Random Pen

Phineas Gage was the unfortunate man who first gave neurologists the clue about lateralised brain hemishere function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage)
Do this
What would this story have seemed like to an observer of the time? A fictionalised Gage could be the centre of a mystery set round the early railway expansion. Or you could move the action to Northern England where the railways first started. Or to India or South America.
Or you could go with brain-damage-induced personality change. perhaps someone from the victim’s past life reappears and is shocked at the change, and connects it with a series of violent assaults.
The point is to keep your eyes and ears open. and anything that occurs, note it down. some of it will never go anywhere, but somewhere in the midst of your ideas Book may be the germ of something that will grow into a great forest oak.
If you use this or any other idea from my Ideas Book, please acknowledge the source.