It has recently occurred to me that I am starting to manufacture my own tropes - recurring themes. I seem to have developed a bit of a thing about towers - the romantic gothic kind - there's one in the book that has just gone to the publisher and one has sprouted in the new WIP. Also vintage clothes - both Nadine in A Wedding on the Riviera and Megan in The Villa in Portofino have vintage outfits. This is a bit strange, because IRL I don't have any vintage gems in the wardrobe - well only ones that have got that way all by themselves with the passage of time. I do love the old styles though - vintage Hollywood in particular. I've also been used to having my own in-house couturier service which may have had something to do with it. Sadly this is no more, but there are still plenty of "designer" things in the wardrobe and I can still get into most of them.
The most disturbing repetitive trait, which I noticed some time ago and have tried to curb, is a startlingly high incidence of people falling from great heights, usually with unhappy results. Despite murdering people in a variety of other ways, pushing people off buildings seems to be my method of choice for sudden death. I was congratulating myself on a murder that I haven't used before for The Villa in Portofino when it occurred to me that there were also three other instances of falls - two are off cliffs and only two are fatal, but even so ...
I'm pondering this, without much success. A therapist might be able to help? Why is falling my default setting? I must admit I do have a bit of a thing about my balance on staircases and I did manage to break my wrist pitching off the front steps while putting out the recycling, so maybe that has something to do with it.
I'm going to have to watch what I am doing in the WIP - that tower has to stay romantic, not deadly.
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