I hate flashbacks - especially in those TV shows where they've gone into the fifth season and they're struggling to keep it fresh. They'll show someone covered in flour head to foot with a meat cleaver in one hand and a tube of superglue in the other - then they cut the scene with a banner saying 'yesterday morning' and proceed to tell you how the character ended up in that situation.
If you're going to do a flashback - make it linear, that's what I say. So, instead of having all the characters facing mild peril and then flashing back to 1985 to find out how they got there - I'm starting with 1985 whilst leaving a key fact out. Not that you'd notice until it's revealed later.
Six characters - six monopoly peices, but what's interesting about that? Not a lot - until Troy brings Simon (a new lad) to the game. Nobody really takes to the new lad, which makes Troy even more protective of him. They get the monopoly board out and Troy allows Simon to be the hat - in stomps Gavin, late yet full of fun - which changes when he finds he is not allowed to have the peice he always has at these monopoly nights. And so begins his journey from jolly fat kid with no self awareness and a penchant for bizarre behavour to bitter morbidly obese megalomaniac misanthrope. Hilarity ensues or something does.
Once the game is over, Nina finds a Ouija board in the games cupboard but no planchette to use with it. 'Why not use the monopoly peices?' And so, the demons of silver sands are invited into the closed circuit of the holiday park, bringing with them an array of strange phenomena. Being summoned by small pewter board game counters only adds to the oddity and in turn, each who used a counter in summoning the dead shall forever be tied to its destiny.
As you can tell, the plot is still being developed. All or none of the above will appear in the final book. Or will it...
