Wednesday, July 15, 2009

What if ?


Hello. It's Lenora. It's hot down in Louisiana. My pool beckons but I've been working a lot so I only allow myself a good twenty or thirty minutes to splash around and get a little exercise in the water. I'd love to have you all over for a pool party. Actually, a few weeks ago a group of writer friends and I had a "virtual" pool party. We all told what we'd bring and all day long, between writing and life, we'd e-mail each other with imaginery fun. It was almost as good as the real thing.

That just goes to show what a writer's imagination can do. We created a nice party, complete with food, splashing each other, what we where wearing (some opted out of wearing a bathing suit) and chitchat for the day. I have to say I needed that since I was having a stressful day. It was refreshing.

That got me to thinking about setting stories in exotic locations. It seems these type of locations lend themselves to suspense and intrigue. While most of our books are set in the United States, sometimes we get to venture into other countries. But for now, let's play with this a bit. What if? (My two favorite words in the world besides "Shoe Sale"), what if you were on vacation on a tropical island (or at a writer's conference as I am now) and you were sitting at the pool minding your own business, reading a good book (hopefully one of ours) and you looked up into the high rise hotel and ... you spot somthing going on in one of the rooms? What if you think you've witnessed a murder? It would be like "Rear Window" meets "Gidget" or "Where The Boys Are"meets "Cape Fear." What would you do? Would you go to hotel security and report what you think you saw? Would you hurry to your own room and lock the door? Or would you, in true romance heroine fashion, decide to investigate on your own? I know what I'd do. What would you do? C'mon, but on your sunglasses and let's have some fun!

3 comments:

Lynette Eason said...

LOL, also two of my favorite words. What would I do? I'd probably report it to the police--but secure in the knowledge that help was on the way, I'd go up there and try to see what was going on. Then I'd probably get arrested for hindering an investigation. :/ Or I'd get myself killed. I'm so un-heroine-like. LOL. Great post, Lenora.

Lynette

EllenToo said...

Being the chicken that I am I would report what I thought I saw and then go hide in case what I thought was going on really was and somebody was out to get me for reporting it like they do in books. Maybe I read too much.

Lenora said...

I think I'd probably report it then hang around to find out what happened, nosy person that I am.

Once at the beach with some friends, we thought we saw a shady figure in the empty condo next door. We discussed the different scenarios. I did wind up putting that in a book and the four women nabbed the bad guys with a water hose!