Out of Sequence

My project began as a collection of memories, memories of odd encounters and strange things I had observed about my reclusive father over time.

My brother and I lived abroad, away from our father who still lived in our family home in Nigeria, but periodically we would travel back for a visit or my father.

Always, something out of the ordinary would happen. Over the years, we met a revolving door of strange characters, from dubious associates proposing bogus business deals, to a set of priests and charlatans prophesying the prosperity gospel and warning of plotters and enemies of progress. My father stood me up at my wedding, and failed to show at years of family celebrations, always with outlandish excuses about a business deal in progress, and the promise that all with return to the way it was, when his wealth and status is restored. What are these business deals? Who are these people?  Our questions fall on deaf ears. Our father remains stubbornly silent.

I used all this material, weaving each of these encounters into a standalone chapter, writing them as I felt moved. The first chapter I ever wrote, what later became the inciting incident of my book and ultimately chapter one, was about an incident that took place in 1995 – a visit from a threatening stranger. I followed that chapter up with the horror of being stood up at my wedding in 2007, and then the meeting of a suspicious business partner in 1997. I just wrote, passionately, as the memories flooded my brain, not thinking about sequencing, timing or how to thread the narratives together.

I then spent close to six months embarking on some detective work – going through my father’s papers, passports, notebooks and his personal email (he had scribbled his password in one of his notebooks!) trying to piece together what had happened to him. I made a shocking set of revelations, of secrets, lies and an enterprise that extended over a 20-year period that destroyed him. I charted my quest, my discoveries and the revelations like a detective novel – using techniques I remembered from the mystery novels of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes.

When I sat back after all this writing, it was clear I had my inciting incident, the middle and the end but what about the beginning? Who was my father before all of this?

The last set of chapters I wrote were actually the beginning of the book – against a backdrop of economic and political change in Nigeria, I chart my father’s story from my recollections of the amazing stories he told and the many photographs he took. His climb from rural poverty to a life of education, business success and wealth.

So, now I had the pieces of my puzzle, but they were just that, pieces. I had to weave them all together, ensuring that the story flowed, that the time periods lined up and that I was foreshadowing appropriately in early chapters, what is to come next. THIS WAS THE HARDEST THING TO DO.

OK, so I am a marketing strategist by profession, I am adept at planning, figuring out how different tactics (content marketing, social media, influencers etc) line up to deliver an overarching brand message for a company.

I went back to the drawing board and mapped out my book in excel, slotting the chapters I had written into five distinct parts:

·      PART 1 –  The visit. This is my inciting incident that catapults the book into action and hints that something is not right with my father, something dangerous.

·      PART 2 – Back to the beginning. This is where I tell my father’s back story, his evolution from poverty and the early days of my family. The end of part 2 brings the story back to the inciting incident.

·      PART 3 – Strangeness and oddness. These are the original chapters I first wrote, recounting odd observations and encounters.

·      PART 4 – Discoveries. This is where I lay out all the shocking discoveries I make after my father’s death.

·      PART 5 – The quest for the truth. My description of the detective work I undertake piecing together all the clues, as I search for answers, for the truth.

For each chapter listed in each section of the book, I added a column in my spreadsheet for notes. These were notes to myself of things to add in each chapter to link the chapter to PRIOR and / or FUTURE chapters, to aim for seamlessness and continuity. My book spanned the years 1937 to 2019 so this was important. I dropped some hints, left clues and ensured that in later chapters, I reference memories or encounters mentioned in earlier chapters.

I am currently working with my writing coach on the fifth edit of my book. I hope all of this work I have done pays off, I hope she thinks it works, that I now have a book, not a collection of stories. I hope.

I will keep you all posted.