the secret murder

Transcript time again!

‘Jules leaned forward in his chair and spoke wonderingly, intensely “How would it feel to kill someone?”

I think this line is going to be the highlight of my yet-to-be-written book? My friends, we are in trouble already.

Six of them there were — rich, clever and beautiful. They never went to bed at night, they sat up drinking coffee and talking about deep things.

Six of them there were? Are you Yoda? I find my schoolgirl vision of Life At Uni vaguely heartbreaking. I always went to bed at night, mostly because I had to write two essays a week and this is quite hard to do on no sleep. And I knew, like, one person who was rich, clever and beautiful, and instead of talking about Deep Things everyone mostly bitched about her.

Of the six, Ayesha was the richest — of Arab descent, she reinvented herself with blonde hair and contact lenses.

I feel compelled to admit that Ayesha was in fact based upon this Super Cool Sindy:

tanned doll dressed in neon, with blonde nylon hair and unnaturally blue eyes

Now you have a mental picture of her, we can continue.

Jules and the androgynous Christian were twin brothers — Jules was the cleverest, Ayesha’s idol, and obsessed with crime. Christian was ‘happy to be in touch with his male and female sides’ and had a stormy relationship with his twin.

ZOMG TWINS! Also, I want cookies for having a genderqueer character, seeing as how Tumblr is twenty years in the future.

Saundra was a ‘weirdo’ having a platonic affair with Christian.

GIVE ME GODDAMN COOKIES TUMBLR I MEAN IT.

Joe was a general ‘good guy’ and Venitienne was a mysterious and melancholy brunette, who wrote haunting poetry. Six quicksilver young people, bright as the sun, talking at midnight about murder.

Joe is just here to make up the numbers, isn’t he. And Venitienne? There are so many lovely names in the world, why do you have to try (and fail) to invent new ones?

It is Jules who meticulously plans his ‘perfect crime’ and Venitienne who helps him. The victim is unimportant — she is a prostitute of around 35, identity unknown.

Wow. I don’t even know where to start with this. Well, clearly 35 is far too decrepit to be allowed to live, and sex workers are unpeople (which I assume is why Jules has chosen her), and really this poor woman whom I have not even bothered to name (though, given my track record at naming characters, this may be no bad thing) is no more than a plot device. I am cross with you, younger self, and I am confiscating your Tumblr cookies because you don’t deserve them.

At a bleak beauty spot the six assemble. Each does his or her part, wearing rubber gloves and bathing caps to prevent leaving fingerprints or hair.

Oh yay, Jules is forensically aware. I do however feel that his ‘perfect murder’ would be substantially more perfect and the risk of leaving DNA traces significantly lessened if he hadn’t roped in FIVE OTHER PEOPLE to help out.

She is buried in a strange ceremony composed by Venitienne and conducted by Christian.

Well, that’s nice.

Then they return, talking incessantly about the experience.

Sounds fun.

Only Saundra remains silent. A week later, tormented by guilt, she kills herself.

Saundra, Saundra, Saundra. Why did you agree to it in the first place? Did it not occur to you earlier that you might feel an eensy bit bad about killing an innocent person just for kicks?

Her suicide note, confessing everything, is burned by Christian — grieving for her, but loyal to his twin.

What has fraternal loyalty got to do with it? Presumably the note implicates everyone, in which case destroying it is kind of a no-brainer.

Joe ‘cracks’ — eventually returning home but visiting the grave constantly.

I thought Joe was supposed to be a ‘good guy’? How did Jules even get these people to participate in his human sacrifice thing? Maybe when he leans forward in his chair with a preponderance of adverbs he is actually hypnotising them all?

But Jules and Venitienne were hooked by the first blood — now they form a sinister alliance…

I ran out of page at this point, but I can tell you that in the fragment of this which succeeded in getting written (and not many blurbs made it that far, so I must have considered this one of my Best Ideas), Jules and Venitienne were engaged in a bathing-cap-clad killing spree which was rapidly developing BDSM overtones, Joe was in a psychiatric hospital, and Christian was on the run with a spaced-out Ayesha.

(Also, there was a conversation about infinity. It was awesome.)

So essentially this is The Secret History, right? Except for how it is rubbish. Six fabulously pretentious students? Check. Murder, suicide, intra-group affairs and infatuations? Check. There are even TWINS. (Of course there are twins. There are always twins.) I’m thinking I must have been ‘inspired’ by a review in the Sunday Times Books section, which I suppose is a step up from stealing my plots from Neighbours.

28 February 2014 0

celtic pollyanna and the evil twin

This one is laid out like a small child’s newsbook — pic on the top, words below — so I’m going to transcribe the text and give you a running commentary. Woo!

When Alistair returned to his beloved Highlands to take over his father’s croft, he brought a surprise — a new wife. Welsh-born Meredith was confined to a wheelchair, but accepted it cheerfully and soon won the local’s hearts. It was easy to see how Alistair had fallen in love with his ‘Merry’.

Jesus, it’s a Celtic Pollyanna. Nicknamed Merry. Do you see what I did there?

But Meredith was often lonely at their isolated farm. Although the doctors advised against it, she and Alistair started trying for a family.

I do not feel loneliness is a good reason for having a baby against medical advice, assuming of course that said medical advice is more substantial than ‘you can’t breed ’cause you’re disabled.’

As soon as she became pregnant, her twin sister Madolyn turned up — causing havoc.

YAY EVIL TWIN!

With her wavy black hair and strikingly green eyes, Madolyn was almost dangerously beautiful.

Not evident from the wonky-mouthed, scant-chinned portrait of her, but never mind.

She led the local boys a merry dance, letting them fall in love with her then ignoring them.

That’s the worst it gets? I suppose that’s why she’s only ‘almost’ dangerously beautiful.

And all the time Meredith was reminded by her sister’s presence of the freedom she had lost. What made it worse was that it was Madolyn’s carelessness that crippled her in the first place…

But of course.

When Madolyn turned her cat’s eyes to Alistair, Meredith couldn’t cope. She worried about leaving them in the house together when she went into hospital to have her baby.

I have a plan! Your evil twin has already been staying with you for months… why not just kick her out? She put you in a wheelchair. She is lucky you are angelic enough not to mind too much and are still speaking to her.

Then the baby was born with a slight mental handicap —

I have approximately four million problems with this plot development, chief among which is that it is a newborn baby, so how can they tell? It may be natural to assume that any child born into this family is going to be pathologically stupid, but you cannot make this diagnosis before it has even failed to hit any developmental milestones. Also that the doctors were right and any kid born to a woman in a wheelchair is inevitably going to be defective. Ugh.

— and a guilty Madolyn confessed tearfully to seducing Alistair.

Evil Twin FTW.

Meanwhile, Scotland wanted independaence from the United Kingdom — and the spirit of change wafted through the lonely hills.

What has this got to do with anything? Oh, maybe it’s a Theme. Like Meredith is representative of Scotland, or possibly Wales, getting repeatedly fucked over by Evil Twin/England. Or perhaps she wants a divorce from Alistair and Evil Twin the same way Scotland wants one from the UK? I don’t really see how the handicapped baby fits into this schema. Maybe it is the Isle of Man or something.

And the bewildered, tragical Meredith wandered with her baby, and wondered what to do…

I am having a really hard time picturing wandering around in a wheelchair if you have a baby in tow and live on a lonely hill. It seems like it would be a fairly major operation. Has she even bothered to ask Alistair what went on? Evil Twin could easily be lying. Lying is what Evil Twins do, when they are not busy maiming or ignoring people.

16 June 2010 0

selling your knees for drugs

‘Classical story’ is invariably shorthand for ‘I ripped off this plot from somebody else who already did it better’. I have never read The Prince and The Pauper, nor seen the film, but clearly I had read a blurb for it in the back of one of my beloved Puffin Classics and this is my unique take on it. Sigh.

I feel that Jane and Gina may have had some unique form of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome whereby Gina monopolised all the hair. Clearly being homeless and miserable has a terrible effect upon your hair, not to mention your ability to apply mascara; though judging by the state of their mother, this may be inherited. Why is the homeless girl bothering with eye makeup and red nail polish anyway? Also, wouldn’t she have sold the bit of bling around her neck for food or drugs by now?

I do not understand why Gina’s fantastically rich adoptive parents only adopted the one twin. This makes no sense. Was deadbeat mother with the identically tiny wonky mouth insisting on hanging on to Jane? Or was there another set of prospective parents lobbying to bring one up in poverty, and social services thought ‘yeah, this will make an interesting social experiment’?

I love that Jane’s home (a.k.a. cardboard box) is attached with a wriststrap, presumably so that nobody will steal it. Obviously it is much more valuable than the Love Locket. I don’t exactly get how the Love Locket is constructed, when you close it won’t the heart be hanging side on to the chain rather than facing front? Where is the hinge? Had I never seen an actual locket?

Aw, poor Gina. Luxury is always empty, isn’t it? OK, so obviously her adoptive parents are totally evil and her legs are abnormally short and she has no knees (well, I am assuming this based on Jane’s appearance, but maybe Jane sold her knees for drugs) but still, girlfriend, look at your fabulous bouncy voluminous hair!

And wow, their parents. If that was my true identity, I wouldn’t want it. No wonder Gina has substituted them with a string of on-trend blue plastic beads, to match the earrings hanging from the side of her skull. WHY DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO EARS.

26 May 2010 0