From My Hard Drive: Sextortion
This one is a weird blast from the past... Many years ago, I read some FBI reports on "sextortion," which is, of course, the pervy practice of luring girls (sometimes boys, but usually girls) into doing something regrettable on a webcam...and then blackmailing them with that information into doing worse and worse. It's a grotesque crime in so many ways, and I thought that maybe there was a book in it. I mapped something out, but I was never really happy with it. One of the characters, though, would have been Flip, the anti-social, egoistic slacker/hacker from Hero-Type and the star of my upcoming novel Doxxtown. I thought you all might like to see the ending of the pitch I'd been working on, after Flip has helped two victims connect to a third who might hold all the pieces of the puzzle... With Flip’s help, Brianna and Cammie get in touch with Valerie, who wants nothing more than to forget she’d ever gotten on the internet in the first place. But soon, she comes into their group, tempted by the one thing in the world that means more to her than anything else: The possibility of revenge. Now, Brianna, Cammie, and Val are no longer individual, scared girls. They’re a team. A force. What follows is a harrowing cat-and-mouse game over the internet and in the real world, as they coordinate a plan to uncover their tormentor’s identity and stop him. They're prepared to do whatever it takes, to sink to his level and lower, if needed. Prepared to pull the plug on his connection. Prepared to smash his computer to shards of glass and plastic. Prepared to take a baseball bat and a tire iron to his kneecaps, if necessary. Whatever it takes to stop him. They are, in short, prepared for everything. Everything, that is, except for who he is… (This piece comes from my newsletter, which goes out monthly. For more stuff like this, and to get it first, sign up here!) Read the full article
