Old Story Ideas Brought Back to Life

When I first started to write I bubbled with ideas so much so it drove one of my contemporaries mad. She was struggling to make her novel happen at the time and I being new to a writing group was showing off, saying things like, "just get the words down and worry about the punctuation and sentence structure later."

It may have been of no use to my colleague, a woman who is perfect at creating a sentence and placing a comma, but to me it made sense because my ideas disappear as quickly as they come. However, I did realise that if I were to improve my writing, I would need to expand my author's toolbox and so over the last few years have taken notice of what an active sentence is, where a comma is needed and where to place a full stop. I still get it wrong, but the editing is now less of a chore than it once was.

Getting back to looking through some of my plans from those early days has unearthed some treasures though and by changing the detective’s names, this is one that should make its way into a Detective Voss novel.

The Desk Clerk’s Diary

Mario Modetti keeps secrets, many secrets. He is a desk clerk in an inner city Melbourne Hotel with an International and famous Australian clientele.

Among the regular guests are Pilots, cabin staff, Government officials and Casino high rollers.

Sunday morning a maid enters the room of a Kazakhstani business man to find him and two high price escorts bound and gagged. A Polaroid photo designed to shame is discovered fixed to the mirror with toothpaste.

Detective Inspector  Rose Nguyen is in charge of the investigation, but at every turn she is stymied by bureaucracy.

Chapter Outlines:

1.    The guests are discovered and no-one is talking

2.    DI Rosie Nguyen (Rosie) is on the case

3.    Across town a wholesale jeweler is found at his still locked safe with two bullet holes one in from the side of his chest the other in the back of his head. (was he alone? Where is his wife? Does his mistress know anything)

4.    Another murder in rural Shepparton, this time a known drug dealer with International connections.

5.    Are they random murders or connected.

6.    Journalist Rob Nugent is sniffing around and has picked up a connection

7.    Rosie, frustrated by Nugent pushes him away

8.    The trip to Shepparton for an exhumation finds another unknown body buried below the coffin of a drug boss just below the bottom of the same grave.

A novel length story will need more than eight chapters to wrap up this investigation but it does give me a start. Therefore, when the writing slows down on my current work in progress, I can duck over to this tale and create a much bigger yarn.

Wish me luck.