Flat pack clues

I’ve spent the day wrestling with the clues and their potential meanings in the novel. Well, actually it was only half of the day, the other half having been spent wrestling with the construction of an Ikea four poster bed. Inevitably this involved building a large section, realising that a key component in the middle of it was upside-down, then taking it all apart and starting again. I now have wood glue on my fingers, which I love peeling off, and in my hair, which is somewhat less enjoyable. But some of the glue ended up in the joints of the bed where it was supposed to be, and the bed is finished. It looks like a bed, and it seems to be the correct way up. This success was achieved with only the occasional glance at the instructions. I prefer to regard it more as a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, with one piece giving me a clue as to what the next piece might be.

That’s similar to the way I put clues into my novel. I don’t have an instruction manual to follow (not that I’d bother with it even if I did), so I like to take one idea and see where I can run with it. An inscription on a stele is my starting point, but that will lead to other clues in other locations and by solving those mini-mysteries the characters will progress through the key parts of the plot.

I can’t go into detail about the clues investigated by the characters in the novel, other than to say that I’m working with ideas that are complex, inter-related, subtle, elegant, and mind-blowing. They also have to fit together in a watertight way, be logical, believable and enjoyable. I didn’t make it to the cathedral today to investigate the link in the chain represented by the hand holding stone effigies and the Philip Larkin poem, but it’s Saturday tomorrow and I’ll try to get down there in the morning. Sherlock Holmes would always pick up on clues and their significance very easily, saying the logical process of deduction was ‘elementary’. Creating sophisticated clues from nothing isn’t elementary at all: it’s very intricate and challenging, but I’m confident I can make it work.

Sometimes a trail of clues will progress steadily before suddenly, without warning, reaching a dead end. No matter which way I look at it I can’t find a way to make it work and I’ll have to unravel it and start again. It’s frustrating to create something that looks like it’s going to be brilliant only to have to undo it all and work backwards. But as a regular buyer of Ikea flat pack furniture I’m pretty much used to working that way.