PLOT LINES

I have been asked how I develop my plot lines. My plots hopefully run through with some kind of logic. But, it's a bit like a Morecambe and Wise song, all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.

Because my characters are cosmic adventurers, assassins and warriors, bouncing backwards and forwards in space time, so do the series of events. I like to break up the action and come back to it. So, there are multiple plot lines running, but also multiple times, not just now, the past, the future, but also different times in the life experience of each character. The way I look at it, a person’s life is a thread of moments. If I catch the train to London and spend the day at the British Museum and Ronnie Scott's that's the thread. Tomorrow I fly to Paris, drink coffee and play chess on the banks of the Seine, browse the shelves of the American Bookshop, and base jump inside Notre Dame. The thread continues. Next day I go back in time, still in Paris, and have dinner with Robespierre. Sunday, I travel by horse to Giverny, and look at the water lilies 130 years before Monet paints them. Four days of my thread. Each character is living their own thread, which crisscross, and intermingle throughout the plot lines.

I'm only kidding about base jumping, I have never parachuted. An old friend once base jumped inside a cathedral. We pick up inspiration from all places.

My stories are about adventures. People get shot, blown up, stabbed, but they also look at sunsets and enjoy dining together. At the moment in the world, there are all kinds of events happening, and sometimes their ghost will haunt an idea.

Who knows how the creative process works?

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