Tandra Page 1088, April 18, 2010

Created on 04/18/2010

by Hanther

Knowing where to find ideas is not the problem. Choosing from the plot inspirations that are available is the issue. Some plot springboards are more complex than others. As example, ideas can arrive from news of the day or from research into historical events or even from other pieces of fiction. Many times I can read a story and my reaction is, “That was fun, but wouldn’t it have been interesting if the writer had taken the plot in a different direction.” Then there’s the following;

I knew this really pretty girl when I was in high school. She had a great figure and is the only person I have ever known who had no indention from her forehead to her nose. Hers was the perfect Greek profile and, on her, it looked damn good. She was a good friend and I saw possibilities the friendship could progress to something more, but I was graduating and my folks were moving to another state and I was looking at art school. We met one Sunday after church service and I told her good-bye and wished her well. We didn’t even kiss. Then I went away and never looked back.

The girl did not cross my mind for some thirty plus years. Then, a few weeks past, I began to think of her. Ghod only knows why! I couldn’t even remember her name, but she was in my mind constantly to the extent I could think of nothing else. I still cannot understand the mental deterioration that brought her back to my thoughts with such persistence. There is no temptation of actually making the effort to find her after all this time. She has changed as have I. We are not the same people. But if I could have gone back... and a story was born!

I have on file a political intrigue married with international espionage plot I had planned for someone else to write. It had to do with a President, with a murder in his past and his handlers attempting to shield him from the consequences of the investigation of that murder. The plot was inspired by the Ted Kennedy episode. The bones of the espionage plot had a national security agent from Washington returning home after fifteen years to visit his best boyhood friend who had married the girl they both dated. The friend who is to meet the Washington agent at the bus station fails to show because he has committed suicide. The agent does not believe the suicide story for several good reasons and his personal investigation leads to a revelation his friend’s older sister who was thought to have killed herself way back when was actually murdered. The story implicates the President’s relatives, local law enforcement, political handlers, the White House staff and foreign government officials as well as heads of state and multinational oil interests.

All I had to do was plug my long ago high school heart throb into the political espionage tale and I have a Tandra story ready to go. The plot even fits nicely with Senator R. Miles Haggerty as the ethically challenged Presidential aspirant in question.

It’s a story to put on file for future reference as the Tandra situation to date is not properly aligned to conditions for this particular story, but be assured the tale is set for the near future and Miss Shayne Taggart (my fictional name for the lost love of my high school days) is waiting in the wings for her days of fame and glory.

Stay tuned.

May the sun always shine on your parade!

Next Week; “Ambition And Vanity”

Tandra...more than escapist fantasy, it’s a revolution!

Hanther

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