Private island
Need some ideas, good people.
I’ve just started the first single novel [as distinct from that saga] and am stuck already.
The only way I can do these things is to just start writing and see where it goes. Had no idea what it was going to be but it seems there are four main people so far.
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Robert Seydar, close to 40, gave up a tech biz in dotcom and bought a small island off the UK coast [not specified]. He farms it on the poor soil but also runs a haven for businessmen who don’t like … er … complications. His wife refused to go there with him and when her trust fund money came through, she went back to mummy and daddy. His former part-time secretary went with him and they’ve developed the island together but his loyalty is still to his wife who turns him on still.
Melissa Seydar, in her 30s, former secretary, living mainly on a trust fund daddy has been dipping into, has turned bitchy and high-fashion, without a clue really, loves horses and daddy has stables high in his half acre with two horses.
Col O’Brian, the father. Mechanic, has made a packet but has also lost a packet, knows Seydar is coming to make a last play for his daughter to go with him, sees it as a time to come clean over the trust fund being almost dried up.
Chloe [someone], the former secretary, works the island with Seydar, sees her future with him, even if he doesn’t, follows him by train from the mainland bay which links to the island.
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In the showdown at the family home, MS turns on her heel from RS, goes up to the stables, he broods and then follows her up there, finds her on the floor with her chest kicked in – quite dead. The other three all had plans [unspecified].
That’s where I am. Any wild ideas where it could go? Would like to have a train death in there somewhere or a train meeting.
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Genre probably romantic/erotic thriller. [I can think up the first part but not so much the thriller.] See it as being either one of two novellas or a novella and two novelettes.
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All plot devices adopted to be acknowledged in the book. Realize you don’t wish to give away your own ideas for your novel but if you have any spare ones – dot dot dot?
Filed under: Literature & performing arts
Sorry I can’t help there James, my writing is in science fiction. Also my characters have a tendency to tell me what they are doing.
I’ve just started one in which the main character has collected together some scientists and sf writers and then shows them things that they ‘know’ are impossible. Now I have the sf people wanting to go in one direction and the scientists another. Maybe I should take them in a totally different direction
Quick hint … no-one raises crops of any worth on an island in a temperate climate. The best and most profitable agricultural undertaking would be the raising of sheep or other ovine creature. Salt-tainted pasture gives a distinctive and delicious flavour to the meat. Poor soil, as on Robert’s island would give the right sort of pasture for a rare breed like the Manx Loaghtan (in the Manx language Loaghtan means ‘mouse brown’). Of benefit is the fact that the breed originates from an island off the UK coast!
A very small point but one which would appear more appropriate than someone trying to farm on an island such as the one you have described (unless, of course, you intend for Robert’s agricultural endeavours to fail with financial implications).
You could certainly fit in a train death, but given the small size of the island, it would have to result from a pretty small creature – say a hedgehog – straying onto the 12 inch gauge track of the miniature raulway.
Ah… island owner gets persuaded by a group of conspiring businessmen that the island is soon doomed due to global warming, hence he sells off island at a ridiculously low price, allowing conspiring businessmen to erect dozens of wind turbines and cream off a healthy profit from the subsidies… Then a delegation from Brussels arrives to tell the smug businessmen that they in fact don’t own an island at all, but due the European Commission’s redefinition of the term “island” it is in fact now deemed to be a part of mainland Belgium connected by a “submerged land bridge” (a redefinition of “the bottom of the North Sea). EU Federal Troops therefore move in on the island, defending a coterie of MEPs who work on a new official EU definition of Britain as Outer Wallonia, Eh… then Outer Wallonia becomes a land of special subsidised status for the making of pornographic movies, but since the indigenous population lacks the requisite skills for eroticism a large proportion of them are forcibly displaced by French Tarts and Italian Lotharios (covers the eroticism), with the hapless indigenes accepting that they are “better off” in EU subsidised portacabin camps rather than living in outer London; but, the railway line taking the indigines to their new camps is maintained by Network Rail… Cue series of train crashes… Then the entire nation of Outer Wallonia (formerly Britain) collapses in a few moments in what looks suspiciously like a controlled detonation of multiple pre-laid explosive charges… and the entire world rejoices and lives happily together ever after. It needs a bit of work on the continuity, but I await the arrival of my royalty share.
Invaluable advice and ideas, gentlemen. Royalties will be forthcoming when it sells. Controlled explosions, eh? Chunnel?
… and I think you could do with a nubile young Russian lass to serve as a honeypot trap for an ageing blogger who will whisper all the secrets about what is really going on in this world across the pillow to her… during an evening of fevered bliss (for him, not her) before she pops the polonium into his tea and says she’s just nipping out to Iceland to get him a nice bit of beef.
Jings, I may as well write the damn thing for you
Half an acre won’t support 2 horses (unless they were one of the miniature breeds), more likely a donkey. Maybe it should be the start of a donkey sanctuary, when daddy realises the error of his ways and wants to give back to society in penance…..oh dear that meme has been done to death (on a train somewhere).
Fifty shades of island greenery inside a tropical biodome where you could grow bananas like they do in Iceland. Frozen bananas are very good, preferably skinned first and dipped in chocolate……..a nice bit of BDSM and food porn covers 2 genres, sells more copies
Or his island retreat for businessmen has it’s own complications as it has a hidden fracking operation exploiting the natural resources which attracts the attention of the eco-warrior type (James Bond) arriving on the Sea Shepherd to stop the evil RS who also breeds white long haired cats to feed to his sharks which the RSPCA has ignored for years as they’ve run out of money and can’t afford a boat of their own……
Man appear on island demanding to see Seydar, his firms satellites are reading masive deposits of [insert mineral or fuel type here] under the island and surrounding sea. If his firm can confirm the find it could be worth $Billions, but it’s not going to be cheap to certify the find.
Seydar gives the Ok and a couple of scientist spend a week digging holes with by hand, putting samples in test tubes and doing their CSI impression.
They declare good news and bad, there is even more [mineral/fuel] than they anticipated, however, the island is sinking and will be under the sea in under 40 years. Team get their $10m and hand over a folder with what appears to be a certificate confirming the deposits.
Seydar decides to quietly offload the island to the highest bidder so invites in the corporations and the local nations/EU/UN with the intention of holding an auction. CEO’s and high ranking diplomats roll up but so too do their navies. Ex-wife’s daddy is one of the interested parties so ex-wife turns up out of the blue and is suddenly acting interested.
The former part-time secretary doesn’t like it one bit, the selling up, the ex walking back in and all of the sudden interest and visitations. Ex-Secretary call in real scientist and exposes the truth, there are no deposits, the island is not sinking, they have been scammed. Worse, seems ex-wife might have been pulling the strings.
Conclude with well attended garden party and farce of ducking the many advances and growing suspicions of those who have flown in.
Like many of these and shall weave them in.
Despite the appearance of my anti-feminist and anti-parachutee posts, I’d like to have a female adversary or even support who is pretty close to his level, in a Moriarty or Elektra King way [although she was pathetic at the end the way she behaved].
Thought just crossed the mind that she is invited to a mega-meeting with Harman, Kirchner and all other harridans of note in order to formally present to the UN the need to hand over the running of the world to women. Trouble with our heroine/villain is that that would cut out true heroines/villains like her who are not soaked in the narrative and so she booby traps the meeting. She leaves a note saying she agrees in principle but they’re not proper women.
Hmmmm – maybe each has an implant, not unlike the Manchurian Candidate. We’d need lots of bodies, action and nooky along the way.
Somehow Blair/Cameron were invited as Europe President to give his approval and blessing and he’s burnt to a cinder. This last bit might remain in the apocrypha.
and I think you could do with a nubile young Russian lass
Did that in the trilogy.
I just write and hope for the best. One old trick I use is to copy images off the web, people, places etc and paste them into a document so I can actually see the characters and the key images.
The island could just grow trees, a fast-growing genetically engineered variety to be used as a viable fuel crop. That’s why they have to be grown on an island.
The leaves could be a mild narcotic when smoked.
Good method. I do the same to get the flow going, then stop for want of ideas and try to apply some structure.
This above has helped immensely – I know where I’m going now and just have to get a free run at it.
SF is good but I prefer the constraints of the physical world and what can and cannot be.
By the way, you’ll be acknowledged in the text … as characters.