Festival Mystery
I had plans — fairly nebulous but
plans none the less — to follow up the current novel-in-progress
with a mystery set at the Florida Folk Festival. This was to be the
third in the sequence of ‘Shaper’ novels about surf shop owner,
Ted Carrol.
Ted is the protagonist and narrator of
SHAPER and of WAVES, the book on which I am working right now. The
novels in which he figures are ostensibly ‘crime’ stories but
they are really closer to being ‘mainstream’ or even ‘literary
fiction.’ They are NOT tightly written in the style of an effective
mystery story.
Anyway, the idea was to send Ted and
new wife, Michelle, to the Florida Folk Festival the year after the
events in WAVES, which would make it May of 2002, perhaps or perhaps
not with Michelle’s daughter, Charlie, in tow (she has plans for a
police career), probably spending time there with his artist friend
Pat and his wife Betty. Exactly what the ‘mystery’ would entail,
I had not decided but it would probably not involve murder.
I am thinking differently now. I still
want to do the festival mystery but I need a faster paced and
possibly third person approach. I think maybe there should be a
murder (it would be hushed up, of course, which is why none of you
Florida Folkies reading this ever heard of it!). Maybe Pat will the
central character instead (or Betty or even young Charlie, if she
attends). I would like to move it a year earlier to 2001, the year
that there was thick smoke at the festival from forest fires. That
would be a perfect cover for crimes and pursuit. It was also the year
I myself ‘discovered’ the Florida Folk Festival, thanks to my
girlfriend at the time. (There just might be a somewhat thinly
disguised version of her in the book!)
Or I might stick to the original idea.
Lots of other novels in my head and some of them are going to be
written first. I’ll let this concept sit for a while and see what
new thoughts I might have about it. I’m plugging away at WAVES and
may or may not have a finished version ready for release this year.
Then on to something else, probably another fantasy novel. Or that
western or maybe the spy tale? We’ll see.
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