New beginnings

So tonight I started ... something. Urk. I know I've bragged about my contempt for planning, but please understand - everytime I start a new stroy, it is with the best intentions of abandoning my feckless ways and planning before I start. Then I think "If I do that, I'll never start! I'll be deciding on the colours of cars driving by in the introductory sceen, and have written 10,000 words of outline, but not the story." So aware that time gallops by regardless of how much or how little planning I do, I lurched into another story without knowing anything about it.

Okay, not true. I know the following. My protagonist is female (tired of writing from Jack's surly, male point-of-view) and she's climbing a steep hill, somewhere in New Zealand. There's someone with her, a man. There are a couple of other ideas that I'm keeping back, for obvious reasons, this being a murder mystery and all. Oh, and she (my main character) is psychic. Or she thinks she is. I'm not sure if she is or not. But, at this time, I haven't decided on her name yet. I've managed to write 1,000 words without that being important, but I'm not sure how much longer this can be maintained. Curiously, I managed to name her male companion without any difficulty.

Knowing so little, I've concentrated on description. Again, this may be a reaction to my previous story, which had little description in it - except for the frequent fistfights. In this case, I have a significant advantage over my previous effort. While it has been over ten years since I was last in anything approximating a fist fight, I have often been hot, uncomfortable and sore, so I can get good mileage out of that.

Still, sooner or latter, some decisions will have to be made. Can't have people calling my character "You there!" or "Ma'am" all the time.

WORD COUNT: 1,013
TOTAL NUMBER OF WORDS THAT ARE WORD COUNT BOOSTING WAFFLE: 30 ("I’d gone out to watch a film, and then gone home to eat dinner and watch TV. I called Aroha and made a date to see her at the weekend.")
KNOWN INCONSITENCIES: 0
NAMES CONSIDERED AND REJECTED: 3 (Portia, Tanya, Sarah)

Finishing ... day what?

Word count is somewhere about 85K. That's 50K from November, 30K from December, and I've just started writing again. The end is in sight! Only three major scenes to go.

Frighteningly, at this point I am still introducing characters. Worse, I have still to introduce my Baron Greenback / Blofeld type baddie, the one who is BEHIND IT ALL. Yup, he isn't getting introduced until the scene where he is revealed as the fiend in human form who has caused all this suffering.

Obviously, in mystery cirlces, this is frowned on. One shouldn't spring a new character on the reader ast the last moment. t is even worse than revealing an EVIL TWIN or a SCOOBY-DOO ending where masks get pulled off. I hang my head in shame. All I can do is promise that, if I re-draft, I'll go back and add in an introductory scene earlier in the story.

Here are some of the other inconsistencies / issues I'm aware of that need to be cleared up:

• Jack spends a large amount of time drinking whisky in public, while traveling by train across the USA. I did this as I have no idea what travelling by train in the 1920s was like, or what impression travelling across the continent would create. So I bottled out of it and made him get sloshed. Afterwards I recalled that Prohibition was in force.
• The fat, unlikeable sherrif informs Jack that his missing friend was murdered, rather than dying by accident. Jack reacts with shock and rage. In a subsequent scene, Jack seems to have forgotten this and reacts with shock and rage all over again.
• The alluring belle that accompanied Jack on the last leg of his cross-continental train journey simply drops out of the narrative after flirting with him and inviting him to a party.
• The party never takes place, even though it is refered to later on.
• Sitting in a house he has never been in before, Jack recalls a previous visit.
• I have a character who is in two places at once.
• A suspect in the killing of Effie Randel ihas an alibi, as he is seen at a card game on the night of the killing. THis meant he wouldn't have been able to be at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately for me, the killer was also at the same card game.
• I have no idea who killed one of the victims. In fact, the poor fellow's murder has never been investigated. He's been completely forgotten.
• Crucial witness Wilt Fleming has been completely neglected for about 40K. He's sitting in jail for his own safety. Even though one of the kilelr's is a lawman, no-one has bothered to speak to him or try to harm him.
• Who were the third and fourth persons present at the killing of Rusty Mains?

All of this can be tidied up. But if there are that many holes I know about, how many more are as yet undiscovered?