The Labyrinthine Ways

A mostly accurate account of the labyrinthine ways of my own mind when coming up with my idea:

I set out to write a novel--or, rather my friend did.

Though I do not follow him into every pursuit, he has been my friend for a long time, and I generally assume that if he is into something, it's worth a good, long look.

We brainstormed out loud about his novel, which of course led to making fun of the ill-fated My Generation. I now have survivor guilt about this--mocking a doomed TV show, it turns out, is like poking fun at the Crocodile Hunter's animal antics only to have him die within days of one doing so (not that I actually did that, or anything. Afterward, I simply noted the sheer weirdness of being killed by a freak incident tangentially related to one's line of work. What a way to go. Rest well, Mr. Irwin.).

If I believed in ill-omens, a doomed T.V. show, even in mockery, being the beginning of two novel ideas would be one such omen.

In any case, I decided later that I would pick an idea that interested me, as my friend had done. His guiding question: would making a different life choice result in a different outcome, or is his main character hopelessly determined.

I took the only logical course of action: I dug deep through the permafrost layer that separates my adulthood from my childhood and unearthed some things that freaked me out as a child. Margaret Hamilton, as one columnist in a Chicago newspaper noted, has a creepy power, and starred in my most memorable childhood nightmare. But, Witches, Wizards, and Sparkly Vampires (Oh my!) have well outlived their welcome on the recent literary scene.

Then I thought of Rip Van Winkle and the odd mountain spirits playing nine-pins and creating thunder in the valley. As a child, I always imagined, sacrilegiously and apocryphally, God and the angels and possibly St. Peter having a round of bowling in the clouds. Sometimes it was Zeus and the occupants of Olympus. Zeus has this habit of smiting people, in my mind, and thus, the bowling in the mountains would be bowling for people-- gods "kill us for their sport," I reasoned.

Muttering about Percy Jackson and Riordan's corner on the Olympic gods, casting a baleful glance at American Gods, and wishing vaguely I was Dan Simmons, I soldiered on.

No one has the corner on murder. Sure Agatha Christie is the "Queen of Crime" and all, but I never liked how her novels were impossible to guess the conclusion of, simply because of a piece of data the detective had that the reader was never privy to. Or, at least that's how I remember things. I read her and Sherlock Holmes mysteries when I was a kid. I also recalled the first time I noticed a gaping hole in the reasoning of an Encyclopedia Brown mystery, where the outcome was not proven by the lack of something for a key to jingle against in the perpetrator's pocket.

Murder mystery I could write. "Nine-pins" from "Rip Van Winkle" stuck in my head. I had a working title and a couple bones of a plot after some brief internet research about the game of nine-pins.

Then, I listened to Writing Excuses' podcast about creating suspense, and I realized how I was on to something potentially good.

Next, I hauled out all my writing books ans started combing them for content. I had already read No Plot? No Problem! to the point where I was forbidden to read further, and so I picked up How to Write a Damn Good Novel and almost everything Noah Lukeman wrote about writing.

I have a character list and the daunting task of coming up with a believable murderer. He's a secret, for now, even to me.