Hopefully this makes sense to you. If it doesn’t, please contact me.
I’m writing a story set in a fictional, “European,”
country. The government of this
country is dictatorial. According
to the news media of this county, there are terrorists bombing cities and
towns. If you don’t believe like
society or the government, you and your beliefs tend to get called the name
they call the terrorists. There is
an underground Church in this country.
The main character, “Osbert Pickle,” is an itinerant
book dealer / book scout. Osbert is searching for someone / something. He lands in the capital city. It is the last place he can think to go
in order to find what he is looking for.
Another prominent character is, “Freitag,” a Christian, who is
coordinating, “help,” for Osbert Pickle. (This is a link telling what a book scout is. This definition is for a book scout in the modern world of computers. A book scout in my story is an old-fashioned one of an era prior to modern computers.)
I imagine Freitag and the network of people, who work
with him, performing behind the scenes something like the group putting on the
big sting in the movie, “The Sting”.
The whole idea is to help Osbert find what he is hunting without being
obvious about it.
I originally wrote that Osbert Pickle, learned about Freitag’s
bookshop by happenstance. That’s
how he learned about Freitag.
The bookshop isn’t listed in the phone book. The secret police have no knowledge of
Freitag’s shop, even though they not only keep track of people, but also ideas
(beliefs), and would know all such places.
I have in mind, that near the end of the book there is
a scene where, Osbert would look in Freitag’s window one last time. He doesn’t see
any evidence that a bookshop has been there except the outline on the floor in
dust where the bookcases were. I
also imagine that at some point the secret police look for Freitag’s where
Osbert said it should be, and they find an empty building.
There is much more to this story, than what I have in
this post.
Now for the questions...
Freitag is the coordinator of a network of
people, “helps,” who are
out to help Osbert find God.
I want to show Freitag coordinating this
group of people. He tells
them what to do amongst other things.
Freitag learns who Osbert is, and that he
is a book dealer,
AND, Freitag figures out that having
Osbert find a certain book
would help him. (I imagine this bookshop
to appear and disappear
something like the horse betting shop in
the movie, “The Sting”.)
1. Wouldn’t
Freitag tell his people to set up a book shop?
(Freitag: “We need to set up a book shop”...
Someone else:
“I have an empty building we can use”...Yet
again someone: “We can
all donate old books from our basements”...)
Wouldn’t he also check up to see how this
bookshop is coming along?
2. If Freitag
is a minister or Christian leader of some sort, how or
why would he know anything about
books? I need him to be
knowledgeable about books. He wouldn’t have time (along with
his normal duties) to cram, in a very
short time, and become as
knowledgeable about books, as I need him
to be. Could Freitag
have been a bookseller or some such, “in a
former life” (i.e. before
he started performing Christian
duties)? Could he have been raised
in a bookshop perhaps? Or maybe his former job was
librarian? Do
you have any ideas how to fix this
problem? (logistics)
Now for my main question:
3. If I
show the, “helps,” putting together a bookshop, “out of thin air,”
then how do I surprise, the secret police
and therefore the reader, with the
empty book shop building? I want to surprise the reader as I show
the police
guy being surprised as he finds the empty
shop.
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