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.
