Hmmm, the more time I spend with young Ricky Sullivan, the less inclined I am to kill him off. So I may have to change my opening line from “The last day of his life, Ricky Sullivan had the best lap dance of his life” to something like “This afternoon, Ricky Sullivan had an extraordinary lap dance.”
I liked my original line better, but it commits to killing him. Plus, how many lap dances has this guy had? Not many. So he doesn’t have a very large sample size. Still this particular lap dance girl felt very special to him, so special in fact that he will return to the Palace Club. And I suspect there will be consequences.
A lot changes are evolving as I work with the opening scene. I decided to have the fourth member of this group of guys who are visiting Las Vegas, join the group at the strip club. So I included Jared, from my previous books. I think the story will be told largely from his point of view, therefore I need him to be at the places where various events occur. Not everywhere of course, but his observations, will be central as the plot unfolds.
Speaking of the plot, I don’t know what it is yet. And I don’t know what sort of mystery I will create. Characters and setting, I have, but what’s the plot? No idea. I do know I need to spend some time thinking about it. It is too easy to just write scene after scene and when a story emerges, then I’m forced to go back and revise and restructure the book drastically. Much easier if I can map out the plot sequence ahead of time. I know some authors outline their entire book in advance, but I just don’t know if I can write that way. We’ll see. Regardless, some thought about plot is needed at this point.