A Writer's Tale

There is possibility that her ex-husband may have sent the guy to nail her. But they both believe, pretty much, that she was actually just the random victim of a sociopath.

When they return to Elise’s house, she insists that Neal come in with her. She has spoken of giving him a reward. He has insisted that he doesn’t want a reward.

Ideas for what goes on in the future.

The plan is for her to give Neal a present. A bracelet, maybe. It allows him to “drift” or “hitch” rides with people He tries it out at her place, just after she gives it to him.

Afterward, he starts using it to “hitch” rides with people.

But I need to figure out general structure. Mainly, what about the bad guy from the opening???

To hitch, you have to find a person. Maybe it needs to be someone nearby, at least at the start. Within a couple of miles, or something? Because you have to float around, and can’t go great distances. Maybe the distances can be increased with practice.

Is the guy dead? Yes. But maybe his body disappears. Neal, concerned, drives past the area to see if there are cops. Then he even goes in on foot to see if the body is still there.

It’s not.

The deal is, I COULD go ahead with the story and leave out all the business about the Drifting or Hitching. Which might be a good thing, since its presence would make the book supernatural.

Try to figure out a plot that does without the hitching.

It would focus on Neal, Elise, Marta and the bad guy.

And maybe Elise’s ex-husband.

On the other hand… the drifting bit is what makes it different, more than just a crime story.

Maybe she (Elise) had already quit hitching. Got tired of it, scared, etc. Was controlling her life. So she fought it like an alcoholic. She only has the one bracelet. Gives it to Neal as the reward for saving her life. Warns him not to let it control him. It can be a curse, or a great thing, depending on its use.

The original idea was this. While Neal is hitching with a gal, she meets a bad guy. He is there when she is beaten, raped, murdered, etc. Gets out just in time. And then he wants to find the killer.

Maybe Marta is the victim. (This would free him up for Elise, etc.) But this can’t be a coincidence. Has to tie in, somehow, with the guy he killed.

Someone else might’ve been there, watching it all, unseen by Neal and Elise. He or she sees the shooting.

After making those notes, I returned to writing the novel and wrote steadily for another two weeks before working on another set of notes.

And so it went.

It is my usual method of working.

In a sense, I am an explorer making my way through an uncharted jungle. I have a general goal in mind getting through the jungle to its other side. But I know very little about what lies ahead. I trudge along, doing the best I can. Then, before getting helplessly lost, I climb a tree and scout the area ahead. I pick a distant landmark, climb down, and resume my trek until I reach the landmark. Or until I start to worry about being lost. Then I climb another tree make a new set of notes.

If you look closely at the notes that I reprinted above, you’ll get some very clear indications about how I go about developing my ideas.

As often happens, I had a concept that I liked a lot. But where to go with the concept wasn’t easy to discover. I simply relaxed and played around with some of the possibilities searching for what seemed right. (Searching for the inherent, natural structure?)

Plenty of the ideas mentioned in my notes did not end up in the story. Others arrived, but in strangely mutated forms.

Very few of the ideas appear in Body Rides intact. Why?

There are a lot of reasons. But a major, important reason is that I consider my notes to be a process of scouting the territory ahead. They give me general ideas about which way to go, but then the actual writing of the novel takes over.

As a story is being written, I find that one thing leads naturally, almost inevitably, to another. Almost in spite of my own intentions.

Sure, I could force the issues. After all, I’m the author.

I’m the Master of the Game.

As stated before, however, I’ve found that it’s better to “give the story its head,” not try to force it into directions that might be more convenient for me.

If the novel doesn’t bear much resemblance to the preliminary notes, so much the better. It may be an indication that the story came to life and went racing off for adventures beyond anything I’d planned for it.

Body Rides, like Savage, presented such an enormous challenge that I had strong doubts about my ability to pull it off.

In Savage, the challenge was to breathe life into an “historical” story of such sweeping diminsions. In Body Rides, the challenge was to get inside people’s heads in a way that would make readers believe they are actually there.