Chapter 5 shipwreck - bye bye Madeleine, hello Celia!

Chapter 5 has been causing a lot of problems over the last few days. And it's still unwritten, although the content is quite clear, it's the chapter where we get to meet the villain of the piece, Colonel Ivan Kaiec for the first time.
This shouldn't be a problem, I've already written about him in one of my short stories ('Good Stuff - Colonel Ivan Kaiec') so I know what he's like.

But the difficulty has been that logically this chapter should have been told in the first person and I suddenly realised that I was increasingly uncomfortable about mixing first person narrative (chapter 1 and 2) with 3rd person narrative (the rest).

So,  finally I decided to go for everything being 3rd person narrative. This means that I decided to rework the first two chapters so that they are consistent with the other chapters. You may like to look at them again to see what you think.

Oh yes! And I hope nobody is going to be upset about this, but after various discussions with creative associates I've changed Madeleine's name to Celia. Slightly regretfully, I must admit, but it avoids slightly annoying abbreviations like  'Maddie' and - overall - I think the new name will lead to a successful conclusion of this project. 

Anyway, all these changes have necessitated a lot of housework on the blog to make sure anybody reading the chapters didn't become hopelessly confused. But tomorrow I believe I can finally start on Chapter 5 with a greater chance of success. Keep your fingers crossed.

Chapter 3 – The Department for British Export Development

Agh! My chapter numbers are going wrong. After I finished chapter 2 I realised I needed to add some information about Timothy Arnold, who is going to have a significant role later in the book. So I have also had to change some of the chapter numbers under 'Good Stuff'.
I hope you like Timothy, I'm quite fond of him, even though he's hardly a role model for anybody. But I've always had sympathy for people who get themselves into a difficult situation through their inherent flaws.
The story so far: 
After the funeral of her brother Ned, a journalist killed in the civil war in Bosnia Herzegovina, Madeleine Atkinson goes to a reception organised by her brother Paul. Here she talks to a number of people who worked with Ned: Bernard a seedy TV journalist, Jeremy Fisk, a colleague of Ned's who was the last person to see him alive and Timothy Arnold, a solicitor attached to the British Embassy in Zagreb with excellent local contacts who arranged for Ned's body to be transported back to London. But is there something more to Timothy than meets the eye?

Please send feedback and comments when you can. I enjoy reading them.

Chapter 3 – The Department for British Export Development is now under 'Good Stuff'.

Chapter 2 - After the funeral

For those of you new to the blog, the story so far:

Madeleine Atkinson lives and studies in Munich. She comes over to England for the funeral of her brother Ned, a journalist killed in Bosnia Herzegovina. The atmosphere between her and her elder brothers Paul and Colin is very frosty. After the funeral she is about to go back up to London when Jeremy Fisk, the last person to see Ned alive, introduces himself to her…

What is interesting about this chapter is that one minor character, Bernard, originally started off as all bad. Then he complained* about this and pointed out that I was being very unfair to journalists, they can’t all be that awful.

I’m not entirely sure about that, but I had to finally give in to Bernard. He will be allowed to be a good guy. So, say hello to him in this chapter. When he reappears he’s going to have a horrible death. It’s always the fate of the minor good guys in a story I’m afraid. Plus he’s a journalist.

Anyway, here is Chapter 2, I hope you enjoy it. And please send your comments as always. They make a big difference.

*In my head.

Chapter 2 is now under 'Good Stuff'.

Full Moon on video!

 Http://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/full-moon/

Click on the link above and you can see a short story I wrote a few years ago  for Business Spotlight , brought to life by the combined story-telling skills of Vicki Hollett and Jay Silber. 
I think they've done a great job and something I particularly like is the way that you can point at any part of the text and listen to it on the video. If you want to work on your English listening skills or your pronunciation, then this site is very helpful - and a lot of fun!
Full Moon itself was inspired by The Twilight series - which goes to show that EL James (author of Fifty shades of Gray) was not the only person to be inspired by Stephanie Meyers's tales of wolves and vampires. But - in all modesty - my version is a lot funnier...

Chapter 6 - The trouble with Franz

This chapter introduces Franz properly and explains to the reader why there is a problem in his relationship with Madeleine. The issue - the oversexualisation of our society - is I think an important and very depressing one. 

I largely blame Madonna for this (there's an incredibly sweeping statement for you). She took over the suspenders and fish-net stockings from the punk movement, removed all the anarchy from it and marketed the resulting sex kitten image as feminist empowerment. Well, it worked financially for her and a number of pop clones, but for the bulk of people in the western world I think it was a disaster.

Don't be alarmed, this book will be an entertaining thriller not a polemic about a topic I don't really know enough about (despite sweeping statements). This chapter is just a little side swipe at the issue.

This chapter also introduces Tante Ilse, a very important character. She might turn out to be very useful later on. 
Please send feedback, as always. The last chapter benefited from lots of small changes.

Chapter 6 can now be found on the right under 'Good Stuff'.

Bah! I'm not well...

I've just sneezed on this screen, so I hope you don't catch anything. A debilitating cold has left me only half-functioning. Despite that, you'll all be pleased to know that my daughter and I managed to sort out her room. The horror!
However the next chapter is only half finished and I am now going to bed to feel sorry for myself. I will try to finish the rest of it very soon. While researching for some of the content I ran across a fascinating American philosopher called Edward Abbey who died in the 1980s. He was kind of a modern day Henry Thoreau I suppose, and there were some great quotes I found of his. The best I'm saving for the chapter, so you'll have to be patient. But this is one I like a lot too:  

"Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top."

Isn't that great?

A big challenge

One of this weekends tasks...

 I have a very difficult task ahead of me on Saturday and Sunday. Well, two actually, if you include helping my smallest daughter tidy her room, but the one which is probably more interesting to you as a blog reader is how to portray Franz, Madeleine's husband.
Madeleine is coming along nicely. I'm very proud of her behaviour in Chapter 20 - Death on the Rialto. She dealt admirably with the horrible rapist/murderer Boran and I find myself liking her more and more.
However, I need to make sure that her husband, Franz, doesn't disappear completely. From what you've read in chapters 1, 3 and 20 you could be forgiven for thinking that Franz is a real wuss. He isn't - I promise - otherwise Madeleine would never have married him. But I haven't given him a chance to explain a) why he gave up his job at the university to go and work for the Deutsche Bahn and b) why he won't sleep with Madeleine at the moment.
Without wanting to get too philosophical (and I'm sure somebody else has already said this) a novelist creates a fictional world for the reader where things are out of order, and then he or she tries to restore harmony to it. Madeleine's world has gone wrong at various levels, including her relationship with her husband, and the novel tracks what happens as the characters resolve these problems. But to do that plausibly, you need all the key characters to be convincing and that's what I need to at the weekend with Franz. I hope I'll have something to show by late on Sunday evening.