A Change of Profession (and Pants)

I don't know what the pants thing in the title is all of about. Just felt like being silly, I guess.

Anyway, I am thinking of changing Mara's profession in Paramnesia from an FBI agent to just a regular art teacher who happens to conduct her own private investigation of the ACC murders.

One of the main reasons for this is that I'm not even sure if the FBI ever has anyone work undercover when they investigate a murder. And even if they did, Mara's cover, as a temporary art teacher, doesn't sound plausible. At the same time, I don't want her to be an in-your-face Special Agent either, because that makes her inaccessible to Gavin. He is very intimidated by law enforcement officials, and anyway, Mara would be more severely treated for being too familiar with a suspect than I originally intended. The biggest reason is that I have no idea what to write next. I'm stuck, and it's at a part where Mara is going to have to exercise her authority as an FBI official. I don't know what can happen from there.

Now, when I consider her being merely just an interested party, I have many ideas for what could happen next.

Of course, a middle path I could take is that she is a psychological consultant for the FBI. Still an FBI official, but also a civilian, and still accessible. Nobody has to know to who she is except the FBI. Now that I think of it, I need some kind of psychological authority in this story anyway. Kincaid's specialty is forensics, so he isn't right for that sort of job, and Berkley definitely isn't (there's a reason I've nicknamed him Jerkley.) And Stark is going to die, so...Mara would be my only choice.

So, two choices:

1.) Psychology consultant (I need to double check at fbi.gov to be sure there is such a thing - but if there's linguistics and mathematics consultants, why not psychology?)
2.) A mere interested party who investigates the ACC murders on her own time a sort of Nancy Drew in this respect.

And if we want to go Nancy Drew, then the consultant is a good choice too. All that her job contract allows her to do is interpret evidence collected by Special Agents, not collect that evidence herself. Of course, she, being the subversive nonconformalist she is, will overstep the boundaries of her job contract and do a little sleuthing of her own - when the FBI isn't looking, of course.

When Mara finds a clue, she'll have to plant it where the FBI can find it, instead of pointing it out herself - like Elizabeth in Dead Man's Chest having to yell "What's that?!" before the crew of the merchant sees the "heavenly sign" she has given them to get them to sail to Tortuga. That weird comparison shows you how tired I am.

Okay, so I'm changing Mara either to an FBI consultant or a civilian. Good enough. All in a day's work. Bye!