question of what to name him. I knew I wanted Dakota for a first name, but what about the surname?
Originally, I made a list of single-syllable surnames, among them the following: Chase, West, and North. Obviously none of them worked. Then I switched tactics. I thought about Indiana Jones and why that name worked. To my mind, there you had a Midwestern state plus an innocuous English surname. So I did it with Dakota: Dakota Jones, Dakota Smith, Dakota Ames, etc. And then I came upon Dakota Stevens.
Now I’m not saying it’s the greatest character name ever. It’s not. But what I like about it is that it’s interesting without sounding overtly fake (like Stone Phillips or Brock Tanner, for example). Also, I like the contrast in sound between “Dakota” and “Stevens”. While writing the first draft of A Real Piece of Work, I wasn’t fully committed to the name, but once I reached the end and reread it for the second draft, it just seemed to fit. And that’s how I got the name.
The character himself is based partly on my grandfather from the Maine islands. I never knew him, but everything I’ve heard about him was that he was a tough guy and incredibly smart. (He was also an alcoholic, but that’s another story.) He and his brother Lawrence enjoyed going into bars and starting fights, and would proceed to clean the places out. Dakota himself isn’t macho, and violence is a last resort for him, but he is tough and he is smart. I’m a little bit of those things as well, so I can write from experience.
James Joyce once said that all good fiction is imagined autobiography, and I agree with that statement. For Dakota, I thought back to my original post-college plan: to become an FBI agent. Specifically, I studied forensic chemistry in college with this intention, but then found philosophy (or rather, it found me) and the FBI plan got dropped. Luckily I listened to my instincts about the repetitive and non-glamorous aspects of lab work, and changed my major accordingly. Anyway, when I was creating Dakota, I thought back to what might have happened had I become an FBI agent, and I imagined an alternative autobiography for myself, which I then gave to Dakota.
And that’s where Dakota Stevens, PI came from.
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The character name "Dakota Stevens" and the novel name "A Real Piece of Work" are copyright ©2008 by Chris Orcutt. All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced, in part or its entirety, without written permission of the author.