Ghostwriters Beware!

Often, people ask me about my writing and if I can help them with ideas to start their books. Writers-to-be can grasp themes from multiple sources: their experience, dreams, imagination, research, news, etc.

An example follows below:

A man wanted me to become his ghostwriter.

“I will pay you well,” he said.

The man then asked me to meet him in person. His voice was soft, as if he were whispering, although he was articulate as if he had rehearsed what to say on the telephone. We lived in the same city, so I agreed to meet him in a Starbucks, as he suggested.

The man paid for two Cappuccino. We sat at a round table in a corner by the window. I sipped my coffee and studied the man. He looked boyish with greenish, innocent eyes. He looked absent, yet nothing about him struck me as strange. The man told me he wanted his story to be about a real-life yet-not-solved crime. He called the crime ‘The Incident,’ and I suspected that would be the book’s title. The man spoke the same rhythm as on the telephone call: soft, articulate, calm, almost whispering.

Yet he talked about the crime with a particularly disturbing, passionate discharge.

As he spoke about the crime, I remembered learning about it on TV and other media. It happened a time ago, here, in the same city. Investigators have not yet found clues leading to the murderer. The victim was a writer at the beginning of a promising career. The horrific details of the crime moved public opinion, as the victim’s body had been dismembered, with signs of cannibalism. Pieces of his heart and liver were found in a trash bin, clearly half-eaten. The media suggested that a coyote could have attacked the writer; however, this hypothesis was soon discarded—no coyote could have ever done that kind of damage to a human body.

“I want the book to read like a confession,” the man said.

“A confession,” I answered approvingly.

There was a long silence.

“Tell m…m…more,” I said, suddenly feeling groggy⸺; my tongue felt thick and heavy.

“How did I get him?” The man jumped at the question he had asked. He was referring to the victim.

H…Ho…w? I mumbled.

“I called him by phone.” the man said, “I told him I needed a ghostwriter and suggested he meet me in a Starbucks.”