tragedy in story

I didn’t always know this book would have a devastating fire in it. It’s a covid book (obviously I’m a damn slow writer) and I cut out the idea of using any sort of disease or worldwide apocalyptic immediately. I rarely pull from headlines or personal tragedy.

I didn’t know then what I know now.

I also don’t usually write balls to the wall but I did to finish this book, a glorious mess of words in the week I had before vacation. I forgot many things in finishing the book. Characters. Plot threads. I forgot it all in lieu of trying to describe the aftermath of the fire.

Kind of like real life. Okay, not kind of. Pretty much exactly like real life.

The fire is a catalyst among many for my character to finally settle into what he needs to do. He’s a nobleman who needs to take back his land and his people, and yet he’s going to do it his own way. The fire enables this. That single event took away all the barriers he’d constructed in his mind to finally take his rightful place… his place. Not his parents. Not what the king expects. Not what his best friends and even his enemies expect.

If only tragedy could always have this effect.

Obviously it’s important for the story’s sake, but it’s important to me, too. It’s important to get it right. The action and nonaction. The time of not knowing. Learning the devastating truth. The noises and sights and smells. The rhythms of emotion. Those times you know you should be feeling something but all you have left is to sleep. It’s all stuff I know intimately. Even so, it’s already obvious I’ll spend more time revising this section than any other part of the book. That’s fair. It deserves it.

I owe myself that much. And I owe my readers too.