{"id":2311,"date":"2021-02-01T11:13:39","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T11:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=2311"},"modified":"2021-02-01T11:13:40","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T11:13:40","slug":"into-the-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=2311","title":{"rendered":"Into the forest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every crime novel is like a forest. You take your reader gently by the hand and lead them through the trees along a twisted path of clues and plenty of red herrings until they are lost only to reveal the way out in the final chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I have a problem. There\u2019s a clich\u00e9 that goes \u2018Can\u2019t see the wood for the trees\u2019 and that\u2019s where I am right now. Stuck in the middle of the forest with no idea of the way out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I am not a plotter. Like all my travel mysteries, with my latest work in progress \u2013 Peril in Persia \u2013 I started with a location. Based on our last holiday, my starting point was Iran. Then I needed a theme. Iran is full of ancient Persian treasures \u2013 precious gems, jewellery and antique craft items and valuable ancient miniatures – but I was never very happy with the idea of smuggling \u2013 Far too hackneyed a theme. Then, thanks to a friend who knew something of the country\u2019s history in the last days of the Shah, I had another idea. Now I had to have a victim. At this point, I would normally start writing and, as my various characters developed, my suspects including the eventual murderer, would sort themselves out in my mind.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a couple of weeks, I reached the end of Chapter 3. I\u2019d established a bit of background and just introduced the main players, but I had no idea where to go next. I couldn\u2019t find a valid reason to kill off my victim (my initial idea was far too weak) and my chief suspect didn\u2019t have sufficient motive. Time for a complete rethink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s not unusual for me to change the murderer in the final chapters. Like Minette Walters who famously makes her half dozen suspects credible killers and never makes the final decision until the penultimate chapter, I enjoy solving the mystery \u2013 just as I hope my readers do \u2013 when one of my characters eventually sticks up a hand and admits \u2013 \u2018You\u2019ve got me Gov, I did it!\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a bit of umming and ahhing, I decided to make a complete about turn \u2013 new victim, new motive, new suspect. An idea came one morning as I was cleaning my teeth, the victim would become the murderer and the murderer the victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Although I had made no decision about how I was going to kill off my victim, I do like to find a method that I haven\u2019t used before. As this is my fourteenth crime novel, this gets increasingly tricky. I quite fancied running him down in a hit-and-run, but how would any of my suspects, who have to be part of the tour group, accomplish that in a foreign country where they have only just arrived?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, I reached Chapter 10. Problems. My intended murderer is just too nice a person and simply refuses to put their hand up. Major rethink needed. I have a couple of vague ideas, but the details just won\u2019t fall into place. Given that the Aunt Jessica and Harry Mysteries are all written in the first person from Harry\u2019s perspective, there can be no scenes that he can\u2019t observe or have reported to him. He can misinterpret what he sees, make false assumptions but ultimately, he and Jessica must unmask the villain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve ended up with no real idea who might want to kill my victim or how it can be related to one of my cast of characters. All I have are questions. Why was my victim lured on this particular tour in the first place? How did the killer arrange for the victim to be in the right place at the right time to be killed in the way that he was? And \u2013 most important of all \u2013 how can Harry and Jessica solve the mystery? Believe me, given the story\u2019s underlying theme, there are no simple answers to these questions and unless I can come up with something credible, the whole thing won\u2019t work. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This calls for a great deal more research into life in the last days of the Shah, the CIA involvement in Iranian politics and with Savak – the Shah\u2019s secret police. None of which is easy to find. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m back where I started \u2013 lost in the middle of a dense forest, the light is beginning to fade and no idea how I can find my way out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every crime novel is like a forest. You take your reader gently by the hand and lead them through the trees along a twisted path of clues and plenty of red herrings until they are lost only to reveal the way out in the final chapters. But I have a problem. There\u2019s a clich\u00e9 that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,22,32,85,11,102],"tags":[82,129],"class_list":["post-2311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-general-interest","category-inspiration","category-research-2","category-travel","category-writing","category-writing-characters","tag-iran","tag-shah-of-persia","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2320,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions\/2320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}