IF SOMETHING IS WRONG IN YOUR WORLD, REMEMBER IT COULD ALWAYS BE WORSE

MAY IS HOSTED BY Hand in Hand, DONALD MAASS'  TWEETS ON CREATING THE PERFECT NOVEL ;)  and SECTIONS INSPIRED BY THESE:

Lev Grossman
Is obsessive serious? *hehehe

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #96

Something’s wrong in your story world. It’s a whirlpool. Who else can be sucked into its vortex? Do it

“Minister Tone? What about Marl’s trial?”

“Really, Larette" he asked with a patronising smile, "My dear, Larette, what relevance would a trial have upon these proceedings?”

He looked so confident. Dependable. I gave myself permission to hope it had all been a stupid misunderstanding. “The trial?”

“Is over.”

“No one was called to give any evidence.” I looked around to make sure we were alone. The speed of the proceedings had been too hasty. What if people talked? No one must ever say that Minister Tone showed favouritism to his son. “Don’t you think someone should have discussed the Rule of Law in there?”

If anything his smile became wider. I could feel cheeks tightening as if I wanted to grin at him too. “To be quite honest, Larette, I don’t think anyone troubles themselves with technicalities like that. Not anymore.”

Slowly, his words were translated from vibrations into concepts in my mind, and I realised what he had said. “Isn’t that actually wrong?”

“Pragmatic, I would say.”

While I looked towards the door and wondered when Marl would be allowed to walk through to join us the minister shook out his purple robe and smoothed it to make sure it fell in perfect folds to the ground. “Sir - You - No one asked Marl what happened.”

He raised his head, nodding and smiling and clasping the gilded badge of his high office over his contently rounded stomach. “Every question we needed to ask was answered in full.”

“No one asked–”

The centre of the First Minister’s forehead peaked into spikes that were so unlike the gentle curves shown by Marl’s lie detector. “Larette, you should stop now. You are drawing attention to yourself.”

I stared around. We were the only people in the gleaming corridor or the Palace of Justice. Somehow, my mouth kept on moving. “Can I ask what the verdict was?” I said, shaking my head.

“Guilty. Of course.”

“How could he be?”

Minister Tone stiffened, his face smoothed into a perfect and unpleasant mask of fake civility. “Larette, love cannot turn a wrong into a right. Democracy is not enough. Only a deep and abiding respect for justice will serve here. Any justice flies above your sentimental grasping for the mythical rule of law.”

Is something wrong in your story world?