All Aboard: A Guest Post by Eva Jurczyk
The quiet car is the perfect place to get some work done, and Agatha sets out to do just that on a six-hour train ride across Canada. But Agatha’s plans are derailed —literally — when the journey comes to a halt after a mysterious death. Read on for an exclusive essay from Our Monthly Pick author Eva Jurczyk on writing 6:40 to Montreal.
Paperback $17.99
6:40 to Montreal
6:40 to Montreal
By Eva Jurczyk
In Stock Online
Paperback $17.99
No WiFi, no distractions. No way out…
No WiFi, no distractions. No way out…
I heard a story once about the children’s book writer Kenneth Oppel. It’s that once a month he takes the train from Toronto to Montreal and back again, all in one day, and he uses the time as a self-styled writing retreat. I had just published my first novel and was working on my second, so I stole the idea, splurging on a business class fare for a couple of days after Christmas.
As in so many great stories, there was a plot twist. A day before I was scheduled to travel, a spectacular blizzard stranded the Toronto to Montreal train in the wilderness between those two cities. Well, not quite the wilderness, but far from a station, outside a small town. Some passengers were stuck for 18 hours without food or cell signal. Eventually some passengers busted out of the train to brave the wilds themselves.
When I boarded the train a day later, normal service had resumed, but the seed of 6:40 to Montreal had planted itself in my mind.
It’s such fun, writing a thriller. That night when I made it home from Montreal, my husband and I hashed out the initial ideas for a plot. What if the murder weapon was a – ? And what if the killer says – ? And one of the passengers is actually the – ?
But the best part of writing a thriller is after the first draft is done, when you’re working on drafts two through fifteen. There’s nothing more fun than going back and planting clues, planning reveals, sprinkling red herrings through the train car until the smell of fish is so strong that the reader will never guess the identity of the killer, even though they had all the information they needed to do so.
6:40 to Montreal is a modern story, but it owes a great debt to the story telling giants of the past. The mysterious Mr. Owen in And Then There Were None, is a masterclass in how to distract from the killer who’s hiding in plain sight. The time discrepancy in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to point to an unreliable narrator. It’s great fun to re-read a twisty mystery once you know the identity of the killer, to go back and see everything the writer left right under your nose and it’s even greater fun to be the writer responsible for sprinkling those clues along the reader’s path.
I hope you enjoy reading 6:40 to Montreal as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. All aboard!
