As I might have mentioned before, one of the tricky things about writing in the suspense/mystery/thriller genre is ensuring that your characters aren’t too dumb to live. There has to be a reason for them to keep their deadly secrets or roam through dangerous places. In fact, there was one series of books by a mystery writer that I finally had to give up on because I couldn’t believe that the main character would keep endangering herself with no good reason whereas she had a serious and deeply personal reason to do this in the first two novels.
Today, I had a mini-breakthrough for my character. Since she was supposed to know quite a bit about art, at least for a high school student, she needed to consider an alternative. I didn’t have the first idea of how to slip it in until I was living in the moment with her. Bang. There it was at what Jack Sparrow would call “the opportune moment.”
I have found that a lot of logical problems will sort themselves out when you get to them as long as you’re conscious of them and let the backbrain work.
Kristin Wolden Nitz 