Spontaneous Clues?

[D.R. MacMaster]

I'm attempting to write my first "whodunnit" style novel about a comic book artist who stumbles on a murder during a comic book convention. I introduced a sort of comic-relief sidekick at the beginning of the novel, and one of his running gags was a tendency to make up double entendre based phony names.

Yesterday I was laying out alibis for my suspects, and one of them, an actress of the "she ain't pretty she just looks that way" variety has an alibi in the form of a drunken one night stand. When they ask for the one nighter's name, it turns out to be one of the sidekick's bogus IDs.

I hadn't planned it that way. In fact, I had planned a long distracting search for the alibi, but this little spontaneous bit not only allowed me to dump a blind alley that would have just stretched things out too far in wrong directions, as well as tell the readers that they have to pay attention to the little details.

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this thing, because it's usually something I don't think of until the rewrites.

[D.R. MacMaster]

I am aiming for some satire. Especially about where comics meet the movie industry's mix of big money, bigger egos, and small brains.

[John McFetridge]

I like the idea of a novel set at a comic book convention. Sharon McCrumb set Bimbos of the Death Sun at a sci fi convention, but that was really a comic novel. It does sound like yours will also be funny. Good luck with it.