Deus ex trunk (or trunchina)

How many stories employ a dusty trunk (or jewelry box, legal boxes, etc.) to spark action? From Little Women to The Lake House, characters find treasures that affect plot. Well, I have two trunks right out in the open in my house that I’ve procrastinated organizing for years. Let’s open the one in the library.

Valuable treasure

That Operations Management textbook did cost a pretty penny when I needed it for class. And it’s good to know that I’ve got an extra surge suppressor. What’s that peeking through from beneath the stained, leather-covered chair bottom?

Somebody’s Boy Scout uniform.

This is my father’s or brother’s old Boy Scout uniform. A real treasure! I’m optimistic of what I’ll find when I dig down later this spring.

I hope to deal with the other, intimidatingly-full chest in the den sometime this year–or at least by 2022.

Too much. I can’t even.

How might I employ trunk magic in my own writing? I’ve begun outlining a new novel Charts, the sequel to Maps. At the end of Maps, heroes Andrew and Matthew had secured staterooms aboard The Iridessa to chase villainous Carmela Liotta up the East Coast (in a parallel world). Will Matthew open the trunk in his berth? I think so!