Among the several finds there was this volume: The Invention of Murder. How could I pass it up?
I have several treasures to show you over the next few days and while I am sure Judith Flanders is an excellent writer, the fiction volumes I acquired hold much more interest.
Nevertheless, I do plan on reading from it on Sunday afternoons so that I can at least discuss the history of some crime fiction with a bit more authority than I am allowed at present. Those are my feet in the picture. I was taking a snap with the book too near the edge of a teak table.
I killed a character off last night: a toymaker. He was modeled quite closely on a very dear friend and I'm not precisely how I feel about the unprovoked killing of such a character. He didn't do anything wrong and deserving.
He was a convenient mechanism to increase the turmoil for my protagonist. Thus, a murder. Bad to hang around one of my protagonists. Bad when he's being pursued by the murder bug. Bad when I need a good shot of additional conflict and higher stakes.
Anyway, I have of course killed of many characters based on firends. Often though, I've put them in harm's way as active participants. I felt a little funny about the out of had killing for a plot device last night. I'm not normally a senseless killer. I don't normally have crime without a slender thread of attribution.
We don't learn why this fellow got it. It isn't germane to the story "why." We the reader can come up with a half dozen possible reasons but that isn't the book and its never answered in my text.
Someday, I'll write a darling short of a poker game between some of my notable victims. it doesn't matter now; but, one day it will be a funny bit.
I'm off to do some brick and mortar story-building tonight. I've a pocket full of notes from lunch.
I'm laying bricks and building story walls. I know you're writing. I wonder if you've killed someone off today.
Does your spouse know? Best to not suggest a new rose garden in any case.
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