Franz and Amadeus

Franz and Amadeus

I'm working away analysing what needs to be changed in the earlier chapters at the moment. I think it's mostly a question of adding things rather than taking away. So, for example Celia needs to become nastier towards Franz (poor Franz!) about losing his job and she needs to become unpleasantly ambitious. I don't have a problem with ambition unless it leads to corruption of moral values and I think this is going to be where Celia will wobble.

As a change I'm also doing little sketches of the characters to add to the blog. Above you can find Franz and Amadeus.

Educating Celia

Not everything is this black or white for Celia...

First of all, thank you to the people who wrote with support or ideas or comments about my last post and my 'crisis'. I really appreciate your help.

Some people felt that I was worrying unnecessarily about Celia and that if I tied up the story successfully from the point where I am now, she'd have least learnt not to be quite so trusting.

While that is certainly a useful thing to learn it doesn't seem to me to be that interesting for the world at large. I still feel she needs to be a better person at the end of the story, not just a more suspicious one.

So I think I need something more significant and the clue I feel lies in the problem in the relationship between Franz and Celia. Looking at chapters 4-7 again it doesn't seem plausible that all the problems are caused by Franz, with Celia just a victim. I think she needs to play a part in the marriage's deterioration.

And I think a source of trouble could be Celia's background. I think she could be a lot more bourgeois than she cares to admit and Franz losing his job as a philosophy professor on a point of principle could be extremely annoying to her, especially if he then takes a job on the railways instead. Apart from the possible financial strain, there would be the whole status issue. It's all very well marrying somebody foreign to irritate your family (perhaps?) if they are prestigiously employed; it's something else if they are a night train conductor when you are a latent snob.

There could also be another problem for Celia. What if she's explicitly offered the choice at some point to carry on working for Colonel Kaiec and make a sensational art history discovery or carry on asking questions about her brother and lose her job? I like the idea of presenting her with a moral dilemma where she initially makes an unethical choice.

Anyway, that's the way I'm tending at the moment. If you have any comments, send them in!

Help! Help! Crisis!

Over the past few weeks I have realized that I’m not able to write any more with the book in its present form. There is a big hole in the centre of the novel, and it’s all because I haven’t followed the guidelines that I gave myself at the very beginning of this blog. Here’s what I said in October 2012 in my entry ‘Jamie's cordon-bleu guide to cooking a good thriller’:

1 genuine moral dilemma – the hero or heroine should have a certain amount of realistic doubt about the rightness of their course of action which the reader can identify with.  It’s also important that the hero / heroine is flawed but is able to overcome their deficiencies (unless it’s a tragedy, in which case they have to die). By the end of the novel the hero / heroine should have learnt something and become a better and stronger person.

My problem is that at the moment there is no moral dilemma. Celia just ploughs on getting closer and closer to the end of the book, but she’s not showing any development. She doesn’t seem to have any flaws which she needs to recognize and overcome. The result will be that the reader could get to the end of the book and say ‘So what?’.

This is very frustrating, because I now have to go right back to the beginning of the novel and decide if I can simply add stuff to make Celia a little less perfect or whether I need to start all over again.

Gaah!

I hope beginning all over again  won’t be necessary. I think there’s some good writing there but it’s missing the development element. But we shall see what needs to be done after a proper review.

Chapter 25 - Speculation

Ned ... perhaps

Finally, the man whom we've heard so much about, Ned Atkinson makes his appearance. Or does he?

The story so far ... Celia has made a powerful enemy in Colonel Kaiec due to the difficult questions she has been asking about her brother Ned. As a result she has been attacked in Venice and has now lost her job in Munich. What will be her next step?

Chapter 25 - Speculation can be seen on the right under 'Good stuff'

Creativity - getting James past a block part 2

Agh!
I realise I'm about 2/3 through this story and I now have to start pulling the threads together. I've littered loads of clues all over the story so far, some of which will be redundant and probably have to be removed in the final version, but although I know how it should end, I still haven't worked out how to get there.
I had a long train journey the other day, so I decided to try the 'Free writing' creativity technique again to see if that would help me come up with some ideas. These were the results, very messy, and not at all final, but at least the method gives me something to work with:

To do

- Need to check timeline.

What do the documents from Ivana contain?

- diary entry for Kaiec with initials JF in Vienna

- shipping documents for medical supplies to Zagreb – charity goods? Food? But the prices are ridiculously high.

- draft of letter of intention / agenda for discussion /

- hotel reservation confirmation

-  notes about the meeting prices, quantities etc…

What does the cd from Bernard contain?

- picture of Jeremy and Kaiec together

- nothing really significant. But Kaiec panics and think there must be something more significant

CD from Bernard

What does the disc from Bernard contain?

- Pic of Jeremy + Timothy with Kaiec

- something that compromises the British govt, but not obvious

Next steps

- Celia contacts Jeremy and Tomi  to tell them that information has arrived. Doesn’t specify what. Asks if he will help her destroy Kaiec. Promises to do so.

- Tomi wants to blackmail Celia. Working now for Colonal.- contacts Tomi, with same message. Tomi appears in Munich. Tries to blackmail Celia. Working for Colonel.

- Franz has to do something brave/ important, but non-violent. Franz takes some holiday, goes off to Croatia and comes back with Ned. This could then bring things to a head??

Confrontation Tomi / Celia

- Franz hurls himself between Celia and Tomi, rolls around on the floor, gun goes off, Tomi dead or Tomi trips over Amadeus and shoots himself. Or can something else happen to Tomi? What?

- Timothy deals with Tomi’s body

Oktoberdest

- Kaiec cames ostensibly to visit Lenz. Taken to Oktoberfest by Lenz. Arranges to meet Celia there.

- Celia runs away across the dodgems being chased by Kaiec, runs between the cars of the teacup and saucer thingy, Kaiec is hit by one and smashed to bits

- Fisk is caught by the police and exposed, career is ruined,

Ned appears

Celia: What the hell have you been doing all this time?

Ned: Now, that’s quite a story.

***

Jeremy: Fucking German!

Franz: Austrian. Fucking Austrian.

New audio file available now!

'Chapter 24 - Fired' can now be downloaded from here.

Chapter change! Chapter 16, Bernard Creasey resurrected!

After the deaths of Boran Vukovic, Ivana Kaiec and the anonymous henchman who burgled Ivana's house in Barlovcar I had the feeling that the body-count in this novel was rising too quickly. I mean, I'm not Swedish, do I really need to kill off everybody?

My thinking was heavily influenced by the English playwright, David Hare. In an interview he gave to The Guardian recently he points out that the security services don't actually need to kill people very often. It's much easier simply to destroy their enemies reputation so nobody wants to have anything to do with them any more. You can read the complete interview with David Hare here:

So, I've brought Bernard Creasey back to life, though his new fate isn't really very much fun. In the original ending of 'Chapter 16 - Finding an ally' Bernard was run over by a white van. This is the new version:

As Celia’s plane took off from Heathrow airport later that evening, Bernard was getting ready to go home. It had been a strange day, Ned’s sister turning up like that. He hoped he’d done the right thing sending her off to Jeremy Fisk. They’d never worked together but Jeremy had a good reputation and he certainly had the contacts that Celia was going to need if her story was true.

He heard the doorbell ring and then the sound of voices outside in reception. Maureen seemed to be arguing with someone. Probably Davina, she was trouble that one, but good at her job, you couldn’t argue about that. He was just getting up to go and see what the trouble was when the door flew open and two policemen walked in.

‘Oi!’ said Bernard, outraged. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

‘Bernard Creasey? My name’s Detective Sergeant King.You’re under arrest. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘Arrest? What for?’

‘Collection, creation and distribution of obscene images involving the sexual abuse of minors,’ the officer paused and grinned at Bernard’s confusion. ‘Kiddie porn, you stupid cunt,’ he added, then leant forward and put his mouth up close to Bernard’s ear. ‘... and I’ll be really, really surprised if we don’t find examples on your computer systems after our experts have checked through them all!’