What to do if there is a hole in your story.

So, you have a hole in your story.

 

Use genre expectation and questions to find the hole.

 State the problem (or what you think is the problem.)

I was writing Book 4 in my mystery series. Doing well until I reached 18,000 words. I did have solid characters and action. BUT (how I hate that word) there was no danger, no suspense, no tension. I knew it could be anything from events (or lack of them) to word choice.

Ruminate (think deeply about something.) One of the most useful writers’ tools. (Lie on the sofa and tell people you are working.)

For two nights, I watched British Mystery TV and crocheted hats, my go-to for keeping front-mind busy so underneath can brainstorm. No real progress on the story. (I did make 2 hats.)

Time to step back and look at the big picture of the story.

Go back to the key ingredients in your genre. The mystery scenes I use, by the way, are the ingredients that Agatha Christie used in her notebooks. They are also noted in Author, Robert Ray’s book, The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery.

A murder

A victim

A killer

The discovery of the murder

The reporting of it

A sleuth,

Clues

Revelation & solution

Sure enough, I did have the ingredients. However, there was no zip, no tension. I asked, ‘what increases tension? Was it plot short-falls? Language choice? Character deficits?’

Maybe I needed a ‘ticking clock’ where time is running out and the sleuth is failing or in danger. Ah danger, lots of danger. That’s usually a good one. But what will give me more danger for my characters?

List the key events your characters need.

For me it is a sleuth who:

1) arrives to view the murder scene

2) investigates & interviews witnesses & suspects

3) learn secrets,

4) figures out the critical secret that points at the killer

5) finds herself in mortal danger because the killer knows she knows

6) escapes or is rescued or a bit of both

7) reveals the clues and catches the killer

8) gets reward

Steps 4 and 5 were the two missing pieces in my story—this time.

Dissecting the various elements required in a mystery, I easily saw what was missing. I needed to make things worse for my sleuth to increase tension, and to put her in mortal danger to ramp up suspense. Easy, eh? Actually, in retrospect following a process did make it easy. I finished the book and published it in October 2017.

Stories have building blocks. Genres have expectations.

In looking at the expectations for a mystery, I found my missing blocks. You can do the same in your genre.

 

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Brighton A Royal Bathroom and Bath House by Rosemary Morris

To find out more about Rosemary's work please click on the cover above.

History inspires, fascinates and triggers my imagination, so it is a pleasure to share a fraction of my research for my new novel Saturday’s Child, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week, Book Seven.

During the summer months, when London was usually hot and malodourous many people considered it detrimental to their health. After Parliament rose in June, they retired either to their estates in the country or a seaside resort. A popular choice was Brighton, only fifty miles from London. There the Prince of Wales, subsequently the Prince Regent, entertained on a grand scale at his Pavilion, which resembled an oriental palace. Members of the bon ton followed the pleasure-loving prince to Brighton where he enjoyed gambling, riding on the downs, shooting, the theatre and other pastimes. Another attraction was the belief that bathing in sea water and drinking brine could cure anything from – for example – corns to serious diseases.

I assume the Prince Regent, who succeeded as George 1V in 1820, believed sea water was beneficial. His bathroom at the Royal Pavilion was supplied with fresh and sea water, contained a vapour bath, a warm bath, a shower bath, a douche bath and a large plunge pool. Sea water was pumped into a tank in the garden and heated by a boiler for the king to have therapeutic baths.

Few could afford a bathroom as luxurious as the king’s, but bath houses existed either for people too elderly, infirm or shy to bathe in the sea or when there were storms. The first bath house commissioned in Brighton by Dr John Awister was built at the south end of the Steyne. In 1803 the rectangular building with a Neo-Classical façade contained two cold baths, four hot baths and a shower bath which were supplied with sea water.

In 1823 Gilburd’s Baths attached to The New Steyne Hotel is listed by William Scott. At every high tide sea water was pumped by a steam engine through a chalk tunnel. Clients could have hot or cold plunging baths, vapour baths etc. Scott also listed the luxurious oriental Mohamed’s Baths.

Undoubtedly, the patrons at many seaside resorts enjoyed the facilities but, unfortunately, the water was not purified so they were at risk of infection; and it is not known how effective bathing in the sea, in baths and drinking salt-water was.

Classical Historical Fiction by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books One to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Religion by Katherine Pym

Buy Here

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Fanciful rendition, Babylon Ziggurat

Religion has been extremely important to mankind since what seems the onset of our species. Spiritual markings abound in caves, on megaliths or stone circles with no markings, but we surmise them as ritualistic. Ziggurats, or step pyramids are scattered around the world. Symbols and worshipful edifices continue to this day. They are evidence of mankind’s need for religion.

Gobekli Tepe dig purposefully buried

Another look at Gobekli Tepe dig

One of the oldest places of worship is Gobekli Tepe (circa 11,000-13,000 BCE depending on the source), located in what is now Turkey, predates the Egyptian pyramids by several thousand years. New data says it even predates farming. One expert feels it was built as a religious monument, which brought farming & civilization. This is opposite from earlier thought of hunter gatherers to farming. No writing exists on the site, so no one knows for sure.

Curiously constructed, then strangely buried, a smaller version was built on top of it, and so it went over the centuries. The footprint became smaller until people put icons of the bull in their homes, which kept a constant reminder of their beliefs. By this time, the entire site of Gobekli Tepe had been purposefully buried.

Then Sumer (oldest part of Mesopotamia) came along approx. 5000 BCE, which is quite a span of time between the two. Based between the Tigris & Euphrates rivers, it is considered by many to be the cradle of civilization. Also known as Sumeria, they suspect these people came from the Indus Valley (Pakistan and NW India). They were a devout group who developed writing, the wheel. Some say they developed hydraulics. They perfected irrigation, planted during the inundation, which was the winter melt originating in Turkey.

Tigris Euphrates

Artist rendition of ancient Sumer

The Sumerians were an advanced species who worshiped a denizen of gods, many of which were at one time kings or queens. They believed in many things we recognize. They have a battle between the gods in the heavens, a Moses, a flood, and sacrifice. They developed law codes that were in part similar to the 10 Commandments. They built ziggurats for high priests and the elite to worship which were the forerunner of the pyramids, but not for burial purposes. 

Mayan Step Pyramid so much like Sumer's Ziggurats

 In many ways our modern world meets old civilizations in thought and beliefs. Man has always worshiped a god, several or one. We are connected by these beliefs attached to early man. The concept is fascinating.