The Mysteries – A novel in progress

Another sunny winter’s day in the Bay of Island. My novel plan is taking shape rapidly now. When I look out my office window I can see the olive grove I planted about three years ago. The trees with their silver green leaves feel like a connection with the Greek island where my novel is set. I also have a garden sculpture out there, the idea for which was inspired by statues of Greek goddesses that were found within ancient temples. My statue is made of concrete as opposed to marble, but she still looks pretty good.

The story has changed a little bit from the précis I gave in my last post, which is the value of novel planning. As I worked through to the closing stages of the storyline I began to realise there were some problems. Without a detailed plan I might not have understood this until I had spent three months writing, which would have meant such a complete rethink that I would’ve either abandoned the story or ended up with something I wasn’t happy with. Instead, I stopped working and allowed myself time to think. Now the problems are resolved and it only took me a week.

I have two main characters, as before, though now they are no longer a couple at the beginning of the novel. The focus of the story initially is on Martin (his name may change, it depends if I get used to it). In the opening chapters we learn about what kind of person he is, and one of the defining aspects of his character is the regret he feels at ending a relationship he was in with Sonya. In fact in the opening chapter he attempts to contact her, though it has been over a year since they parted. As the story goes on we’ll learn about their relationship in much more detail.

Martin soon heads to one of the Greek islands in the Cyclades group in the Aegean sea, where he plans to spend the summer staying with friends while he works on a book he is writing to partner a TV series he hosts. Soon after he arrives, Martin discovers a spruce covered headland where a mysterious man lives, apparently alone, in a large house overlooking the sea. The man is a scholar, whose main interest is the mystery religions of the ancient world. He claims that the headland was the site of an ancient temple and that unusual things occur there.

This will probably turn out to be an unusual novel. I’m quite happy about that, in fact I’m starting out with that intent. When I say unusual, I mean in the sense that though the story I’m planning is essentially a love story, the way that I’m planning to weave it around the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone and the Mystery religions in general will make it resonate with readers in a special way. If all goes well, it ought to be one of those stories that transports the reader to an evocative setting, where the narrative both intrigues and informs and at the same time, perhaps most importantly, has emotional impact. It’s a big ambition I suppose, but without it there seems to be little point in writing anything at all.