‘I need some severed body parts.’
‘I know a couple people I can ask.’
‘Okay, I’ve got a leg, a foot, and two hands.’
‘Daaannnggg…did they struggle much?’
‘No, but they won’t be late on their bill again.’
This was the conversation between myself and a friend recently, with some work-related humor at the end. Obviously I’m not collecting real body parts. I was looking for props for the upcoming filming of a book trailer.
It got me thinking, though, of other similar situations where things could be misconstrued if overheard.
I have a friend who used to be in a mystery writer’s group called ‘Women Who Kill’. I thought they should make tee-shirts.
There was the time, as I’ve posted about before, when a friend popped into a meeting at work, to say, thoroughly disgusted, ‘I can’t believe you killed Kelly!’ and then left without explaining that Kelly was a character in a book.
There was the time I sent an email to a forensic scientist asking what a body would look like if left in a cave in the Pacific Northwest for a month in the winter.
There was a writer’s resource group that had guest speakers talk about how to poison people, how to use a knife in a fight, how to have a gun not be traced back to you…and they met in a corner of a large bookstore. I’m sure they were overheard regularly.
And of course there’s always the gleeful conversations at coffee shops and restaurants when writers get together to brainstorm plot ideas and what awful things they can do to their characters to create conflict and tension. I bet those are fun for others to listen in on. Or at least, fun once they figure out what is going on.
In the meantime, I’m now on the hunt for blood…
Lisa Stowe - The Story River Blog 
LOL! Thanks for the chuckle this morning! Several books ago, I was out to dinner with my husband. He asked how the current book was going and as we were talking a couple of older ladies were seated at the table next to us at about the same time I mentioned that I’d never killed anyone I liked before. They moved to another table! I was half expecting the police to be waiting for us when we left the restaurant. They weren’t. I wonder if they’d have believed my explanation!
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I’d love to know if you’ve ever abandoned a character (or two) because you couldn’t finish a book or decided not to pursue the story and then have them haunt you for years demanding you pay attention to them? Jus sayin…
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What a great idea for a book! Some author being haunted by a character that the author refuses to write about. I have had characters not work in a particular story because they just didn’t belong there, and end up in a different story.
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OH I’d love to be a fly on the wall for some of those writer coffee shop conversations! I love this post. I sometimes post rather low brow humor on my Facebook page and wonder what people think of me, if I’m a mad woman with a sick sense of humor. Of course I couldn’t care less, that’s why I post it but it also kinda gives a little chuckle to think of all the “good” people gasping. Shock is sometimes a fun reaction, I think.
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One of these days you and I need to sit down over a cup of tea. I can already imagine our conversations…and laughter.
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OH Lisa, I’m so sorry I just now saw this reply. You are so right, we would laugh and laugh… I’d love that.
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