Is it one of the genre tropes that we always send the pretty girl in as bait, telling her that we’ve got the whole situation covered?
Or that she goes and does something that she should have told the agent she was working with, and believed the others when they said that had her covered.
After all, all she had to do was get one of the players to a room.
Of course, you’re asking, why does it have to be the pretty girl?
It is a trope.
It is expected that someone is going to do it.
So perhaps not a trope is the agent she’s working with getting very angry when he finds out.
But of course, by that time, everything has gone well south of south it’s just business as usual.
How can something that on paper seemed very simple become so hard?
Another trope.
One of the so-called good guys changes camps. Why? Same old, same old – money.
So then we introduce the sayings…
First dig two graves – our would-be liberator cum revolution leader gets himself too wrapped up in the revenge thing – and dies trying to fulfill a pledge to avenge his father.
Didn’t expect a traitor in their midst.
Good thing old spies never die, they just take up mundane jobs and drift around the world looking for the latest hotspot. We have one, he’s on hand, steals a jeep, and is a pretty good shot when it’s needed.
As for our protagonist, well, it’s another trope: he saves the girl.
It doesn’t mean there’s going to be celebrations and fireworks at the end of the party.
What starts as a search for a missing husband soon develops into an unbelievable story of treachery, lies, and incredible riches.
…
It was meant to remain buried long enough for the dust to settle on what was once an unpalatable truth, when enough time had passed, and those who had been willing to wait could reap the rewards.
The problem was, no one knew where that treasure was hidden or the location of the logbook that held the secret.
At stake, billions of dollars’ worth of stolen Nazi loot brought to the United States in an anonymous tramp steamer and hidden in a specially constructed vault under a specifically owned plot of land on the once docklands of New York.
It may have remained hidden and unknown to only a few, if it had not been for a mere obscure detail being overheard …
… by our intrepid, newly minted private detective, Harry Walthenson …
… and it would have remained buried.
Now, through a series of unrelated events, or are they, that well-kept secret is out there, and Harry will not stop until the whole truth is uncovered.
Is it one of the genre tropes that we always send the pretty girl in as bait, telling her that we’ve got the whole situation covered?
Or that she goes and does something that she should have told the agent she was working with, and believed the others when they said that had her covered.
After all, all she had to do was get one of the players to a room.
Of course, you’re asking, why does it have to be the pretty girl?
It is a trope.
It is expected that someone is going to do it.
So perhaps not a trope is the agent she’s working with getting very angry when he finds out.
But of course, by that time, everything has gone well south of south it’s just business as usual.
How can something that on paper seemed very simple become so hard?
Another trope.
One of the so-called good guys changes camps. Why? Same old, same old – money.
So then we introduce the sayings…
First dig two graves – our would-be liberator cum revolution leader gets himself too wrapped up in the revenge thing – and dies trying to fulfill a pledge to avenge his father.
Didn’t expect a traitor in their midst.
Good thing old spies never die, they just take up mundane jobs and drift around the world looking for the latest hotspot. We have one, he’s on hand, steals a jeep, and is a pretty good shot when it’s needed.
As for our protagonist, well, it’s another trope: he saves the girl.
It doesn’t mean there’s going to be celebrations and fireworks at the end of the party.
Inspiration can strike you anywhere, even on a bus…
…
It’s amazing how quickly you discover the imperfections of road makers.
As odd as that sounds, a recent trip on a bus, actually earlier today in fact, got me thinking about just how bad some of our roads really are.
Why? Because an idea just came to mind and I have a note-taking app on my phone…
But, as you know, it’s difficult at the best of times to get your fingers to move over the keyboard except…
As any writer will tell you, that half an hour or so on the trip to work or home is just waiting for a few lines to be written on your phone or on your tablet. I venture to suggest a laptop computer just might be a little difficult, and prone to stray eyes from the people sitting or standing near you.
And the tightness of the space available to you. I know, I’ve tried.
Of course, the alternative is a pen and a notepad, not a large one, but adequate. First, the pen had run out of ink or was on its last three words, so take a pencil, but make sure it’s not one where the lead can break easily. Then try writing on a bus. Ugh!
But, if you’re not in the mood to research, I did a little of that too, by the way, the desire to write is tempered by the movement of the bus and your ability to type coherent words on a small keyboard in a very large, rocking, metal thing.
I have to say I have a large streak of jealousy for those people who can hammer out large texts to their friends while riding the bus, and in the most awkward of conditions, using both thumbs, and carrying 26 bags of groceries and dry cleaning, as well as having a full on political discussion with the person sitting/standing next to them.
Even when the bus hits a pothole, it does a sudden lurch that sends the unsuspecting sprawling.
With my interactive word completer turned on, it is astonishing what words finish up in my small attempt at writing as my fingers fail to find the right letters and create what can only be described as the ramblings of a madman.
Perhaps I might have better luck tomorrow.
Or better still, the idea will wait until I get off the bus.
Inspiration can strike you anywhere, even on a bus…
…
It’s amazing how quickly you discover the imperfections of road makers.
As odd as that sounds, a recent trip on a bus, actually earlier today in fact, got me thinking about just how bad some of our roads really are.
Why? Because an idea just came to mind and I have a note-taking app on my phone…
But, as you know, it’s difficult at the best of times to get your fingers to move over the keyboard except…
As any writer will tell you, that half an hour or so on the trip to work or home is just waiting for a few lines to be written on your phone or on your tablet. I venture to suggest a laptop computer just might be a little difficult, and prone to stray eyes from the people sitting or standing near you.
And the tightness of the space available to you. I know, I’ve tried.
Of course, the alternative is a pen and a notepad, not a large one, but adequate. First, the pen had run out of ink or was on its last three words, so take a pencil, but make sure it’s not one where the lead can break easily. Then try writing on a bus. Ugh!
But, if you’re not in the mood to research, I did a little of that too, by the way, the desire to write is tempered by the movement of the bus and your ability to type coherent words on a small keyboard in a very large, rocking, metal thing.
I have to say I have a large streak of jealousy for those people who can hammer out large texts to their friends while riding the bus, and in the most awkward of conditions, using both thumbs, and carrying 26 bags of groceries and dry cleaning, as well as having a full on political discussion with the person sitting/standing next to them.
Even when the bus hits a pothole, it does a sudden lurch that sends the unsuspecting sprawling.
With my interactive word completer turned on, it is astonishing what words finish up in my small attempt at writing as my fingers fail to find the right letters and create what can only be described as the ramblings of a madman.
Perhaps I might have better luck tomorrow.
Or better still, the idea will wait until I get off the bus.
Pet Subjects, or, in other words, writing about what you know.
…
You will often read in the advice people tend to give budding writers, a section called ‘write about what you know’. It generally follows a rather ambiguous statement that says ‘everyone has one book in them’ and there’s an audience out there if you write about your pet subject.
That assumes we all have a pet subject, you know, something we know all this stuff about, stuff that no one else would care about. Except for other people like us.
But…
Here’s the problem, you have to write it in a way that it is interesting, and if your pet subject is ‘the erosion of sandstone over 20,000 years’ I think you are not going to find a large audience, and your book, though interesting to you, will not necessarily become an instant bestseller.
Not unless you turn it into a thriller where it’s just a passing reference, or a means of escape from the bad guys just before you blow them to smithereens.
Except…
There is a market for every type of book; you just have to do the research and find out exactly what part of your specialist knowledge the intended audience wants.
I could write about mining phosphate on the Pacific Islands at the beginning of the 1900s, which to me was fascinating, but it only appealed to those who were familiar with it. What I was told, however, was that if I wrote a sweeping Gone With The Wind type saga written around the Islands, the minung, the people and the events spanning sixty odd years, I would have a best seller on my hands.
I took their advice, and figured in the end it was going to take three volumes, much like R F Delderfield’s “A Horseman Riding By”, and got as far as almost finishing the first volume, coming in at about 1,300 pages.
That was forty years ago, and I haven’t written a word since.
It will eventually be finished, but there is always something else to do, like my latest pet project, the family history.
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
Pet Subjects, or, in other words, writing about what you know.
…
You will often read in the advice people tend to give budding writers, a section called ‘write about what you know’. It generally follows a rather ambiguous statement that says ‘everyone has one book in them’ and there’s an audience out there if you write about your pet subject.
That assumes we all have a pet subject, you know, something we know all this stuff about, stuff that no one else would care about. Except for other people like us.
But…
Here’s the problem, you have to write it in a way that it is interesting, and if your pet subject is ‘the erosion of sandstone over 20,000 years’ I think you are not going to find a large audience, and your book, though interesting to you, will not necessarily become an instant bestseller.
Not unless you turn it into a thriller where it’s just a passing reference, or a means of escape from the bad guys just before you blow them to smithereens.
Except…
There is a market for every type of book; you just have to do the research and find out exactly what part of your specialist knowledge the intended audience wants.
I could write about mining phosphate on the Pacific Islands at the beginning of the 1900s, which to me was fascinating, but it only appealed to those who were familiar with it. What I was told, however, was that if I wrote a sweeping Gone With The Wind type saga written around the Islands, the minung, the people and the events spanning sixty odd years, I would have a best seller on my hands.
I took their advice, and figured in the end it was going to take three volumes, much like R F Delderfield’s “A Horseman Riding By”, and got as far as almost finishing the first volume, coming in at about 1,300 pages.
That was forty years ago, and I haven’t written a word since.
It will eventually be finished, but there is always something else to do, like my latest pet project, the family history.
The cliff hanger, and the idea behind writing episodes…
…
Back in the good old days…
Yes, we have to go way back in time to the days when Charles Dickens and other classic English writers wrote their stories in episodes, and yes, they had to have a cliff-hanger ending for each so the readers would be back to read the next instalment.
It was a novel way to get people to buy newspapers.
It was also a chance for the writers to get income by publishing a weekly instalment in either the newspapers or magazines.
Of course, at that time, a lot of people couldn’t read or write, so there was a large percentage of the population missing out.
Imagine my dismay when I decided to write my stories in episodes and publish them in my blog, thinking it was a really great idea, and then discovering the idea had been around for hundreds of years.
Mine were, and are, a little more erratic, sometimes each day, but other a week apart. Sometimes it’s difficult to write continuously like that, and three or four different stories. If you want to read some, they are the stories I called ‘The Cinema of my Dreams’, and there’s one about an interlude in WW2, one about a rescue in Africa, one about a Treasure Hunt, one about an aspiring spy, one that starts in venice, and one in outer space
Imagine what Charles Dickens would have thought of having the internet to publish his stories. He’d get more readers than for all of his novels, whether published in book form or episodes, in his lifetime.
And, of course, when the books were published, it wasn’t just one copy for the whole story; it was published in three, four or more volumes.
Of course, the movie moguls couldn’t let a good idea get past them either, and started making serials in episodes, each with a cliff-hanger ending to run before the main feature, thinking they would get the fans hooked into coming every week.
Notable heroes who turned up in Hollywood serials were Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Zorro, and the Green Hornet, nearly all of comic book fame.
The cliff hanger, and the idea behind writing episodes…
…
Back in the good old days…
Yes, we have to go way back in time to the days when Charles Dickens and other classic English writers wrote their stories in episodes, and yes, they had to have a cliff-hanger ending for each so the readers would be back to read the next instalment.
It was a novel way to get people to buy newspapers.
It was also a chance for the writers to get income by publishing a weekly instalment in either the newspapers or magazines.
Of course, at that time, a lot of people couldn’t read or write, so there was a large percentage of the population missing out.
Imagine my dismay when I decided to write my stories in episodes and publish them in my blog, thinking it was a really great idea, and then discovering the idea had been around for hundreds of years.
Mine were, and are, a little more erratic, sometimes each day, but other a week apart. Sometimes it’s difficult to write continuously like that, and three or four different stories. If you want to read some, they are the stories I called ‘The Cinema of my Dreams’, and there’s one about an interlude in WW2, one about a rescue in Africa, one about a Treasure Hunt, one about an aspiring spy, one that starts in venice, and one in outer space
Imagine what Charles Dickens would have thought of having the internet to publish his stories. He’d get more readers than for all of his novels, whether published in book form or episodes, in his lifetime.
And, of course, when the books were published, it wasn’t just one copy for the whole story; it was published in three, four or more volumes.
Of course, the movie moguls couldn’t let a good idea get past them either, and started making serials in episodes, each with a cliff-hanger ending to run before the main feature, thinking they would get the fans hooked into coming every week.
Notable heroes who turned up in Hollywood serials were Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Zorro, and the Green Hornet, nearly all of comic book fame.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 