In one of my first posts to this blog, I described how my story ideas begin as random images that acquire a life of their own.
For over a year, one such image has been begging me to give it form. The image is of a young woman sitting in the windowless basement of a police station, working her way through boxes of carefully catalogued documents relating to unsolved crimes — witness statements, police reports, autopsy findings, and so on. Hardly an original concept, and one that no doubt came from watching too many cold-case documentaries.
The young woman is taking notes as she thumbs through the never-ending pile of documents when she comes across something decidedly odd. A small sheet of paper without an identifying code, handwritten and unsigned — a hastily scribbled list naming not only the victim and perpetrator of a particularly heinous murder, but details of the crime scene, the weapon used, and the location of both weapon and body.
Upon investigation, all these details prove to be correct, leaving the protagonist and the police with the mystery of who wrote the list and how it found its way into a folder of archived documents.
I could think of several paranormal explanations for the presence of the note, but I’m reluctant to embark on yet another psychic mystery.
Yet something about this particular scenario continues to intrigue me, and I’ve begun to develop it one step at a time, stopping and retreating whenever the narrative threatens to get out of hand.
The female protagonist now has a name — Vicky Maynard — and has acquired a profession, that of a journalist working for an online news site.
With any luck, I may be able to upload a preliminary draft of Vicky’s story to Leanpub within the next few months.