Ok, back to work. I just downloaded a character sheet and I've got a lot I need to do, but first: My MC sees dead people, like in The Sixth Sense. The reason he can see them is that he's been dead himself, flatlined for three minutes as a result of [anaphylactic shock, ATM], but was successfully resuscitated. This gives him a connection to The Great Beyond. He figures he can make a business of this, contacting dead relatives and such, but he soon finds out that ghosts usually don't hang around, so he's got very little income stream, which leads him to- -fraud. The story won't be noir, but I want to write him in the model of one of the dodgy noir private detectives who is fundamentally not a bad guy, just around some bad stuff, so he has three interrelated lines of business: 1) Legit communication with spirits. Doesn't happen often, but can pay well (wealthy widow who forgot where the safe deposit box key was, ghost told him, instructed her to reward him.) 2) Fraudulent spirit communication. He needs to maintain his reputation, can't tell too many clients "Sorry, you're husband is gone, that'll be five bucks," so he'll use research and some cold reading techniques (which I'm researching now) to provide comfort when there aren't any ghosties about. For a modest fee. Really, modest, he's got bills, but a conscience as well, and he's not out to ruin anyone for his own gain. 3) Homeopathic, gluten-free, charmed-quark, spiritually-neutral energy drinks (little vials of distilled water) and such. This provides the bulk of his income, and he sells them only to those who can afford it, mostly younger women with well-off husbands and too much time and Jenny McCarthy on their hands. This provides the bulk of his income, and he is strictly ethical about it, does all of his potentisations with legit starter ingredients (there's a legal reason for this, not important here) and again, doesn't sell them to anyone who can't afford them. Now, I can show any one of these, possibly even #1 and #2, in an establishing scene. I've got one half-written where he thinks he's cold-reading a widow when her late husband shows up growling in his ear "What do you think you're on about, sonny?",but the meat of the story is when he goes to do an exorcism (related to #2) and finds a femme fatale and Big Bad that he didn't know even existed. I've got scenes for each of the three income streams, but even if #1 and #2 are combined, putting in #3 feels kind of like shoehorning something in. Eliminate it like a darling? Save it for after encountering the dame? Money, or the lack thereof, is a big driver of the story as he ends up incurring a financial obligation that he really can't afford, and is magically prevented from shrugging. Even writing this out helped a bit, but any suggestions or questions are very welcome.
Yep, whack it. Easy call. The other stuff all fits thematically and can riff off each other fairly easily, I would think. The energy drinks are in their own Venn diagram circle thingie. You could still do it, but it will require more work and extraneous narration to support.
I think this fits quite well with the rest of his business. I could totally see some new ager coming to him all, "Do you have any more of those drinks? I have a hard time maintaining my the colours of my aura without their spiritually neutralizing effects. Do you think that's why our last seance didn't work as planned? Maybe I should get some crystals to help out.... " It'd be like the popcorn to his theatre.