A new beginning. Pastablilities.
Maybe changing the name of the book will make it easier to re-think how I am going to write a murder mystery that is mysterious.
I only had about a third of the book to finish. My red herrings were being cleared and others were deepening so I could conceal my killer’s identity. I knew who was doing what when. I wrote almost all the ending chapter so I’d know for sure where I was headed in the ones leading up to it.
When I got back to the killer and started to reveal his involvement, it hit me. He wouldn’t kill his boss over the motive I had identified. He is a grifter and a poser. He would simply melt away as he had in all his previous lives. Killing his boss was not his M.O.
I sent a chapter to Sandy and Annie, members of Pens Afire, my critique group. “This is the last chapter of Impastable I am sending you. I am abandoning this book and moving on to another one. My killer’s motive isn’t one. Talk me down, Ladies!”
Aren’t critique partners amazing? Sandy and Annie seriously confronted my problem as if it were their own. I felt trapped in a room with no exit, and they found a trap door that can very possibly salvage the book. All I have to do is write it!
I am changing the book title, the killer, and the motivation.
Piece of cake, as we in the culinary mystery book biz say.
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