Don’t Mess with Guns
(How to Write a Story)

Starting with the simplest phrase:

The cat sat on the mat.

This is direct and complete and is the essence of a story, it identifies a positive start followed by action and completion. It now depends how you feel about it as to how you proceed. Let us assume it sets a scene, what follows?

The cat sat on the mat, the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, all seemed at peace.

We have now used to two images that signify ordinariness. What next?
To reinforce or shatter it?

The cat sat on the mat, the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, all seemed at peace. There was the sound of a sudden gunshot. The cat looked up in surprise, and turning, shot off down the hall. The quietness of an English summer afternoon descended on the house.

Or as an alternative. Can you think why?

The cat sat on the mat, the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, all seemed at peace. The cat looked up as if agitated, turned, and  shot off down the hall.  There was sound of a curse followed by a sudden gunshot. The quietness of an English summer afternoon descended on the house.

Here we see the matter-of-factness of the opening phrase extended into two options. It sets a scene, now, where to take it?

Voices were heard from across the garden as someone approached.

‘No I don’t think daddy would approve!’
‘But I’m only asking you out to the May ball,’ a male voice replied.
‘He thinks you are too old for me. And so do I.‘
’Too old……………but we have……..surely that’s enough.’ His voice trailed off as if he knew just what he meant.
‘That’s between you and me,’  she said more sharply.
‘Marjory, don’t be mean, it was just a kiss.’
‘Yes and look what happened,’
He suddenly felt his age, what on earth was he doing trying to do, seduce a young girl? What he cried for was sophisticated love under Mediterranean stars and the curve of a voluptuous body under silken sheets. A sharp cry drew him out of his reverie. He looked up and there she stood by the open French windows, hand in mouth. Now what, he thought? He was getting tired of these theatrical melodramatics, as he ran after, more out of breath then he would liked to admit.
‘It’s daddy - look,’ as she pointed down at the slumped figure by the desk.

 Here a further tension is introduced; the flirtation of an older man, but care has been made to set him apart. He is not part of the family and hence can now take on another role. What is he; a professor , a detective a la Morse, an army friend of the dead man perhaps. Let the reference to the May ball be the lead. A clever move is to jump ahead on the assumption that the reader knows very well that the death and murder, because that is what it must surely be, has been reported to the police.

 ‘Well Professor Morton, what are you doing here?’
Morton looked up, he  recognised the man who had come in through the French Windows. He started to say ‘hello Inspector‘, but it did not seem appropriate with a dead body sprawled across the mat in between them of them.
‘I was visiting the Colonel,’ he realised how weak that sounded under the circumstances.
‘And now he’s dead,’  the inspector observed a little sardonically.
‘Yes,’ said Morton, as if that was a common experience of those he met.
‘Have you looked at the body?’ asked the inspector.
‘In my professional role, do you mean?’
The inspector smiled a little stiffly.
‘Any role you like - how did he die?’
‘Gunshot wound to the head.’
The words came out a little too quickly and dispassionately.
‘So you have examined him!’
Morton was not to sure about the tone of voice that the inspector had used, as if he had usurped his authority.
Morton observed, a little flustered, ’Well there’s a hole in his head and a gun in his hand.’
They both looked down at the body. ‘The hole in the head,’ was something of an understatement, the head was shattered by the passing of a 45 bullet from a Smith and Wesson, and blood and brains were scattered across the matt.

 The stage has been set for more tension. The professor is obviously a professional to do with police work. He knows the inspector, but he is not entirely happy that he should know he is there. Morton is more concerned at the moment of being found at the house without a suitable explanation. He wouldn’t want his wife to know about Marjory!
The introduction of the Smith and Wesson makes for a puzzle. It is not the kind of thing to have around the house and it seems odd for a colonel to have for it‘s a police weapon. The title ‘Colonel’ infers some past experience which involves honour, if  he has committed suicide.  
 
‘Where was you when the gun was fired?’ asked the inspector.
‘I didn’t hear it.’  Morton immediately recognised the danger in the admission.
‘Oh, so you was not here, so how come…..?’  The inspector left the question hanging in the air.
‘I must have been over by the church, coming to the Grange.’
‘What for?’
The inspector was moving in to police mode, trained to ask the awkward follow up question.
Morton pondered this for a moment. Fondling the colonel’s daughter was not an admission he would care to admit to.
‘I was coming to tea…………..with the colonels daughter,’ he added rather lamely, but he did not want to have that drawn out of him.
The inspector looked at him with the blank eyes of the unbeliever.
’So you was over by the church when the shot might have been fired, which you did not hear; with the colonel’s daughter?’
Morton heard the sarcasm in that which he would not want explored and decided to keep quiet.
‘And where is she now?’
‘What?’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Who?’
‘The colonel’s daughter,’ the inspector questioned, with some exasperation. ‘Where is she now?’
Morton looked around as if she might be hiding somewhere in the room.
‘I suppose she is in her room, she seemed pretty upset.’
The inspector looked at him as if he had just come out of space.
‘Lets get this straight. The first you knew of this was when you came to the Grange for tea across the garden from the church.’
‘Yes.’
‘And who discovered the body first?’
‘Marjory…she had run on ahead.’
‘Oh, Marjory is it……..and she’s pretty upset?’  he added with mock disbelief?’
‘Well yes, he was her father.’  Morton did not realise how indifferent he sounded. ’She must be in her room,’ he added rather lamely.

  Now, so far there are only two speaking characters, with two others offstage, as you might say, who have an influence on the plot. What you have to ask yourself now is what will the reader make of what you have written. So far this has been an exercise writing for yourself; what feel will others have for it? It has an old fashion air about it, almost a stage play. Let’s open it up a bit.

‘What are all those police cars doing?’
A tall aesthetic looking lady strode into the hall and was stopped short by a policeman.
‘Get out of my way, d’you know who I am?’ she demanded.
‘I’m sorry mam, no one is allowed in, it’s a crime scene.’
‘Why, have we been robbed?
‘No, there’s been a death.’
‘Death,’ she queried, ’ What do you mean?’
She turned and saw the professor in the study doorway. She seemed surprised and puzzled by his presence in her home.
‘John?’  she exclaimed in some surprise, ’What is going on?’
He seemed at a loss as to what to say. ’Caroline, there has been a dreadful accident…….. the colonel…,’ he stopped, hell this was the man’s wife. He started again. ’Peter’s dead!’
‘Don’t be silly, I spoke to him only an hour ago, how can he be dead. Where is he I’ll soon wake the bugger up, he’s always asleep in the afternoon.’ 
‘I‘m afraid its worse than that!’ the professor offered.
‘And who might you be?’
They both turned at the brusqueness of the question. The inspector had stepped  into the hallway and had seen the lady for the first time.
She bridled. ’I am Lady Caroline Meadh………’  She stopped at the effrontery of having to explain who she was in her own home. ’Will someone tell me what is going on?’
‘She’s the colonels wife,’ the professor said in a low voice to no one in particular.
The inspector immediately softened. ’Madam, please, where can we go to sit down, I have some bad news for you?’
She looked puzzled by the request as if uncertain where one sits to receive bad news. She turned into the lounge  at the side of the hall and stood imperiously by the small writing table as if daring the inspector to do his worse.

Time for a recap. The style of the story has set itself, it begins to sound like the script for Midsomer Murders. We now have three main characters; the professor, the inspector, the colonels wife, with daughter in the background. I have set a number of options that you could follow; the relationship of the professor with the mother and daughter, was something revealed that caused the colonel to take his own life, was there a menage a trois that professor’s wife took exception to, did a police Smith and Wessen show an odder twist? Which opening paragraph would you choose.

The inspector followed her nervously into the room and started, ‘This is not easy……………at approximately…………’ He mentally put his note book away.
‘I have to tell you that your husband is dead, he was found shot in the study this afternoon, it looks like suicide.’ he informed Lady Caroline Meadhurst with solemn formality.
Lady Caroline Meadhurst swayed a little, and then steadied herself as if receiving the news of the death of a loved one should be done with fortitude, one did not break down as the lower ranks might. Morton felt embarrassed to suppress a smile at the slightly jumbled syntax and how it sounded like the board game of Murder at the Vicarage.
In the darkened room, as the shadows of the long afternoon sun moved across it, there was silence, broken only by the tick of the clock on the mantle-piece as the tableau digested the fact of death and how it might have been caused. Morton and the inspector started to speak at the same time when the daughter burst into the room and to everyone’s surprise threw herself at Morton, beating him on the chest.
‘You bastard, you did it,’  she shouted.
He was so taken aback that he did nothing to defend himself as the blows rained down on him.
‘It was the car, the bloody car.’
They all looked at her as if she was mad.
‘Car, what car?’ asked the inspector.
‘His bloody car,’ she hit Morton in exasperation, ‘By the bloody graveyard when he was trying to seduce me!’
They all looked at Morton. Lady Caroline Meadhurst looked as if she was going to faint this time. ‘How could you?’ she started to say, and snatched the words back as she realised how inappropriate they were under the circumstances.
The inspector tried to gather some semblance of control by asking what happened and how has this anything to do with the death of the colonel.
Marjory turned on him, ‘It went off bang you idiot!
‘What did?’’
‘The exhaust,’  she shouted as if they should understand it’s meaning, ‘It frightened the cat!’
They all stood in silence. ‘The cat,’  muttered Lady Caroline, ’what’s that got to do with anything?.’
‘It shot off and tripped daddy and that bloody gun of the inspector’s went off and now he’s dead.’
They all turned and looked at the inspector, but he was gone!

The cat sat on the mat, the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, all seemed at peace.