Okay...I've started reworking the foundation of the story, and it's going to get a lot simpler. More compact. To start with, I've shoved the background exposition into a prologue that sketches out what happened prior to Jake's meeting with Mira in Paris. Probably 10 pages of yap-yap-yap cut to 1.5 pages. I can still reference details from then as we go along, but it makes the opening a lot cleaner, and if people want to find out more, they can read RIHC6.
I'm also shortening the time between when Owen vanishes and Jake goes looking for him. Three months now seems too long, especially after Owen having just been in a trial; Jake wouldn't wait more than a month to contact him to find out how things went, even if he is preoccupied with Tone's crap.
I'm keeping it in Palm Springs. Nothing else really works, including just not naming the city. Comes across as being too coy. So I've sent an e-mail off to the Riverside County DA's office to ask about how things are handled, now that their administration building is no more and they're 10 miles from the Larsen Justice Center. Same for the Riverside Sheriff's Department, that manages the Indio jail, part of which is also being torn down.
In an early draft, I had Jake being taken to the city of Riverside for a confrontation with the DA but shifted that to a DDA in Indio. Now it looks like it will be a mishmash of both...which actually works out better. They don't give him time to pee before he's hustled over to Philby's office, and it's rather hard to do when you're in a car going down a city street.
Who knows? By the time I'm done with this restructuring, my magnum opus a la Beethoven may wind up being a piano concerto a la Satie. Pleasant. Not bombastic. But not as rich and overpowering as the Ninth Symphony.
That'd be a switch...said Tolstoy as he spun in his grave (wondering how I had the nerve to bring him into this).
I'm also shortening the time between when Owen vanishes and Jake goes looking for him. Three months now seems too long, especially after Owen having just been in a trial; Jake wouldn't wait more than a month to contact him to find out how things went, even if he is preoccupied with Tone's crap.
I'm keeping it in Palm Springs. Nothing else really works, including just not naming the city. Comes across as being too coy. So I've sent an e-mail off to the Riverside County DA's office to ask about how things are handled, now that their administration building is no more and they're 10 miles from the Larsen Justice Center. Same for the Riverside Sheriff's Department, that manages the Indio jail, part of which is also being torn down.
In an early draft, I had Jake being taken to the city of Riverside for a confrontation with the DA but shifted that to a DDA in Indio. Now it looks like it will be a mishmash of both...which actually works out better. They don't give him time to pee before he's hustled over to Philby's office, and it's rather hard to do when you're in a car going down a city street.
Who knows? By the time I'm done with this restructuring, my magnum opus a la Beethoven may wind up being a piano concerto a la Satie. Pleasant. Not bombastic. But not as rich and overpowering as the Ninth Symphony.
That'd be a switch...said Tolstoy as he spun in his grave (wondering how I had the nerve to bring him into this).
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