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July 13, 2011

Wack-a-mole

I have to quote one of my favorite authors from her FB page today.  Laurie R. King says: “After playing whack-a-mole with plot for the past few weeks--every time I fix one plot problem, another two or three pop up--I think I've flattened the thing into submission. A delusion, no doubt, but momentarily comforting.”

Oh do I know that feeling.  Laurie writes mysteries and they are absolutely the worst for plot thread interactions.  You’ve just got your hero in the right place at the right time and you realize that he was supposed to be in London two hours before and the Concorde doesn’t fly anymore.

The book I’m currently writing (tentatively titled Remarkable Likeness) has a twist that has me going back all the time to see if I’ve telegraphed too much or too little.  I have so many notes in my RL notebook I can’t find anything anymore and last week I found a character who had three different names and they weren’t supposed to sport any aliases.  Whack a Mole.

If you have a chance read one of Laurie’s books as part of your summer reading.  I recommend her Mary Russell series if you want great mysteries in a series (hint: Sherlock Holmes finds a late-life partner in crime) the first of the series being The Beekeepers Apprentice.  For more serious, but still woman-friendly reading, I would recommend Folly, a psychological thriller. 

Of course in a month you will be able to read my latest, In Season, on the lighter reading side.

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