July 15, 2019
What was your hardest scene to write?
Spoiler alert: I’ll be revealing a minor plot point that extends over a couple of books in my mystery series. I don’t believe it will decrease the pleasure of reading the books if you haven’t already.
Those of you you have read the Harmony Duprie books know she is a logical person. Logical almost to a fault, in some instances. When I set out to write a scene where she allowed her emotions to have free rein, it was tough.
The set up for the scene took place in an earlier book, and I thought the extended time frame would help me gain the distance I needed to do a good job of including the emotion Harmony felt without getting too emotional myself. Yeah, I was wrong.
I’ve written a number of murders into my stories and Harmony has dealt with them in a rather detached manner. They weren’t anyone she was close to, so she was able to view them thru a researcher’s eyes. When her own parents died (before the story starts) she had friends in the community to help her.
That included the mother of one of her best friends who became a surrogate mother to Harmony for a few years. And that’s who I killed off. She wasn’t the victim of any of Harmony’s villains, the bad guy was an enemy that Harmony couldn’t beat. Breast cancer.
For the story, I had to have Harmony stay strong for her friend and break down at the same time. And that was tough. At least I had about 1000 miles between them, which allowed Harmony to remain calm on the phone while falling apart. Of course, once she got home and behind a locked door, her sorrow was released.
From The Contessa’s Brooch
Naturally, I wasn’t in the mood to hang out with the guys even after I got done with as much as possible. All I wanted to do was go home, drink a glass or two of wine, and ugly cry. I didn’t even feel bad when I told Eli he’d have to do supper on his own.
I was on my third glass when someone knocked. I decided to ignore it. My eyes were swollen, my throat hoarse and my nose red from blowing it. No way I wanted company.
But the knocker was determined. And had a key. So, when Eli opened the door and held his arms out, I let him wrap them around me while I cried more.
The thread about the death runs through three or four chapters, while Harmony is busy solving the current mystery. Jumping back and forth between logic and deep emotion was rough on Harmony, and on me. I shed a few tears myself.
But that isn’t the toughest scene I’ve ever written. In a story that will never be published, I killed off the main character. Writing her death and her funeral took several boxes of tissues. I knew readers would hate me, and rewrote the story with a happy ending. Even that version won’t ever be published- it simply isn’t good enough.
Now, I’m going to take a deep breath, shake off the doldrums, and head over to see what the other authors participating in the blog hop have to share.
July 15, 2019
What was your hardest scene to write?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
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I know the feeling, having the characters emotions overlaid on your own. It can be overwhelming at times.
My main characters, especially, are like good friends. When I hurt them, I hurt too.
As I mentioned on Richard’s blog, one agent told me never to kill off a character. It’s difficult not to though, when the story dictates it. I’ve re-written a couple of books so that the character lives, but even then some readers preferred them to die. Arrgh!
I think that depends on what genre you’re writing! Besides, I’ve been known to break a few rules in my time. 🙂
A character death should be because the story demands it — or in my case, the characters stops talking to you. I’ve found that whenever I decide this character has ended their story and I either have to send them on a long journey from which they will never return or kill them, that the plot then shows me all the possibilities presented by their death. I get frustrated when authors kill good (not necessarily nice) characters for no apparent reason (George RR Martin, I’m looking at you). There needs to be a reason other than just because you feel readers want to see blood. It advances the plot, it shatters the main character (or at least makes him/her vulnerable), it sends ripples out into fictional history, something. At least have their funeral be the reason two characters who hate each other reconcile or a couple meets and falls in love — something that makes that death meaningful.
I agree, the story has to demand it. just like i don’t write sex scenes- my stories don’t need them.
Yeah, mine don’t generally need them either. Death and violence are kind of a given in apocalyptic and high fantasy. Those swords aren’t there just for pretty.
Both of those situations are hard. But now I want to read the book where you killed off the main character!
No, you don’t. I promise! 🙂