What's new?
Well, it's been over ten years since I wrote and published my four murder mystery games. In that time, a LOT has happened. I won't bore you with the negative details of our rollercoaster last ten years other than say we survived them, but these days I work as a hypnotherapist. I help people address all kinds of issues through hypnosis and I absolutely love it, but ... sometimes ... just sometimes ... I feel I need to switch off and escape to my own fantasy land. So in the last few weeks, I've been coming up with some more game titles with all sorts of colourful characters. I've toyed with writing a murder mystery game set in a prison, but that didn't go very far. I just couldn't get inspired! And my previous four murder mystery games had a touch of glamour to them, all of them, whereas, let's face it, there's not much glamour in a prison! So my prison murder mystery game has been put on the back burner for the time being.
Instead, I played with other ideas, and we're now going to be seeing a murder take place at an evening garden party. The name of the game is currently a secret. And these things take a lot of work and time.
I've got as far as having all the suspects having a 'little bicker' in the back garden or 'backyard' as my Americans refer to it. Yes, Act 1 is about a third written, and actually, I've already decided who the murderer is. The plot just kind of evolved, so watch this space ...
One week later, not wanting to give too much away, but so far, we have an incompetent professional, a volatile assistant, a gay romance, drug abuse and a mysterious garden feature! Make of that what you will. While working on each suspect's profile, I've changed my mind twice about who committed the crime! And there's every likelihood I'll change my mind again!
And, yes, a number of weeks later, I have changed my mind! Well, the plot evolved organically. My characters are developing personalities with personal stories and dark secrets, and it's all coming along quite nicely. In fact, Act 1 is written, and I'm about to start on Act 2.
What people probably don't appreciate about my games is that I go to a lot of trouble to ensure that each player has an equal amount of dialogue. That means once the basic script for each Act is written, I painstakingly count each character's lines, and where necessary, take material out or add it in. It's probably the most laborious part of writing the games, but I don't want any guest sitting there feeling left out of the party.
Many, many weeks later, I'm here to catch up a little. Well, working as a hypnotherapist and providing childcare one or two days a weeks isn't giving me much time for writing my current murder mystery game, but I've reached the start of Act 3 and have now hit a brick wall, which I resolve to surmount today.
Many, many months later, after endless distractions from every other direction, I managed to surmount the above-mentioned brick wall and I finished Act 3. It's been so much fun coming up with new clues. Three out of four so far are tangible clues and the fourth is a recording made by someone's mobile phone. Yes, Murderous Acts! has caught up with technology! My characters are now developing well. When I start writing scripts, all the characters start out as complete strangers to me, and then as the script progresses and things are thrown into the story line, the characters' personalities develop organically. Most of them I like. Others I really detest.