Because I don’t want to get ahead of myself, I note a few things I need to research, as a reminder, realistic costs and contemporary references, and some details on calorific intakes. I’d decided early on this would be a quirk for Tiffany in her internal only monologues, as a similar trick had worked before in a different story. That time, the protagonist had measured time and resources in terms of cigarettes he had remaining, for Tiff if would be something she’d try and keep track of in terms of wine intake (and possible snacks), probably unsuccessfully, and it gives a nice extra level and motivation for her getting annoyed sometimes, which would of course be unknown to Martin.
Realisation from looking at my bios and notes is that Nick, the husband, is a bit wet. That is relevant for the plot but I make a note that he needs more backstory too, as there has to be a reason Tiffany kept going back to him. Don’t know what that is yet so another ‘McGuffin’ needed note to develop character traits from. This brings me to the names I used, Martin and Tiffany, and I wondered how I can make something of that, or if I needed to change them. I already had the confident Martin a couple of years older, and it clicked perfectly that he might be named after Martin Peters, having been born the year of the World Cup. I liked that, so wondered who Tiffany might have been named after in ’68. A bit of digging and a couple of dead ends and I discovered a wonderful line about the gemstone tanzanite “Introduced by Tiffany in 1968, this exceedingly rare gemstone is celebrated for its rich ocean blue colour touched with shades of violet and the midnight sky.” Suddenly I had a backstory for Tiffany’s parents having their honeymoon in Tanzania and why they named her. That colour and description can come up later too. Despite the fact I want to flesh out the husband, there being no special reason for him being called Nick is a great fit with his more mundane existence.
So now I need to flesh the broad plot in terms of timescales, so I’m off to read the manuscript so far, possibly correcting a few typos, but not bothering too much except for marginalia matching my new ideas. I’ll then see if there are any key scenes (probably the holiday and an awkward conversation with Nick when Tiff starts to waver), after which it will be a straight blast through to a first draft, see what shape and length that gives me. And I’ll report back.
Stay safe
Kit