Warning: Some Violence and Much Strong Language.SHE WROTE: The Trouble Starts
No, that heading doesn't mean we're in the same car together. I'm still in Ohio.
The whole initiating event thing really comes down to "When did THIS trouble start?" Yes, Mother poisoned Aunt Betsy's tea forty years ago and that's why Uncle Ron is trying to stab her with the pickle fork, but what you need for story is, why does Uncle Ron pick up the fork NOW? He's had twenty years to off Mom. What happened to make him say, "Slowly I turn"? Whatever it was, that's the initiating event.
But neither the poisoning or the initiating event is the start of the book, as Robert said. The start of the book is where the trouble starts for the protagonist. In this case, Agnes. Who is attacked in her kitchen by a guy who's trying to kill her. Maybe. Up until he shows up with a gun, Agnes's life is pretty stable. She's not skipping and picking daisies, but she's not in trouble. Then somebody tries to kill her and trouble ensues. Bingo, we got ourselves a book.
Well, we always had that part. We knew from the beginning that Agnes and the Hitman was going to start with somebody trying to kill her. For a very short while, it was Shane until we decided that made it too complicated, not to mention a bad way to start a relationship. So what we've been doing for months now is returning over and over again to the Big Problem: Why the hell would anybody want to kill a food columnist? We asked Cousin Russ, and he said, "We don't do that kind of thing." Evidently foodies are mild-mannered. Or too full to aim. Anyway, answering that got very complicated, although thank God the Russian mob wasn't involved. We learned that lesson on DLD.
While Bob has been agonizing over that, I helped, and then I went to NYC, but I also worked on the collage. This does nothing for Bob but moves me along smartly which he is grateful for because it means I'll write. So here's the still-unfinished collage as it is now:
You'll notice some stuff is missing and new things have been added. All part of the process.
Yes, Bob, I'm typing things, too. Go kayak for awhile. You're too tense.
6 Comments:
Verra nicely done and neato - can't wait to see more pics as it develops!
I need to collect lots of little airplane booze bottles for my collage. Good think I'll be flying in a few days ;-)
"Why the hell would someone want to kill a food columnist," you ask? Run go grab a copy of Garlic and Sapphires, a terrific book by Ruth Reichl, former food critic of the NY Times. If Agnes is the type of columist that writes reviews, know that this is big, BIG money for a restaurant. When Reichl first flew to NYC, she was informed - on the plane, before she even landed - that her photo was up in every restaurant in NYC so that she could be spotted and treated with kid gloves so the restaurant could get a great review. So waht did she do? Disguise herself - in a whole panoply of disguises - so that she could get real-person treatment and write an honest review.
Check out this book and you'll see plenty of reasons why someone would want to kill a food columnist!
I can see an alligator in that collage! So is this a sequel to DLD, giving us more about the life of a very special alligator? No, probably not.
What I do find rather odd is that now Agnes looks just a little bit like me (dark curly hair but the rest of her face isn't like mine) and Shane looks extremely like my little brother (who's not at all little).
And is there a very elegant/deadly game of musical chairs going on? There seem to be a lot of people and a lot of empty chairs.
Agnes could come out against a certain source of food like grain fed cows or a certain fish that she felt was overfished, and it threatened collective livelihoods.
Or it could be totally non-related to food, but the food column influence would be the red herring.
Agnes looks a little like Lauren Graham from the Gilmore Girls, but with hamster cheeks and a rock-solid perm.
"Agnes could come out against a certain source of food like grain fed cows or a certain fish that she felt was overfished, and it threatened collective livelihoods".
Wouldn't you need a personal element though? Presumably the killer lacks a sense of proportion or s/he wouldn't want to knock Agnes off her perch (see birdcages in collage) at all but wouldn't it be a bit of a big step to go from the general to the specific? Did anyone seriously try to kill Oprah when she made all those remarks about burgers?
When will the rest of the Crusie-Mayer website be ready?
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