Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery

by | Dec 14, 2020 | Murder Mystery, Sausalypso

I recently finished writing my third play, “Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery,” and soon, I would be working with my local community theater troupe, the Tam Valley Players on casting and rehearsing — if this were a normal year. 

But it’s not. I’m happy with the script, and disappointed we won’t be performing it anytime soon.

Indulge me here with some back story: Seven years ago, after I moved into my wife’s house in Tam Valley, I looked for ways to get connected with the community, and I suggested to my wife that we go to the Tam Valley Murder Mystery Dinner Theater. She had never been.

We showed up at the Tam Valley Community Center, a mile from our house, ate dinner at a round table with eight other audience members, then enjoyed the play. Halfway through the second act, one actor gave the audience instructions: Choose a table captain, review the suspects and clues, and mark your ballot indicating who committed the murder and why. 

Then an actor walked down into the audience with a microphone, and gave each table captain a chance to make their accusation. The accused declared their innocence or deflected the accusations. Then came the reveal, where the actors finished the play and we learned who did the deed, and the how and why.   

One woman at our table was married to one of the performers, and we got to talking, and she said, you ought to audition, and the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve now performed in six murder mysteries, and four years ago, I wrote and directed the play.

This past February, after our two weekends of performances, I pitched writing next year’s show and got an tentative OK — if I agreed to direct it, too. I started writing just as the pandemic was taking off. 

We had no idea of what was to come, so I kept writing, holding on to hope we’d be able to perform it at our usual time, early next year. 

I did host two zoom readings this fall — one with family members, another with the Tam Valley Players. There were glitches and rough patches, but I was thrilled to see and hear how the words come alive. I could imagine what it could be on stage, which only made me more disappointed and impatient.  

Then I thought, what if I turned it into a novel?

Here are some photos of the houseboats in 2020, walking distance from my house. Back in the 1970s, they were a lot more ramshackle.

 

So I tried. 

I turned the first four scenes into four chapters, which didn’t take long, then shared them with my writing group. They had read two drafts of the play and had been extremely helpful, and full of praise.

The novel chapters, not so much. It doesn’t feel like a novel, they said. They were right. 

Somehow I had harbored this delusion that transforming the play into a novel would be much easier than writing a novel from scratch. Add some “he saids” and “she saids,” toss in a dash of description and internal monologue, and it’s ready to go. 

Definitely a delusion.

But I’m not starting from scratch. I have memorable characters, tight and witty dialogue, and a fascinating story that’s based in part on real events — how in the late 1970s, Sausalypso city leaders tried to evict the ramshackle hippie houseboat community, and how the houseboaters fought back with civil disobedience, street theater, and middle-of-the-night monkeywrenching.   

The story is often the hardest part, and I have the story. Or at least the main plot. 

But I do have to treat this like a new project, not tweak or rewrite. After all, the play is only about 16,000 words, and even a short novel, like The Great Gatsby, is 50,000 words. That’s a lot of “he saids” and “she saids.”

I hope to share a chapter or two with you in the new year. And maybe, with some combination of luck and discipline, on opening night of the play in February 2022, there will be a stack of my novels for sale on the back table of the theater. Certainly something to aim for.