The heroine faces two of her enemies, the atmosphere is tense, the reader isn’t sure what’s going to happen next… Neither, to be honest, does the author. All of a sudden, she finds herself typing inverted commas and a new voice joins the story: a weather-worn, elderly Devonian character, rifle under his arm and an Alswear wolf called Jack by his side. The author stops, bemused. Her finger hovers over the delete key. There isn’t supposed to be a character called Alan, but she rather likes him. She’d rather like to keep him. And so Alan survives, the heroine finds herself with a local ally and the author’s plan has to be adapted. Again!
Writing a novel, it turns out, is cannily similar to reading one, in my experience at least. Just when you think you know where it’s all going, something new springs out at you and the plot twists. For someone who’s spent much of her life writing formal, 'sciencey' stuff, it’s liberating, exciting and surprisingly addictive. It does, however, come with significant downsides including sleepless nights when the plot’s gone awry and the painful process of using that delete key when it doesn’t work out. When I first put fingertips to keyboard, ‘Kat’ was intended to be a story of love and revenge in the world of organised crime. Some may say it still is. You’ll have to take my word for it: the two stories are as alike as stilton is to edam.
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