Words paint pictures

Said so often but it really came home to me today when, having finished reading an admirably detailed police procedural, the main characters and their activities described with warmth; the progression of the plot with clarity, I returned to continue with the writing of one of mine.

I was immediately struck with the comparative stark sketchiness of my version of a police briefing. Perhaps because the book just finished* dealt with painting, I realised that my paintings and prints similarly outline; drawn with the minimum of detail for the viewer to get the gist.

In part, with writing, my knowledge of police briefings is scant enough to provide a reason for lack of detail, yet I am reluctant to go seek it, believing readers deserve to exercise their imagination.

 The degree to which they wish to has, of course, an impact on how much they are likely to enjoy my books. When I finally get them published (and this one I'm only 80% through writing.)

*Jackie Baldwin's 'Perfect Dead', set in Dumfries & Galloway, much of the action in 'art town' Kirkcudbright.

Frequent cul-de-sacs, and a shape-dictating Blurb

Two weeks or more trying out and researching plotlines, identities and motives for Drink with a Dead Man. A little help gained from from Dylan, Denzil Meyrick, divers and dirty lay-bys, and I've found it necessary to write a blurb in an attempt to keep me on the straight and narrow: 

Christopher Tillerman has been dead for eight years, but when the man he’s now become receives notification of a wedding which cannot be allowed to proceed – and he the only person who can stop it – he has no choice but to return to England to take responsibility for mistakes made in his previous life.

But who has summoned him?

And why?

Edinburgh crime reporter Baz Rose receives a cryptic email from an ex-uni friend, asking to meet.

But is it A, C or D?

Across town, DI Luke Darbyshere, in the first flush of a promising relationship, has a rendezvous with a man who is supposed to be anonymous.

So what is he doing, deep in conversation with a high-class prostitute with connections?

  

And then someone dies.

That final line added to remind me that it IS billed as a 'murder mystery' so someone had better die. At this moment I've not a clue who it will be, at whose hands, or why.

Back to front - strange and alien progress

Two characters - Luke and Baz - from what I thought was a completed trilogy, insisted their story had not yet been fully told. Told me things that happened in a tale written three years ago had something to do with them. Connections enough to hang another novel on.
They gave me a title - Drink with a dead man - to which I assigned an ISBN in early June. Sent me, care of Baz, a cryptic email, indicating the existence of new characters A and D. Allowed me to read a novel which suggested a way of incorporating A. Since then I've got to know A, a bit. D, despite my holding him up to several mirrors, is still distorted.

I've half-designed a cover and bought a dedicated notebook (not done that before) and have a rag bag into which I  throw patchwork ideas as and when they arrive (even though I know some will never be put to use). I wake each morning, mentally select and tack together, a nine-patch square. But when I rise, ready to make permanent, they fade or clash or fail to fit, too disparate in weight, too contrasting in behaviour, too out of character and hence too unbelievable. I unpick and put them back.

The other thing - the most alien of all - is that no-one's talking. Usually, I listen in to conversations, hearing them loud and clear, Clear enough to jot them down verbatim. But this time there's a lot of muttering, eyes sliding sideways, alert for eavesdroppers. I need to change my disguise. Improve my stalking tactics. Bug their phones.

But the good thing is, I've been here before. Have learnt that eventually all will come good.
And I've learnt to savour even the frustration of this beginning stage.

Impressed with myself!!

Having rested it for a couple of months I'm now re-reading my current work in progress.
Approaching the end I've just read a conversation between the two main protagonists and found myself thinking 'What?  What's going on?  I thought they'd already arrested the man responsible - what's the date of this conversation?'

Then I realised that they were discussing the final twist, the denouement, the surprise at the end ...

Of course I did know he had done it, and that All Was To Be Revealed at some point, but hadn't remembered how, or exactly when.   As I say, I've impressed myself, even if only for this evening.

Everything come to she who waits ...

Not that I think, or am claiming, that it is a good way to progress a novel.

But, yes.  I've not been just waiting on this.  Thought I'd got the answer, more or less.  One of two answers anyway.  As I've said before, 'Susannah Elphinstone' began with a blurb challenge, utilising the name of the heroine from an in-progress novel. (Not Susannah:  Madigan.)  It sat for  while, then the premise suggested a story, characters began talking to each other, as they are wont to do, and the book began to take shape, my only input the decision to make it a thriller with a far smaller cast than I'd used before.

Progress was made by conversations:  Madigan with Baz, Baz with Luke, Luke with Madigan.  Ed became involved.  Then the action moved to where Susannah lived.   I remembered that it was a thriller I was supposed to be writing.  Someone had to die.  Actually, someone had died at the beginning, that was left over from the earlier book.  But I needed someone else.

Fifteen to twenty thousand words in I decided who that someone would be.  Next thing, of course, who did it?

Yes indeed.  Who did do it?  For focus' sake it had to be one of two, from up to seven possibilities.  I had to work out how, had to factor in red herrings and misinformation.  Input reasons, methods, timetable, confusion.  I eventually found myself continually see-sawing between two individuals, unable to satisfactorily plump for one over the other.  Unable to justify or even convince myself how.  Quite important that:  if I wasn't convinced I sure as hell would not be able to convince any reader.  Oh, and I also needed to inject pace, and manage a final, surprising, last-minute, totally unforeseeable twist to the tale.

Yesterday, completely out of the blue, the answer came to me.  Of course.  It wasn't either of them, that was why I'd been struggling;  it was someone I'd barely noticed, someone who'd been sending out his own misinformation.  And when I started looking I could see exactly how he'd done it, what lies he'd told, how he'd fooled all of them.  And me too.

So now all I have to do is write it down.   In the correct order.  Remembering that there are things which need not be said until the end.  Gosh.

Approaching the end ... off the map and a change of gear.

Earlier, in July, I sorted out who caused the death and why and how.  Where and what the implications were.
But I have struggled with the writing of it;  have not seen how it can be put down, spelt out, made convincing.
In the end I resorted to writing conversations.  Conversations Baz had, with Susannah and with Luke; with John and Col and Billy.  And with Adam.  Gradually, they are telling me what happened.  Not always straightforwardly: sometimes they lie, deliberately deceive.  Lead me to believe one thing, only to be tripped up when I realise that's not possible.  It's a lot of writing, deleting, and re-writing.  A lot. A ridiculous amount, when I am already guilty (no, I don't think 'guilty' either) of writing without prior thought to a considerable extent.
But, it's my time I'm wasting (and no, I don't believe 'wasting' either) - and anyway, what else would I do?

But it's more than a little disorientating, disconcerting, especially because the man I thought was guilty seems not to be after all.

Tending the plot

On Wednesday morning the plot of my most recent, still-in-progress novel revealed itself to me and although much  of what I wrote on Thinking Ten, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week have been attempts to develop a single scene, much of it will doubtless be discarded.
 
Because, I’ve realised, now I know how the second death came about I need to knot the cords of coincidence which connect this second murder with the first.  A staggered sort of sheepshank, a clove and two half hitches, any of which, provided they are sufficiently subtle, will convince the reader of his cleverness in solving all before the end
.
First there is the wife, the mother of the victim’s son:  having made her bed she’s lain in it for seventeen years, but sees her chance for happiness slipping inexorably away.

There’s his brother.  Guilty of a number of things – manipulation and adultery – and holder of a secret he never should have been told.

Less likely, there’s his son, at seventeen like any son, he needs to free himself, and the recent jeering accusation of his peers that he might have inherited his father’s homosexuality makes adolescent shame a good enough reason.

There’s an unseen, unknown, presumed lover, heard arguing with him the night he disappeared, the same night that an adulterous DI had an assignation with his wife.  Was this DI lying when he said he’d only met to end the affair?

There’s a fellow-victim, who shared the first ordeal and is being encouraged to tell all, for the sake of fame and fortune – was murder thought the ideal response to a refusal to cooperate?

And this victim's uncle has perhaps the most to lose should the deemed-essential-at-the-time deception come to light.

The biggest problem of all, of course, is that it is me who has to solve it all before revealing it to the waiting-to-be-entertained reader.

Phew - a plot emerges ...

It started life as 'Susannah Elphinstone' a name which came to me out of the blue.  She and Luke Darbyshere became reacquainted and Baz and Madigan got involved too.
I always hoped it would be a psychological thriller.
And this morning, some fourteen months after I began writing it, I woke at 2.45 this morning with the knowledge of who did it, why, and some good ideas also about how I was going to be able to conceal the knowledge from the reader - is it any wonder I leapt out of bed to scribble it all down?

Initially, I'd written 15000 words before I knew who'd been murdered, and a further 40000 since,  getting to know some of  the newer characters: Stuart and Adam Randall, John and Michael Rendlesham and  Col Washington, along with Baz's Mum and Dad.  But I really did not know who was responsible for the second murder until today.

Little acorn of advice enables oak to at least start to grow in the direction of upwards ..

Sometimes you only need one tiny bit of advice to make a huge difference: "start as near the end as possible"* has enabled me to firm up my plot immeasurably :), especially in conjunction with reading Chris Brookmyre.

N.B. I had already done this instinctively, but reading the advice made me note and strengthen it, more assured of its merit.

 * Thank you Emma D, once again! http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e54eced2e18833014e8ba0ba66970d