The story so far...

Venice Biennale, 2009, KR

I said that today I would provide a summary of the plot. Before I do, I have to tell you about one of my favourite books on writing fiction. It’s an amazing, slightly mad attempt to categorize all the different stories in the world into seven genres called “The Seven Basic Plots” (ISBN 0826452094) written by Christopher Booker. His categories are:

1) Overcoming the monster (‘Jaws’, ‘Beowulf’).

2) Rags to riches (‘Pretty Woman’, ‘Cinderella’).

3) The quest (‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’).

4) Voyage and return (‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Robinson Crusoe’).

5) Comedy (‘Some Like it Hot’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’).

6) Tragedy (‘Macbeth’, ‘Anna Karenina’).

7) Rebirth (‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Fidelio’).

Can you think of a novel that doesn’t fit into one of these genres in some form?

Anyway, my own plot is slowly developing. Of the seven possibilities above, I think it’s going to be in number 2 – the quest. So, here – in its primeval form – is the basic idea:

The story’s heroine has a brother, who was apparently killed when working as a journalist in a war zone (not sure where, yet). The heroine continues her life in Munich (yes, that’s fixed, the reasons will be explained in a future post) for several years, but gradually becomes convinced that her brother isn’t dead. Because of her work (something to do with the tourist industry), the heroine travels between Munich, the former war zone and other countries and starts to uncover traces of her brother in various places. She comes to believe that her brother didn’t die at all, but arranged his own disappearance because it was convenient (for reasons unknown at present).

Her belief that he is still alive is treated with disbelief by her family, polite disdain by the authorities but by increasing anxiety by certain suspicious characters from the former war zone. There are several attempts to persuade her not to continue this search - which the heroine ignores. The threats turn into murder attempts when the heroine accidentally uncovers something criminal about certain senior government figure in the former war zone, relating to their past.

She thinks that what she has uncovered (I don’t know what it is, yet) was what caused her brother to disappear. But gradually she realizes that the people threatening her are not necessarily sent by the suspicious characters from the war zone. There are other powerful figures who are threatened by what she has uncovered … and does it even have anything to do with her brother? And could it be that she could herself profit from whatever it is?

Hmmh!

Well, at the moment it’s a bit of a mess and the end result might be totally different. But I need a starting point for my imagination and we’ll have to see what comes along. The complete list of characters will come later, but I think my heroine will be supported by an ex-husband (who works on the railways in some form) her teenage son and a Tarot card reader.

Oh yes. My first major change. Originally I thought it was going to be a scary, dark thriller, possibly tragic. But now I think I want to do more of a scary but light-hearted  thriller, along the lines of ‘Charade’ with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. With lots of confusing twists and a happy end. Have a look at a clip from ‘Charade’ here.