Guest Blogger: Danger Lurking in the Fog by Greg Messel
We have a great guest today! Greg Messel, author of FOG CITY STRANGLER, is here to talk about one of the great joys of reading and one of the premier goals of a writer of mystery.
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DANGER LURKING IN THE FOG
By Greg Messel
In my new mystery
“Fog City Strangler” most residents of San Francisco—particularly young blonde
women—are very jumpy and hear lots of things that go bump in the night.
The man who calls
himself the Fog City Strangler, seems to be a phantom. He suddenly attacks
women in the privacy of their homes, murders them and disappears leaving behind
no clues. No one can figure out how he’s getting into the women’s apartments.
This excerpt from
Chapter 2 focuses on a young blonde woman and the fear that she is living
with.
The petite Nancy Roskelly, age 22, a San Francisco secretary, just over five feet tall, had twinkling green eyes and shoulder length blonde hair, which was often pinned up on her head to give her a more formal appearance in the gray flannel suit, button-down world of San Francisco’s financial district.
Nancy had lived alone for almost two months. Her previous roommate, Sarah Bradshaw, had moved out after her marriage in September. Nancy was hoping to find the right young woman for a roommate very soon. She not only wanted the companionship but she also missed having someone else to pay half of her rent.
“I hate to admit it,” Nancy said in a low conspiratorial tone as she entered her apartment with her boyfriend, Tony Lee, “but I’ve been pretty jumpy lately. Every creak of the floorboards in this house gives me the chills. When I’m in my bed and I hear sounds, I’m just sure someone’s breaking in. Sometimes I’m certain that I hear footsteps.” She rubbed her arms to calm down the prickly sensation she felt from even talking about it.”Many people enjoy reading as they go to bed at night. I had a friend who said she loves to be reading a book that makes her anxious to go to bed each night.I’ve also had that experience while commuting to work on a bus. I loved riding the bus because I got to trade reading for driving in heavy traffic--a good swap on any day. However, there were times when I was at a suspenseful point in the book I was reading and I could see that my stop was just a few blocks away.“Nooooooo! I can’t stop now,” I would think.
That is one of
the great joys of reading and it’s one of the premier goals of a writer,
especially when your novel is a mystery.
As an author I
try to put “hooks” in at the end of my chapters, so the reader is anxious to
read the next chapter.
Examples of hooks
in “Fog City Strangler” are one chapter ending with a man suddenly appearing
and holding a knife to Amelia’s throat. Another chapter ends when after Sam and
Amelia have gone to bed at the beach house, a mysterious car slowly drives into
the driveway with it’s lights off. The driver puts on gloves, grabs a gun
out of the glove compartment and then sneaks towards the house.
In my series of
mystery novels with recurring characters and generating suspense is one of the
greatest challenges. I’ve always thought that the unknown is more threatening
that the known. It is true in building suspense in your story as well.
When you are
alone in your bed late at night and hear strange noises it immediately builds
“suspense” in your life. Upon investigation you could discover that
something harmless is causing the noise. However, as you lie in bed your
imagination runs wild about what it could be. Generally, you imagine the most
terrifying of possibilities to be the source of the strange noise.
As you get out of
your bed to try to find the noise in the darkness, there is true suspense and
terror. We should keep this in mind as we build suspense in our writing.
It’s not
necessarily the shark attack but the anxiety that comes when a shark fin
suddenly appears in the water and has not yet been sighted by the
protagonist.
There are a few
things that can be done to amp up the suspense. One is don’t take it too easy
on your main characters--put them in peril. I went to a writer’s conference in
the Seattle area last fall and one best selling author, when discussing
development of plot, said you should pull up a big truck of poop (he didn’t say
poop) and dump it on your protagonist to start the story and let them work
their way out of it.
The stakes need
to be continually raised so that there is some urgency. Nothing builds suspense
like a race against the clock. It helps to have an powerful, ruthless villain
that you are convinced will stop at nothing. This adds to the sense of
foreboding.
As an example, in
the second installment in my mystery series--Deadly Plunge--the two main
characters are investigating the goings-on in a creepy old house. The house has
signs of a lot of strange activities but at the time it is unoccupied. It is a
multi level old house and I established that it has very creaky stairs between
the levels. This sets up a chance to build suspense later.
As the characters
are quietly searching through the house for clues, they hear creaking sounds on
the stairs a couple of levels below. Someone is coming! Who could it be? Are
the protagonists in the story in danger? What will happen next?
The main
characters were nervous about poking around in the strange house. That last
thing they wanted to hear was footsteps on the stairs. As the footsteps
get closer and louder, the protagonists must decide what action to take--and
quickly.
There is a plot
in “Deadly Plunge” where the main female character, Amelia Ryan is being
stalked by a creepy guy who has become obsessed with her. His intent is to
kidnap her.
In this case, the
reader knows this stalker is after the female protagonist but the main
characters don’t. This adds to the suspense because they are doing things which
will--unbeknownst to the main characters--put themselves in danger.
I concluded one
chapter with the kidnapper watching Amelia’s bedroom window waiting for the
light to go out so he can strike. One another occasion Amelia is taking French
lessons and listening to tapes through a set of headphones. This makes her
vulnerable to the attacker as he creeps closer to her without detection.
In “The Last of
the Seals” the main characters, Sam Slater and Amelia Ryan, are being secretly
observed and tracked by some mysterious figures. Sam is still uncertain about
why these people are stalking him and his girlfriend.
One night, as Sam
is running down a pier in the fog to escape one peril, there is something in
the fog that he fails to see. It is two men sitting in a car watching him. They
are obscured by the shadows and fog. What do they want and what happens next?
Fog is wonderful.
San Francisco fog practically becomes a character in the story. Fog conceals
people and events and prevents a clear picture of what’s occurring. It adds to
the creepy feeling where at any moment something can suddenly appear out of the
fog.
It is
exhilarating to read a story like that and it is exciting to write a
suspenseful story, especially when it works.
One of the tag
lines I’m using to promote my book sums up the feeling I’m going for in my
mystery novel.
“Danger lurks
just around the corner in foggy San Francisco.”
About the Author:
Greg Messel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives in
Edmonds, Washington on the Puget Sound with his wife, Carol. Fog City Strangler
is his seventh novel and is the fourth in a new series of Sam Slater
mystery novels. Greg has lived in Oregon, Washington, California,
Wyoming and Utah and has always loved writing, including stints as a
reporter, columnist and news editor for a daily newspaper.
Follow news about Messel’s writings and books at www.gregmessel.com.
About the Book:
Private eye Sam Slater is worried that the Fog City Strangler may be eyeing his beautiful blonde wife, stewardess Amelia Ryan. Sam’s angst mounts as the strangler continues to claim more victims. His anxiety is further fueled when TWA launches an advertising campaign with Amelia’s picture on a series of billboards plastered all over the city. Sam fears the billboards may attract too much attention–the wrong kind of attention.
Meanwhile, Sam and Amelia are hired to try to find the missing daughter of a wealthy dowager who fears she has lost her only child. The missing woman went for a walk with her dog on Stinson Beach, near San Francisco, and seemingly vanished into thin air. The woman’s husband arrived at their beach house and found the dog running loose but there was no trace of his wife. The police are stumped in their investigation.
As Sam and Amelia look into the disappearance of the woman on the beach they discover that nothing is as it seems at first glance. On a stormy night a shadowy figure sets fire to the beach house where the couple is staying–hoping to stop their investigation.
Fog City Strangler is a stand-alone thriller but is part of the Sam Slater Mystery Series–Last of the Seals, Deadly Plunge and San Francisco Secrets.
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