Murder Mystery/Thriller buffs, I need your help for Nano!
November 24, 2013 5:42 AM Subscribe
I debated whether to post this as I am not sure it is an acceptable use for AskMe, but I am stuck and need help! I have pantsed 39K of what I would describe as a plotless mess of an anti-novel, but I am determined to fiinsh. So even though this feels a bit like cheating, I am asking for advice related to plot issues in my Nano. [Warning - contains spoliers lol!]
"Ok, so this will probably go on for a while, so settle back, pull up your cushions..."*
Original premise here.
Original Reason for killing here (although the prostitute is not the killer now!)
Dodgy event at Boat company here.
I need some more help! Can't believe I have pantsed 39k of well, plot-less anti-novel!
So, there is a boat manufacturing company, owned and founded by Tom, now ran by his son Henry with his daughter Juliet a gifted boat designer there. Everything was going ok until the financial crash and the ensuing recession, which has dragged on. Being short of money they look for investment and find (through a friend or lawyer or somehow, I don't know) someone to invest. Unfortunately it turns out to be this guy Johnson who is a bad guy criminal who has made his money from drugs and prostitution and laundered it into a property and nightclub empire, and is looking to "diversify his portfolio" as they say. (I am not sure whether the boat company people know it is Johnson before or after they start receiving money from him.)
Then, after a while, Johnson starts asking for favours, small things at first - can you pick a guy up, can I borrow a couple of your security guys for a party, that sort of thing. The is it help collecting things in company vans, and finally he gets them to let him dump a dead body into the river from one of the boat companies jetties. (Thanks T.O.G!) This is caught on cctv when the system was supposed to be down for a software upgrade but was somehow captured on tape.
Anita and Sarah work at Amalam Security - Alarms, CCTV etc. They are 24 and 25 respectively. Anita works in Technical Services and is an engineer and a bit of a geek, but a cool one; Sarah works reception. They are pretty much best friends, both being new in the city and starting at Amalam on the same day and having induction together. Mark Cavendish, a salesman who got the boat company contract gets a date with Anita. When they hear of this, Steve Harper (head of tech services) and Phil Space (sales manager) tell Sarah that Mark has a criminal conviction for a sex crime, so Sarah will tell Anita and stop her going on the date. Steve tells her this because when Anita was reviewing the tapes after the system crashed, she saw the dead body (or what looked like one) being dumped in the river. She then told Steve about this so he doesn't want her telling Mark when they are drunk. Phil tells her because the sales guys have a book going on who can sleep with Anita first (classy huh?) ( - Thanks, Celedë_Anthaas)
So then it transpires that Amalam are trying to move into providing security guards and are trialling this at 3 locations, the council, the boat yard and somewhere else. I am not sure who is in charge of this or how it all relates to the events so far.
Anita goes on the date and is killed, then Mark is killed. After she had watched the CCTV, Anita made a copy to DVD and took it with her and sent it to a friend from outside of work, Val, who is on holiday when all this happens, and gets back to find the DVD and hears of Marks death in a news report which also mentions Anita's death. There is a letter telling her to show to Sarah and the police, so she takes the DVD and shows Sarah. The next day, Val takes a copy of the DVD to the police and Sarah goes to work and confronts Stsve Harper. Unfortunately there is a dodgy copper (Sargent Ferguson) and he takes Val's statement and details, and the copy of the DVD.
So I now have several problems:
1) Why doesn't Harper get killed? Why doesn't he go to the police?
2) Why doesn't Anita just send the DVD to the police? Why does she involve Sarah?
3) I had the idea that Mark was seeing a prostitute and she would be a suspect as (Thanks to multiple replies in the prostitute thread!) she (1) saw mark as her way off the streets, (2) knew about the CCTV, and (3) worked for Johnson. Also, somehow, Johnson finds out she is seeing Mark and she lures him to his death in some woods just outside the city. How could Johnson find this out though?
4) Who could the dead body be that is put into the river? (I am so stuck on this one!)
5) This is murder, and I keep thinking is this feasible? I know it is meant to be fiction, and there isn't a massive amount of murder in the UK, so would a business person like Henry, and a guy at a middle management position at a security company conspire with a big time criminal and commit murder or facilitiate the committing of 2 murders by passing them information? Or is it desperate times call for desperate measures?
6) How feasible is the dodgy cop? He is passing information to Johnson for money.
7) If this is detective novel, how on earth does he solve it and crack the case?
8) If this is a thriller, and Sarah is MC, how on earth does she solve it and crack the case? She is just an average normal 25 year old receptionist, taking on her bosses at Amalam, the boat company and a big time criminal with loads of money, who is able to call on people to murder people for him.
Sorry for length. WIll try harder lol.
* Bonus Points if you recognise the quote!
"Ok, so this will probably go on for a while, so settle back, pull up your cushions..."*
Original premise here.
Original Reason for killing here (although the prostitute is not the killer now!)
Dodgy event at Boat company here.
I need some more help! Can't believe I have pantsed 39k of well, plot-less anti-novel!
So, there is a boat manufacturing company, owned and founded by Tom, now ran by his son Henry with his daughter Juliet a gifted boat designer there. Everything was going ok until the financial crash and the ensuing recession, which has dragged on. Being short of money they look for investment and find (through a friend or lawyer or somehow, I don't know) someone to invest. Unfortunately it turns out to be this guy Johnson who is a bad guy criminal who has made his money from drugs and prostitution and laundered it into a property and nightclub empire, and is looking to "diversify his portfolio" as they say. (I am not sure whether the boat company people know it is Johnson before or after they start receiving money from him.)
Then, after a while, Johnson starts asking for favours, small things at first - can you pick a guy up, can I borrow a couple of your security guys for a party, that sort of thing. The is it help collecting things in company vans, and finally he gets them to let him dump a dead body into the river from one of the boat companies jetties. (Thanks T.O.G!) This is caught on cctv when the system was supposed to be down for a software upgrade but was somehow captured on tape.
Anita and Sarah work at Amalam Security - Alarms, CCTV etc. They are 24 and 25 respectively. Anita works in Technical Services and is an engineer and a bit of a geek, but a cool one; Sarah works reception. They are pretty much best friends, both being new in the city and starting at Amalam on the same day and having induction together. Mark Cavendish, a salesman who got the boat company contract gets a date with Anita. When they hear of this, Steve Harper (head of tech services) and Phil Space (sales manager) tell Sarah that Mark has a criminal conviction for a sex crime, so Sarah will tell Anita and stop her going on the date. Steve tells her this because when Anita was reviewing the tapes after the system crashed, she saw the dead body (or what looked like one) being dumped in the river. She then told Steve about this so he doesn't want her telling Mark when they are drunk. Phil tells her because the sales guys have a book going on who can sleep with Anita first (classy huh?) ( - Thanks, Celedë_Anthaas)
So then it transpires that Amalam are trying to move into providing security guards and are trialling this at 3 locations, the council, the boat yard and somewhere else. I am not sure who is in charge of this or how it all relates to the events so far.
Anita goes on the date and is killed, then Mark is killed. After she had watched the CCTV, Anita made a copy to DVD and took it with her and sent it to a friend from outside of work, Val, who is on holiday when all this happens, and gets back to find the DVD and hears of Marks death in a news report which also mentions Anita's death. There is a letter telling her to show to Sarah and the police, so she takes the DVD and shows Sarah. The next day, Val takes a copy of the DVD to the police and Sarah goes to work and confronts Stsve Harper. Unfortunately there is a dodgy copper (Sargent Ferguson) and he takes Val's statement and details, and the copy of the DVD.
So I now have several problems:
1) Why doesn't Harper get killed? Why doesn't he go to the police?
2) Why doesn't Anita just send the DVD to the police? Why does she involve Sarah?
3) I had the idea that Mark was seeing a prostitute and she would be a suspect as (Thanks to multiple replies in the prostitute thread!) she (1) saw mark as her way off the streets, (2) knew about the CCTV, and (3) worked for Johnson. Also, somehow, Johnson finds out she is seeing Mark and she lures him to his death in some woods just outside the city. How could Johnson find this out though?
4) Who could the dead body be that is put into the river? (I am so stuck on this one!)
5) This is murder, and I keep thinking is this feasible? I know it is meant to be fiction, and there isn't a massive amount of murder in the UK, so would a business person like Henry, and a guy at a middle management position at a security company conspire with a big time criminal and commit murder or facilitiate the committing of 2 murders by passing them information? Or is it desperate times call for desperate measures?
6) How feasible is the dodgy cop? He is passing information to Johnson for money.
7) If this is detective novel, how on earth does he solve it and crack the case?
8) If this is a thriller, and Sarah is MC, how on earth does she solve it and crack the case? She is just an average normal 25 year old receptionist, taking on her bosses at Amalam, the boat company and a big time criminal with loads of money, who is able to call on people to murder people for him.
Sorry for length. WIll try harder lol.
* Bonus Points if you recognise the quote!
I think the cop needs a different motivation to be dodgy besides the boat company shenanigans... a motivation that relates to who he thinks is in the bag. This could help solve the problem of the reader feeling conflicted about liking Henry and Juliet who, after all, have been engaging in criminal endeavors. What if Johnson finds out something about the cop (maybe that the cop killed somebody else?) and stages the fake body dumping (and maybe even the video taping) to have leverage against the cop related to Johnson's other bad deeds? That would explain a lot.
Maybe everyone assumes that the same person killed Mark and Anita, but really the cop killed one of them. That's why the method was different and the homicide detectives are confused by the different "signatures."
Sarah can solve the case by analyzing the time card data or the boat yard purchasing records (the fake body should be buried in a sail bag missing from inventory, maybe) which would be consistent with her abilities and responsibilities.
Big time criminal's motivation in investing in the boat yard could be its waterfront location or the boats themselves... maybe he needs the site, fast boats or fancy yachts for his drug or sex slave smuggling operation.
Harper isn't killed because it was always Anita's responsibility to review the security tapes, not just in that one circumstance.
Phil Space's name is hilarious.
posted by carmicha at 6:24 AM on November 24, 2013
Maybe everyone assumes that the same person killed Mark and Anita, but really the cop killed one of them. That's why the method was different and the homicide detectives are confused by the different "signatures."
Sarah can solve the case by analyzing the time card data or the boat yard purchasing records (the fake body should be buried in a sail bag missing from inventory, maybe) which would be consistent with her abilities and responsibilities.
Big time criminal's motivation in investing in the boat yard could be its waterfront location or the boats themselves... maybe he needs the site, fast boats or fancy yachts for his drug or sex slave smuggling operation.
Harper isn't killed because it was always Anita's responsibility to review the security tapes, not just in that one circumstance.
Phil Space's name is hilarious.
posted by carmicha at 6:24 AM on November 24, 2013
I also think Val's existence is superfluous... and now you have three people who are weirdly not going to police when that's the obvious thing to do: Anita sends DVD copy to Val instead; Val goes to Sarah instead, and; Sarah confronts Steve instead. It might make more sense if Anita had gone directly to Sgt. Ferguson (maybe he's the cop everyone knows in the neighborhood). That sets up Sgt. to kill Anita.
If you need Sarah to have another friend, perhaps as a sounding board so she can tell the reader her investigatory suspicions, then Val is fine-- maybe they meet at Anita's funeral and are predisposed to like each other because their friend always said they'd get along-- but not as currently plotted.
posted by carmicha at 6:34 AM on November 24, 2013
If you need Sarah to have another friend, perhaps as a sounding board so she can tell the reader her investigatory suspicions, then Val is fine-- maybe they meet at Anita's funeral and are predisposed to like each other because their friend always said they'd get along-- but not as currently plotted.
posted by carmicha at 6:34 AM on November 24, 2013
When I read mysteries, I don't critique the plot carefully unless it's really bad, too twisty, or insults my intelligence. I mostly care about the people. When you go back to edit, make sure your characters are interesting, and that your main character is someone worth caring about.
Harper doesn't get killed unless they know he saw the tape.
The murders should be made to look accidental, i.e., drowning, or maybe being blown up by the gas fire(after being throttled).
The body in the river should be a woman who refuses Bad Guy's affection, and he kills her in a rage, then runs over her to make it look like hit-n-run, then realizes that won't work because of the obvious beating bruises, so dumps her in the river.
I hear how stressed you are - take it easy. Take the time in the novel to fully write the scenes, not just get the plot points accomplished. It may be that this is really your outline, and you will go back and do a serious re-write, which many, many writers do. If you tell it well, we'll believe an awful lot.
Sarah solves it because beneath her shiny brown hair (or goth makeup, or whatever), she's smart, and has needed something to motivate her.
posted by theora55 at 9:58 AM on November 24, 2013
Harper doesn't get killed unless they know he saw the tape.
The murders should be made to look accidental, i.e., drowning, or maybe being blown up by the gas fire(after being throttled).
The body in the river should be a woman who refuses Bad Guy's affection, and he kills her in a rage, then runs over her to make it look like hit-n-run, then realizes that won't work because of the obvious beating bruises, so dumps her in the river.
I hear how stressed you are - take it easy. Take the time in the novel to fully write the scenes, not just get the plot points accomplished. It may be that this is really your outline, and you will go back and do a serious re-write, which many, many writers do. If you tell it well, we'll believe an awful lot.
Sarah solves it because beneath her shiny brown hair (or goth makeup, or whatever), she's smart, and has needed something to motivate her.
posted by theora55 at 9:58 AM on November 24, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks for the answers, MT&S Mefites, lots of food for thought, not much time to think it in. I am now 7.5k from the finish and it is bloody agony!! The last 10% is always the hardest, even more when you're pantsing.
"Phil Space's name is hilarious." - Heh, I stole it from Private Eye.
"This is a cool story; keep it up!" - It would be if I was an actual writer, but I am just an amateur hacking something out for Nano. In the right hands it might be!
posted by marienbad at 8:42 AM on November 26, 2013
"Phil Space's name is hilarious." - Heh, I stole it from Private Eye.
"This is a cool story; keep it up!" - It would be if I was an actual writer, but I am just an amateur hacking something out for Nano. In the right hands it might be!
posted by marienbad at 8:42 AM on November 26, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
With thrillers you don't have to solve it and you don't have to explain things; you just have to sell it by staying in the main character's point of view and having the plot twists come at the right times. Your story reminds me of books by authors likeElizabeth Haynes where you have ordinary people getting involved with all the kinds of circumstances you describe, because of work or picking someone up in a bar or becoming a stripper to earn money on top of their corporate salary. The good thing with this type of plot is that if something is implausible you don't have to gloss it over, you can even emphasize it. "Whoa, our boss is involved with that guy. Don't you think he's shady? Why would he do that? I know, weird." Eventually one of the characters will spill some background information but the thing is, you have COMPLETE CONTROL over how much and when.
The dead body in the river? Have you made a storyboard? If you see the whole thing mapped out on a whiteboard some possible candidates should pop up. This is a cool story; keep it up!
posted by BibiRose at 6:20 AM on November 24, 2013