Writing a scene .....

[Preacher]

I am writing a scene: the MC, while searching for clues, finds a name -a woman who is presently dead. She has apparently died of complications from taking psychotropic drugs.

The MC needs to get more information, and with only a name and an address which he dug up, i have him go to the last known address as a starting point. The house he finds is for sale and the real estate agent is there running an open house. So i have my MC and the woman accompanying him pretend to be buyers interested in the house. I have the MC finesse and massage the agent into giving him a history of the house, which turns to the dead woman. He ends up talking her into getting some information which is going to be valuable -the information being that the dead woman had a baby at some point.

My question is, does this sounds plausible as a way of the MC getting some information?

[Quill]

I would suggest meditating on this plot point. I find that long walks are good for this. I've had more plot points resolve themselves and more plot advancements come to me through a walking meditation than any other way. It was a great daily practice when I was first drafting. Sometimes I'd just get affirmation for what I wrote that day or the day before, and sometimes actual new info came through. It's wonderful how the mind works when relaxed and focused (loosely) at the same time.

[polymath]

The given scenario is credible, though psychotropic substances in and of themselves aren't generally lethal. Street drugs have all kinds of adulterants with lethal potentials. So do naturally occurring psychotropics. And like with past plot discussions, I'd wonder if the scenario is sufficiently problematic to contribute to tension building. The scenario seems complicated, which is good, though the length of narrative time to set it up and deliver the reveal might call for more development of the reveal. Discovering the woman had a child would to me mean the child's importance to the plot would need a lot of weight. The child ought best represent a discovery of appreciable magnitude. Not just the fact of the child's existence but what the child's existence means to the man's main purpose and progress toward and setbacks impeding addressing that purpose.

[Preacher]

The scene in question comes after a number of chapters of buildup. The "complications" i refer to from the psychotropic drugs will turn out to mean the woman committed suicide because she stopped taking her medication. "Psychotropic" may be the wrong term. The person in question was being treated for schizophrenia and was taking medication for it. Her stopping the medication will have caused her to have an episode which ends with suicide.

Now,the question of the baby. I have debated this on and off as to where to take it or not take it. The father, well, let's say there is no father. So, with the mother dead there would have to either be a relative or the child would end up in some kind of foster care. With the child staying with a relative that trail would be easier to follow. If the child goes into care it would be much, much more difficult to track. Thing is, the importance of the child is really only the fact that it exists, that it was born to a mother who was thought to not be able to have a child. The only other real value i can see is if they set out to find out how said child was born to a mother who was supposed to be infertile. If they followed that avenue it would reach a dead end with a doctor who has dropped off the grid. Otherwise, the investigation gets focused back on the beginning of the story -a woman who has also committed suicide. The MC, after learning the info, has a hunch the woman from eraly in the story may have also given birth and been on some type of drug. His hunch about the drugs is based on his observation of her behavior.

[polymath]

Let's see, a questionable conception, a suicide mother that complicates the trail for finding the child. If the child is just a prop object, a motif, perhaps a MacGuffin, then the circumstances surrounding its conception are a main purpose for the man. What's he want from the child? A DNA profile to prove or disprove it had a father? Seems it might be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Once he knows the child's paternity, where does it go from there? Who does it point to? What deeds are under question?

[Preacher]

If i choose to follow the baby as either macguffin or something else, i see a chain of events that look like this:

The MC learns of existence of child, supposedly born under questionable circumstances. MC decides to look into this child's existence further. Then, he finds that said child is under the care of a family member of the mother. My MC finds out who the relative is and goes and visits here, trying to get information. The family member just wishes to be left alone and does not want to be bothered, not wanting to bring any undue pain or attention to the existence of this "miracle baby." During the scene with my MC, the family member seems to recognize the person my MC is travelling with (this woman he travels with is the sister of the initial woman who committed suicide.) So my MC does not wish to push this family further and they leave but he realizes the family member recognized his travelling companion and, to him, that means that the companions sister at some point had also gotten to them for certain reasons.

So the MC and his partner leave. I envision that at some later point, after the MC'S pleas to help him save someone else from dying, the family member maybe out of guilt calls him and gives a piece of information, maybe the name of a doctor. They dig into this and find the doctor has disappeared off the grid.

The MC ultimate goal is to find his missing sister. As he thinks about all he has learned through investigation, he realizes and recalls how much his sister wanted to have a baby, how desperate she seemed to be about it at times. The MC goes and visits his sisters ex-boyfriend, who seems to know something, and finds out that the sister went on some unannounced trip that she made him swear to silence and not tell anyone. The ex gives up the location and the MC travles there where he will find a connection to the doctor who supposedly disappeared. From there, it is a matter of following the unrolling ball of twine to where his sister is.

Does this all work and make sense?

[polymath]

The scenario is credible enough, and points to a recurring motif, that of what family means in this post nuclear family era. Not nuclear in the radioactive sense, dissolution of the traditional family nucleus. Something strongly unifying in that thematic possibility.

I think exploring the whys and wherefores of the difficulty conceiving are worth considering and could connect thematically. Also, why the women sought apparently underground fertility assistance, perhaps it's a procedure that's not medically approved.

I expect examining the above would bring the scenario into focus.

Also, due to the high places some of the scenes occur in, I think there's another thematic point underneath their motifs. That of skyscrapers and downtown power centers representing a highwire corruption of the heavens.

[Preacher]

On a personal note, the theme of family is very important to me and close to my heart, so writing stuff that involves family seems to just happen for me when i start typing.

Ultimately what i have is an underground type fertility clinic, as you described, that is using a procedure that leaves the women with a form of schizophrenia, causing them to need pills to keep it in check. The woman who he is investigating as i describe in the scene is basically the patient 0 for this procedure. The doctor disappeared after failure, only to resurface working for someone else and providing this procedure. Women who are increasingly desperate to have a family of their own come to this out of the way clinic to get the procedure. As they contract the schizophrenia, the babies are, of course, taken away from them and sold on a black market, using a lawyer as the middle man to scrape up other clients looking to adopt a baby.

My MC'S sister, who is missing, wanted a baby desperately, learned of something and travelled to get the procedure done. As my MC goes through the leads his goal is to find this clinic and rescue his sister before the effects of the procedure take hold of her and make her schizophrenic like others. So you can also expect a scene near the end where MC finds said clinic and discovers a hidden wing where the schizophrenic mothers are being kept.

Your prompts and questions and gentle "nudges" have me feeling good about the direction i feel this is going in. I think, based on your commentary so far, that you agree with me, at least partially anyway.

[polymath]

Okay. The children are not so important to the plot, though because they're consequences of their mothers' fertility procedures and the unique merchandise of a black market racket, they can't be something else. Therefore, they're not MacGuffins. In other words, they are intrinsic to the plot.

Plus, they come with a psychological horror factor. It might not be super contributory to the plot, but if the children too have an affliction due to the fertility procedure, I think that would add to the psychological horror. That's a matter of public stakes. The man isn't only looking to save his sister, but also to put a stop to the tragic outcomes for the innocents of the illegal practices.

See, I'm seeing a psychological thriller. Not a legal or mystery thriller, nor the usual type of crime thriller where finding out why it's done leads to finding out who done it so it can be stopped. I'm seeing a fresh and original take on the thriller type. Say a social thriller? The who and why is known fairly early on. Where the activity occurs becomes the main dramatic question for solving so that the activity can be stopped and the sister saved. If social thriller is the genre, then social places might play a large part in where the action and scenes take place. Since family is thematically relevant, family bonding and socializing places, public and private. I might guess that the meaning of family is suffering further hazard and it's the man's subconscious quest to stop the erosion.

Medically induced schizophrenia has plenty of thriller potential. I wonder though if there might be a more horrifyingly thrilling affliction for driving the plot. Since there's a suicide as a consequence of the procedure, say, a more close to home and familiar affliction which audiences might fear or at least worry about. Obsessive complusive disorders, socially dissociative disorders like autism and Aspergers and avoidant personalities, paranoid disorders, and bipolar personality disorders being among the top public mental health concerns, all of which have social or antisocial, actually, presentations.

Say the procedure causes a spectrum disorder encompassing several categories that defy effective treatment, yet is manageable by medication. However, the effort to cope requires a stronger personality than can ordinarily cope. The mechanism of affliction might then merely amplify an underlying, manageable preexisting spectrum of conditions that weren't a problem until the procedure. Scary? It's like an acid trip from which the partakers never sober up.

[Preacher]

So what the treatment would do is to serve as an expectorant or something that just boosts things that are there to the point where they become a problem. It acts as an enhancer on a grand level as it turns things that were not a problem into things that require a course of medication. That works just fine, i just really want to be careful to not have to get bogged down in the psychology of the what is going on. At heart, my MC is out to find his sister and save her before she ends up with the same problems.

The things with the babies is interesting and would add more drama because not only is this guy doing this to the women, but he is also selling babies which he knows to be defective on some level. The only child available to find this out about is the one i mention in the scenario above, the child of patient 0, if you will. Other children have already been adopted and unless the MC comes across records of where they are he can not do much about them. However, knowing a single child is defective will definitely add to the quest. The MC will want his sister saved, other women saved from this, and certainly for no more defective children to be born. I just do not want to get bogged down in the science of it all.

Now the main mission is going to be finding where the sister is kept and he will of coursr follow a trail that leads there. I just wonder if this really fits what you are terming a social thriller. It may, i am just not sure. My fear is that introducing these mental disorders will put me in a spot where i have to describe and include a ton of science, and that is something i want to stay away from. So, is it possible to introducee these things without making the science the important thing and keeping the chase to save as the motivating factor for the MC. of course as he finds that the child is defective he realizes it is a side effect of this treatment, which adds another level to the drama of the story.

[polymath]

Yeah, I don't think a clinical presentation is important or necessary, especially not told in some clinical recitation. Enough people are familiar with the outward and gross symptoms of personality disorders to get a clue from showing the suicide's behavior before she jumps off the roof. A bit of obsessive behavior and a touch of overt paranoia would probably be enough to raise suspicions that she's off, perhaps schizophrenic. The critical thing I think is invoking readers identifying with her condition for the sake of raising pity and fear for her through their experiences so that they're conscious of the missing sister's impending circumstances.

The chase I'd say is a matter of where the procedures are performed. It could be a mobile facility; it could be a fixed facility with a cover story and good security. If a fixed facility, perhaps a women's shelter, a family planning clinic, or an Ob-Gyn clinic. A mobile facility suggests perhaps a motor vessel plying rivers and coastal waterways. Whatever it might be, ought perhaps be something outwardly innocent, but covering for what is really going on.

[Preacher]

I tried showing that the original jumper was off by having her initially flee to the roof in a paranoid fit, then she continues this on the roof, talks a little strange, and has visual ticks such as cold sweats, dilated pupils, twitching eyes and such. The second way i use is the fact that they were on some kind of medication. I think that is enough to show the state of mind of the women. I can always go back to tweak the initial scene and add some more visible signs that people would recognize and identify with.

The facility, as i have envisioned it, is a normal house that is buried deep in a forest in New Jersey called the Pine Barrens. It is a strange, dark kind of wood that supports all kinds of plant and animal life including some man-eating plants. There are many water sources that include what is supposed to be one of the cleanest sources of spring water on the eastern seaboard. I have pictured, from the very inception of the story idea, a house like one would see out in the bayous of Louisiana, buried deep in the wood, screen door, maybe wraparound porch, and right near one of the water sources. Inside, of course, there are labs and normal rooms mixed together, with maybe the labs being located below the house and also the area where other women who have been experimented on are being kept. The doctor who initially used the procedure is there, working for the man who helped him disappear initially.

[polymath]

I'm familiar with the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Man eating plants, eh? So there's a fantastical premise or two. Caution, the underlying fantastical nature of the narrative needs best be introduced up front along with other essential opening features. Otherwise, the fantastical premises might come across as Abbess Phone Home add-ons meant to tap into potential crossover markets.

"Abbess Phone Home
Takes its name from a mainstream story about a medieval cloister which was sold as SF because of the serendipitous arrival of a UFO at the end. By extension, any mainstream story with a gratuitous SF or fantasy element tacked on so it could be sold."

From Bruce Sterling's "Turkey City Lexicon" at;
http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city ... -workshops

[Preacher]

No, i definitely will stay away from this becoming fantastical in any sense. There will be this house, it will be set deep in the Pine Barrens and this is where all the experiments are going on. There are a few small scenes there and, of course, the final scenes where the location is finally found and the rescue operation mounted. I actually went ahead and wrote a scene or two there and showed it to a few friends and they did not fall into the fantastical, they thought it was a good place for that style of house, a place to hide away from prying eyes in larger cities and such.

[polymath]

Okay. Not fantastical. Is there a cover story for the house? Rustic communities tend to be nosier than suburbs. Everyone knows everyone's business. Simple self-interested curiosity would drive the neighborhood busybody gossips to know as much as they could about the house's occupants and activities going on there. Single women coming and going. Presumably, undercover medical personnel and security thugs too. If the house is on municipal records, it's going to draw unwanted attention. Regardless, it will be on the record. Nothing is as secret as secret keepers want to think. I think a blatantly scandalous but otherwise legitmate cover story activity would do. Say, it's a party house retreat, sort of like a playboy mansion or something similar. Scandalous but apparently aboveboard. Then even a helicopter pad would be credible.