Day 322

Writing exercise – The tea cart was at least five minutes late; something had to be done.

…

I worked in an office full of self-absorbed people, who cared only about themselves and what the company could do for them.

It was always about the bonus, about the amenities, about anything they can get for nothing.

So, don’t get me started on the morning tea.

And afternoon tea.

Because of the nature of the work, it wasn’t a good idea to leave the desk, except at lunch when they had to have a break, and when they went home, which sometimes some forgot to.

Or so they said.

I wasn’t that dedicated, so perhaps that was the only reason why I wasn’t rocketing up the promotions ladder.  The higher you went, the more the company owned you.

I looked around.  Five-thousand-dollar suits, car keys for Maseratis and Ferraris proudly on display.  An ancient Ford wasn’t a status symbol, but then I was never about status, just about getting the job done.

Walters, the current ‘ace employee of the month’, was sitting back in his chair and looking at his watch, a Rolex, of course, then the office clock, which was never on time.

“Where’s the tea lady?”

There were two options: going up to the breakout area on the floor below the executive suite or having it at the desk.

Several elderly ladies ran the trolley, a nice, easy job for an hour or so in the morning and the afternoon.  The three that serviced our floor were Doris, my favourite, Matilda, who always had a dour demeanour, and Lizzie, younger, once a showgirl, or so she said.

I was never quite sure what ‘showgirl’ meant.

Today, it should have been Lizzie.

“Still boiling the water.”  Frazer, equally boorish as Walters, was known for smart ass remarks.

“It’s not as if you haven’t been late when you have to be somewhere.”

Like any appointment with his supervisor.

“Be a good chap, Roly, and find out where it is.”

I glared at him.  My name was Rollins, but he called me Rolly.  He had a name for everyone he considered beneath him in status.

His other name, Roly Poly, he said when he was with the others at the Friday night drinks at a nearby bar.  I went once, heard his slanging off the lesser employees and the others laughing, and decided it was not my thing.

I was going to tell him off, but it would simply go through one ear and out the other.

The breakout area had an annexe where the tea ladies prepared before coming down to their designated food by the freight elevator.

I’d been in it once, and it was lucky to be working.  The day I was in it, it stopped twice without reason and missed the floor by a foot which would make it impossible to unload a negotiating.

I went up via the main elevator lobby.  Mt first thought was that the freight elevator was stuck, and she was in it

I crossed the breakout area, very spacious and airy, walls without windows lined with vending machines, free tea, coffee and cold water all day.

Today, there were cookies, which sometimes found their way onto the tea cart.

I knocked on the door to the tea lady’s room, and there was no answer.  I opened the door and stepped in.  It was a restricted area, but there was no key card entry required.

The room was a mess.  It looked to me as though someone had a tantrum and started throwing stuff.  Until I looked closely and realised someone had been searching through everything in a methodical manner.

There was another door on the other side of the room.  I picked my way carefully through the mess; security was going to have to find out what happened here.

Again, I knocked, but there was no answer.

I opened the door

The three ladies were bound and gagged, sitting on the floor.  It was then that I realised the tea carts were missing.

I called security.  “You have a situation.   The tea ladies are bound and gagged, and their trolleys are missing.”

No questions or instructions, a few seconds later, the fire evacuation siren was blaring, a voice over, “This is not a drill.  I repeat, this is not a drill.  Please evacuate the building in a calm and orderly manner as directed.  Floor wardens are to immediately supervise and evaluate floors as directed.”

While that announcement was being made, I untied and removed Lizzie’s gag, then she helped one and I the other.

When they were free, I asked, “What happened?”

Two men and a woman came in and started asking questions.  We thought they were health inspectors until they started tossing stuff everywhere, looking for a pass.”

“A pass?”

“Floor access key.  Or maybe a master key.  Then, because Lizzie went for the phone we finished up where you found us.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“Only they were going to kill some bloke because he didn’t do his job properly.”

“Someone who works here?”

“That would be my guess,” Lizzie said. “Anything important happening?”

Important in this place.  Nothing that was ever exciting enough to incite what just happened.”

“Did they find the pass?”

“Yes.  It had a man’s face on it, but it was too far away to recognise it.”

I called security again.

“You’re looking for two men, a woman, three tea carts, and they have a pass key that someone else left for them to collect.  Do you have CCTV up here?”

He didn’t answer, just hung up.  I took that as a no.

When I turned around to tell the ladies we had to evacuate the building, Lizzie was by the door holding a gun.

A gun.  Where did she get it? Why did she have it?

“Join the other two and go back into the room.” She motioned with the gun for emphasis.  “Now.”

She looked at her watch.

Time was a factor.  

“Why are you doing this?  Are you in league with those criminals?”

“They’re not criminals.  You lot are the criminals.  Get in the room, I won’t ask again.”

You can’t argue with a gun.  “Let’s go, do as she asks.  Not worth the trouble refusing.”

They looked to me like they were going to say something, then thought twice about it and went into the room.  I followed, and before she shut the door, I said, “Whatever you’re doing, I hope it’s worth it.”

“It will be.”

The door closed, and I heard the turn of the key in the lock.  It was a flimsy door, but this wasn’t the time to kick it in.  I waited by the door, and a minute or so later, I heard the outer room door close and I assumed she had locked that too.

“If I hadn’t come, she would have got away with it,” I said.

“She didn’t look like she was working with them.  Just goes to show, you think you know someone.”

“And there’s someone else out there working with them.”

“To do what?”

Good question.  I was wondering that myself.  Lizzie had called the company criminals.  All we did was invest money, make the clients richer.  Admittedly, it had become that much harder to pick the market given the volatility, which, some argued, was deliberately being manipulated.

One negative word from a government official could send a stock higher or plummet in value, leaving investors with huge losses.

Walters had been flying high on a lot of good tips, but the last stock that went up, he should have sold, instead, waited just a little too long.  Perhaps he’d crossed his tipster.  That would mean he was effectively insider trading.

Interesting how something comes together with the right catalyst. 

The thing is, investors knew who their trader was, so if anyone was upset, they could complain or demand an explanation.  The supervisor was tough but fair. You cause a mess, you clean it up.

I doubted Lizzie was one of those high roller investors, but in such a job, a few bucks to supply a pass key was nothing to her.  Unless it turned into a murder.  Brandishing guns in a highly volatile situation was a recipe for disaster.

“It might have something to do with bad investments.”

And something else just dredged up from the back of my mind.  A sighting about a month back of one of the directors of the company having lunch at a fancy restaurant I had wanted to go to, passed most days on the way home from work.

It was not because he was dining there; it was the woman he was with.  I thought he might be having an affair, but several days after that, her face popped up on TV, and she was being linked to a government project that was worth billions of dollars.

And the report was about the next big thing in the construction industry

Interesting.

“Not a good look for an investment company to have bad investments.”

“It’s a volatile market, and a lot of investment houses have problems.  But you’re right, not a good look, and very problematic if the investors start getting itchy feet.”

“And that happened here?”

“Everyone praises you when you back the right horse, but like a horse race, you never really know which horse is going to win.  Sometimes, even dead certs lose.  It happens everywhere.”

I don’t think I sold the ‘we are the best of the best’ to her.  At that moment, the fire alarm stopped, and the silence was blessed.  She just shrugged and produced a set of keys.

“You have the keys to the door?”

“Of course.  Senior tea lady.  It just wasn’t safe to go out there, until now.”

I stepped back, and she unlocked the door. 

“You open it.  Lizzie must still be out there.”

I debated whether I should tell her I heard Lizzie leave, but decided not to.  I opened the door a crack and peered out.

Nothing.

I pushed the door open and came out into the room.

Silence, which was strange in itself.  There was always noise.

She gave me the keys to open the outset door and check.  Once again, only opening it slightly, I glanced down both sides of the corridor.  If Lizzie had any sense, she would have left quickly

“Stay here and lock the door.  I’ll go and see what’s happening.”

I took the closest staircase to go down.  In a fire alarm, all the doors on each floor were unlocked.  It was eerily quiet on the stairwell as I slowly went down to my floor.  I told myself that it could not have been about Walters and the others.

At the level, I slowly opened the door.  Silence.  If anyone was there, there would be noise, at the very least, Walters babbling on about the intrusion.

I waited a minute.  Two.  Nothing.

Then, slowly walking up the corridor to the pit, the workspaces of the half dozen of us in the group, and in the office overlooking the outside, the supervisor.

I stopped at the door and nearly vomited.  They were all dead, shot multiple times, with blood and bodies everywhere.  My five colleagues and the supervisor.  Dead.

Walters had done me a favour by sending me off to find the tea lady.  Otherwise, I’d be with them, just another dead body.

That’s when the police arrived, about a dozen of them screaming for me to get on the floor, hands behind my head.

…

©  Charles Heath 2025

Day 321

What will happen to the hero?

…

The Novelist’s Secret: We’re Just As Curious As You Are

We all know the feeling. It’s midnight, the house is dark, and you are gripping the latest thriller, utterly unable to put it down. Your heart pounds, palms sweat, and the only certainty in the universe is the desperate need to know: Will the hero survive?

This is the glorious, undeniable suspense of the reader. We assume this thrill is exclusive to us—the consumers of the story.

But what if I told you that, sitting across the desk, hunched over a lukewarm cup of coffee and a blinking cursor, the person crafting the plot is often experiencing the very same, stomach-dropping curiosity?

The prevailing image of the novelist is that of an omniscient deity, a master architect meticulously placing every brick, knowing how the structure must inevitably fall. While some writers certainly embody this role—the celebrated “plotters”—the deepest, most resonant stories often emerge when the creator surrenders control and becomes, quite simply, the hero’s most dedicated and most anxious first reader.

The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader but also in the novelist, who is equally curious about what will happen to the hero. This is the great secret of discovery writing: The story is not written; it is uncovered.

The Myth of the Master Plan

For those who write by “discovery” (often affectionately termed “pantsers,” because they write by the seat of their pants), the process is less like following a blueprint and more like exploring a vast, uncharted cave. You have a flashlight (your protagonist’s core motivation) and a general direction, but you have no idea if the path ahead leads to a treasure chamber or a sudden, terrifying drop.

When a writer starts a story this way, the suspense is inherent in every word. Every time the protagonist is confronted with a choice, the author holds their breath, asking:

Will he take the risk, or play it safe?
Will she finally tell the truth, even though it ruins everything?
Is this conflict a dead end, or a pivot point?
This is not simple intellectual curiosity; it is a genuine, existential stake in the outcome. The novelist is betting their time, their craft, and the integrity of the entire manuscript on the hero making an organic, believable next move—a move the novelist themselves must wait to witness.

When Characters Take the Wheel

The moment a character truly comes alive is the moment they cease being a puppet for the writer’s agenda and become an autonomous force.

This is the thrilling, terrifying point of no return for the author. The character stops doing what the outline demands and starts doing what they would logically do, given their history, flaws, and desires.

Many authors describe this sensation. Characters rebel. They refuse to fall in love with the intended partner. They walked out of the room when they were supposed to deliver a crucial monologue. They exhibit an inconvenient, but utterly truthful, streak of self-sabotage that the author never planned.

When this happens, the novelist’s job shifts from creator to witness. We are no longer designing the journey; we are scrambling to keep up, racing down the page just to see how our heroes will resolve the mess they’ve just made.

This is the purest form of writerly suspense. We are tied to the narrative not just by obligation, but by a sudden, intense fear for our creation. Will this impulsive decision ruin the story? Or will it, astonishingly, unlock the one perfect plot twist we never saw coming?

The Unique Burden of the Author’s Suspense

The reader’s suspense is passive; it is the anticipation of consumption. The author’s suspense, however, is active; it is the anxiety of creation and execution.

An author’s curiosity isn’t just about what happens, but about how they are going to manage to write it convincingly.

If the hero is trapped in a burning building, the reader wonders: How will he get out?

The novelist wonders: How will he get out, and can I write that scene with enough detail, tension, and structural integrity that the whole book doesn’t collapse at this crucial moment?

The novelist’s curiosity is perpetually interwoven with the demands of craft. We are curious about the outcome, but we are also desperately curious about our own ability to deliver that outcome flawlessly. We are thrilled by the uncertainty, but burdened by the knowledge that we are responsible for making that uncertainty pay off.

The Beautiful Surrender

To create genuine suspense for the reader, the writer must first allow themselves to feel it. The greatest narratives are not those where the author is in total control, but those where the author has surrendered enough control to be genuinely surprised.

If the author already knows every character beat, every twist, and every final line, the writing process can become mechanical and stale—and that flatness will invariably translate to the finished page.

The writer who is slightly nervous, slightly unsure, and deeply invested in the fate of their protagonist is the writer who is pouring genuine, fresh energy into the text.

So the next time you are lost in a book, turning pages in a fever pitch of excitement, remember the person who wrote it. They may have been turning those internal pages just as quickly, hoping, fearing, and discovering the story right alongside you.

This shared curiosity—this simultaneous suspense binding creator and consumer—is perhaps the purest magic of the human-authored novel. It is the moment we realise that writing is not the act of manufacturing an inevitability, but the wondrous challenge of documenting a life that insists on being lived.

Day 321

What will happen to the hero?

…

The Novelist’s Secret: We’re Just As Curious As You Are

We all know the feeling. It’s midnight, the house is dark, and you are gripping the latest thriller, utterly unable to put it down. Your heart pounds, palms sweat, and the only certainty in the universe is the desperate need to know: Will the hero survive?

This is the glorious, undeniable suspense of the reader. We assume this thrill is exclusive to us—the consumers of the story.

But what if I told you that, sitting across the desk, hunched over a lukewarm cup of coffee and a blinking cursor, the person crafting the plot is often experiencing the very same, stomach-dropping curiosity?

The prevailing image of the novelist is that of an omniscient deity, a master architect meticulously placing every brick, knowing how the structure must inevitably fall. While some writers certainly embody this role—the celebrated “plotters”—the deepest, most resonant stories often emerge when the creator surrenders control and becomes, quite simply, the hero’s most dedicated and most anxious first reader.

The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader but also in the novelist, who is equally curious about what will happen to the hero. This is the great secret of discovery writing: The story is not written; it is uncovered.

The Myth of the Master Plan

For those who write by “discovery” (often affectionately termed “pantsers,” because they write by the seat of their pants), the process is less like following a blueprint and more like exploring a vast, uncharted cave. You have a flashlight (your protagonist’s core motivation) and a general direction, but you have no idea if the path ahead leads to a treasure chamber or a sudden, terrifying drop.

When a writer starts a story this way, the suspense is inherent in every word. Every time the protagonist is confronted with a choice, the author holds their breath, asking:

Will he take the risk, or play it safe?
Will she finally tell the truth, even though it ruins everything?
Is this conflict a dead end, or a pivot point?
This is not simple intellectual curiosity; it is a genuine, existential stake in the outcome. The novelist is betting their time, their craft, and the integrity of the entire manuscript on the hero making an organic, believable next move—a move the novelist themselves must wait to witness.

When Characters Take the Wheel

The moment a character truly comes alive is the moment they cease being a puppet for the writer’s agenda and become an autonomous force.

This is the thrilling, terrifying point of no return for the author. The character stops doing what the outline demands and starts doing what they would logically do, given their history, flaws, and desires.

Many authors describe this sensation. Characters rebel. They refuse to fall in love with the intended partner. They walked out of the room when they were supposed to deliver a crucial monologue. They exhibit an inconvenient, but utterly truthful, streak of self-sabotage that the author never planned.

When this happens, the novelist’s job shifts from creator to witness. We are no longer designing the journey; we are scrambling to keep up, racing down the page just to see how our heroes will resolve the mess they’ve just made.

This is the purest form of writerly suspense. We are tied to the narrative not just by obligation, but by a sudden, intense fear for our creation. Will this impulsive decision ruin the story? Or will it, astonishingly, unlock the one perfect plot twist we never saw coming?

The Unique Burden of the Author’s Suspense

The reader’s suspense is passive; it is the anticipation of consumption. The author’s suspense, however, is active; it is the anxiety of creation and execution.

An author’s curiosity isn’t just about what happens, but about how they are going to manage to write it convincingly.

If the hero is trapped in a burning building, the reader wonders: How will he get out?

The novelist wonders: How will he get out, and can I write that scene with enough detail, tension, and structural integrity that the whole book doesn’t collapse at this crucial moment?

The novelist’s curiosity is perpetually interwoven with the demands of craft. We are curious about the outcome, but we are also desperately curious about our own ability to deliver that outcome flawlessly. We are thrilled by the uncertainty, but burdened by the knowledge that we are responsible for making that uncertainty pay off.

The Beautiful Surrender

To create genuine suspense for the reader, the writer must first allow themselves to feel it. The greatest narratives are not those where the author is in total control, but those where the author has surrendered enough control to be genuinely surprised.

If the author already knows every character beat, every twist, and every final line, the writing process can become mechanical and stale—and that flatness will invariably translate to the finished page.

The writer who is slightly nervous, slightly unsure, and deeply invested in the fate of their protagonist is the writer who is pouring genuine, fresh energy into the text.

So the next time you are lost in a book, turning pages in a fever pitch of excitement, remember the person who wrote it. They may have been turning those internal pages just as quickly, hoping, fearing, and discovering the story right alongside you.

This shared curiosity—this simultaneous suspense binding creator and consumer—is perhaps the purest magic of the human-authored novel. It is the moment we realise that writing is not the act of manufacturing an inevitability, but the wondrous challenge of documenting a life that insists on being lived.