The wrong hotel

I am writing a further novel in my Radwinter series, and as usual, my main character Thomas Radwinter has been commissioned not only to do legal work, but also to do genealogical research… this time into the mystery of what happened to four young women at a summer  boarding school in 1931; two died in what appeared to be rather awful accidents, a third fell under a train at a railway station, and a fourth died of yet to be established reasons. A further two died in a strange accident twenty-two years later… and one just disappeared…

As well as those sort of problems Thomas is set to solve, he is often asked to investigate other peculiar things, once it was to find a woman who jumped out of a car at a junction and simply vanished, another was to find whether a Moroccan friend of an elderly lady meant her any harm, and more recently he solved the mystery of who left lilies on a 1942 grave…

In my latest novel, Thomas has also been asked to investigate a haunting at a local hotel… not his usual line at all, and in fact a friend wondered if his brother who is a vicar might be better dealing with it! Thomas visits the hotel, and before I wrote this part I pondered for quite a while on what the hotel would be like… I have the story line that happens there, I just needed to finalise the setting…

I went up to the front door which was set back beneath a curving porch with space on either side; it looked homely and welcoming, more like a bed and breakfast than an actual hotel… not that I’ve been to that many of either… Originally there must have been another inner door, but that had been removed and I stepped into the reception area; and then it did look a little more business and less domestic like.

There was a wide, generous, lovely hallway, which must have been a wonderful feature when it had just been a home. To the left was a room which was labelled ‘breakfast room’, on the right another which said ‘guests’ lounge’. Beyond the guests’ lounge was an open space where the actual reception desk was. An elegant staircase lead up, presumably, to the bedrooms. Originally, as an ordinary home it must have been a graceful and generous area, there was almost room for a dining table and I could imagine maybe at party time one had been put here with a buffet laid out.

There was a pair of swing doors on the other side of the stairs, but they looked more modern, and rather horrid. A sign said ‘bedrooms 1-8’. There was no-one about but there was the faint sound of music from somewhere. There was a bell on the desk, but I didn’t ring it; I’d messaged to say I was going to be here, but no-one had come to greet or welcome me. I looked into the breakfast room and lounge; typical hotel décor, furniture and  colours, pastel, boring, old-fashioned… In a way rather horrid…

I went through the swing doors. On the left was a doorway marked ‘kitchen’ and straight in front of me was  ‘dining room’. There was no-one in the kitchen. I could imagine it as an ordinary home kitchen, but now it was all stainless steel and clean and modern – well, modernish. There was a faint smell of bacon and kippers, but no sign of anyone about to cook dinner. The dining room was clearly an extension to the original building, and in a rather awkward way, led through to bedrooms 1-8. I walked through the dining room, ghastly carpet, traditional old-fashioned place settings on the white table-clothed tables.

This si the very, very first draft of what no doubt will change a great deal, almost notes really…

As I was walking home from town, my mind on my book and not on the rather cold onshore wind, I mulled over the story… and it began to dawn on me that this hotel wouldn’t do… it just wouldn’t do for my story… it was the wrong shape, the wrong age, wrong design, in fact everything about it is wrong! I had been trying to fit my ideas into the hotel, and they just wouldn’t fit, even though I tried to manipulate and tweak and alter them… No wonder i was having no luck with manipulating, tweaking and altering… it’s the wrong hotel.

I am going to go back to the story, cut out (but save somewhere else) this wrong hotel, and start again with the right hotel! it is so tempting to soldier on with an idea, especially if you’ve written thousands and thousands of words… but sometimes you just have to be firm with yourself, and just cut it out!!