Still working on revamping my TTMM (time travel murder mystery), and I am still hitting a brick wall when it comes to "whodunnit." Usually I don't want to discuss too many details because you never know who might read the story, but fuck it... I need help and if I write out all my ideas, it might help me find a way.
The story is about a mathematician, Tess Tilson, who invents the time machine for a mundane reason- to travel back in time and save the singer/keyboardist from her favorite band, Jason & the Astronauts (originally I called them the Rattlesnakes, but Astronauts is a play on Argonauts, taking into account that Jason is a major sci-fi nut), from his tragic death- being hit by a train on the outskirts of his small Southern hometown. When Tess travels back and warns Jay about his death, he's out drinking with his bandmate/best friend/romantic partner (unbeknownst to Tess at the time), Rod. While Jay ends up avoiding his death, Rod ends up being hit by the train in his place, and while Jay was very drunk and is traumatized from watching the person he loves die in front of him, he insists that he saw another person in the pines ringing the train tracks, a person who pushed Rod onto the tracks. Tess has no way to confirm that it was a murder based on the original timeline, because Rod went silent and basically retreated to a private life after Jay's death, so there are no reports or anything from him claiming that Jay was murdered. But she believes Jay's eyewitness account and agrees to help him find who might be the murderer.
In my original idea, the murderer was Jay's ex-girlfriend, Olivia, who had been childhood sweethearts with Jay in high school and was jealous that Jay had seemingly replaced her with Rod, not to mention that he'd broken up with her halfway through his band's tour- after having invited her to come on tour with him in the first place. Then again, the original idea was just a short story, where Olivia was the only suspect, Jay confronted her and she confessed, and the story ended around that point. When I decided to expand it to a novel, I went to a friend for help, and I've got to say... while I do love getting advice from friends, it almost never works out when one suggests a crucial plot point (I'm not throwing shade at my friend, just saying it's never worked out well for me in the past and yet I keep doing it). Anyway, the suggestion was that Jay was murdered by a fan, and I liked the idea of the fan from the past being a foil to Tess, who went to extreme lengths to save Jay's life, while this fan went to extreme lengths to take his life. But after writing it, I realized it was extremely problematic for a mentally ill character to be a murderer. Plus it was a total deus ex machina- like, the identity of the killer was revealed out of complete nowhere with no foreshadowing. So now I have quite a few other options:
-A fan still targets Jay/Rod, but because they're homophobic, not because they believe the band is taunting them through song (which was the original explanation). The fan would be a foil for Tess, and would also prove to Jay that his hometown cares about celebrity after all, which is why Jay stayed in his hometown in the first place- he didn't want to be bothered and constantly recognized by fans. Problem: this would still come completely out of nowhere, since I have no idea how and where to introduce such a significant character into the plot.
-Tess is the unintentional murderer, as she travels back to the spot where Rod dies in an attempt to save both him and Jay (since Jay is, understandably, very broken up about it), and she ends up accidentally materializing right by Rod, who is then thrown down the hill onto the train tracks. Optional ending: when Tess realizes what she's done, she runs onto the tracks to try to save Rod, but the train hits both of them. Problem: I want Rod & Jay to end up happy (in the original story, Tess does go back to subdue the murderer now that she knows his identity, saving Rod & Jay and stranding herself in the past in the process). Not to mention, I feel like it's an incredibly overused trope in time travel stories, where the time traveler is the one who did something significant that you don't realize until later, except in the case of this story, you would realize it immediately because the trope is overused.
-Jay murdered Rod, also unintentionally- after Tess took Jay outside and they had a private conversation, Rod was unhappy because he thought (since Tess was dressed provocatively to try to lure Jay's attention) that Jay was flirting with her and wasn't committed to him, despite the fact that the entire reason Jay invited Rod to stay with him after their tour ended was to prove how committed he was to the relationship (after seeing how quickly Jay seemed to discard Olivia, Rod didn't want to end up the same way), and so instead of walking happily to cross the train tracks like they did in the original timeline, Tess's presence caused Rod to argue with Jay about it, and in the heat of the moment, Jay either pushed Rod, causing him to lose his balance and fall onto the tracks, or he ran away and Rod ran after him, not noticing that the train was about to arrive. Due to trauma, Jay can't take responsibility for his actions (now that I'm thinking about it, even if I don't use this solution, it might be interesting to have Jay as a suspect for murder), explaining why he has "In the Pines" stuck in his head and has weird dreams about it (in the original story, there's no explanation for that, I just like throwing in weird supernatural stuff related to music when I write stories). In this version, Tess would still go back to break up the argument between them before one of them dies. Problem: again, I want Rod & Jay to end up happy- in fact, there's no point to writing the story if they don't, I feel- and also, there would be no reason for why Jay died in the original timeline.
-Rod also had a girlfriend/fiancee who Jay knew nothing about (because Rod is an extremely private person), who followed Rod to Jay's hometown and, after accidentally killing Rod (it's dark in the forest and Rod & Jay look slightly similar from behind), pretended to have just arrived in town for the funeral. She tries to finish the job by killing Jay, and because Jay is about to die, Tess goes back in time to apprehend Rod's fiancee and save Jay's life. Problem: not only does this make Rod look like an ass for not breaking things off with his fiancee before going to live with Jay (and if I say she was extremely possessive and couldn't deal with the fact that Rod broke up with her, for a man no less, then that could run into the "crazy ex girlfriend" trope that I really want to avoid), but it's also introducing yet another unnecessary character, and it's a little unrealistic- after killing the man she loves, how could she live with the guilt? Why would she keep quiet?
-Someone close to the band ordered Jay killed after they found out about his relationship with Rod. This is definitely the most unrealistic option and I'm probably not going to use it.
I am so lost in plotting this story, but I really want to make it better than it was. I've fleshed out all the characters so much more, especially Jay & Olivia, and I want to rewrite it so badly.
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