Every once and a while, something or other captures the imagination. In recent years, for me, it has been chess boxing. Now, beer bikes. So I start to think. Maybe a beer bike driver as a mystery club bit part. All morning this rested on the edge of my mind. Until it hit me. No. Not a bit part. The idea is too compelling for anything other than the cameo placement. Under the lights, so to speak.
For, you see, the protagonist in each cooking club mystery is always a different character. Sometimes he or she is killed or otherwise leaves the group (lose 'em) but other times the featured person becomes a permanent (use 'em) part of the backdrop, which is the cooking club itself.
After all, I have been developing a new, Chinese, cooking club member for almost a year. Killed him off twice. Changed his name three times. Couldn't figure out how to write the dialog when he spoke no English and I, no Chinese.
The only thing that I knew for sure was that, young and gregarious, he was originally created to bring comic relief to an otherwise psychologically edgy thriller and that he mistakenly joined the club thinking that he could learn to cook there. On the other hand, the members voted him in because they thought that he was a master chef. I also knew I loved him - or the idea of him, anyway. Lived with him all these months. Can see him in my sleep.
Now, suddenly and out of the blue, I have it, except for his surname which I will change soon - one last time. His given name will be Hop which means agreeable. Hop is nearly thirty and has a French grandmother.
voilà ! Now we can deal with him in simple, universal French terms when our limited Chinese fails - both mine and the other members of the club. Did you know that I myself am the charter member of the cooking club? Who better to write about than one's self? But not in the first person.
As you can see, we are suddenly getting somewhere. Han and others of his family left China and lived with his Grandmother in France. Recently, he drove a beer bike in Amsterdam. Do you get how easy it is? How the beer bike simply belongs in the story now?
I am thrilled. Even as I tap-tap-tap these words, the mind is solving all the developmental problems for this character, dear Hop, while also asking me, in a sheepish half thought - half whisper, if we can work the food truck chef into the story... just a bit part leading to main character-hood in upcoming projects.
There are no beer bikes in Tallahassee so Han tries to find work on the food truck, which he believes to be compatible. Han cannot cook. He can only Skype France and beg recipes from mémé.
Now we have a Chinese man we can work with, who can join the club, lighten the heaviness of the plot, help end the terror, and become a permanent character (or not). We can bring in the food truck and the chef as well. The new possibilities are endless and yet I can now visualize the end of it! Thanks to a quick inspiration that I could have easily ignored.
