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Sometimes things go in threes.
I was reading THAT scene in my second to last book, in order to get back into it so that I could do the necessary edits. Then I come here onto the board and read the thread about the darkest scene you’ve read.
So here's the third. What I want to talk about is dark and hard scenes, because THAT scene in MY book is still fresh in my head, and it’s possibly the toughest scene I’ve written. This doesn't fit into the other thread, so hence a new one, with a new focus.
There are so many things going on in THAT scene.
Do you know that death can be very still; almost serene. This at the same time that it crumbles your inside and trash your brain. You stand outside, looking at how you fall apart - yet there’s this calmness. This serenity. This big quiet with bird song and fluttering butterflies and sunshine and buzzing flies on bloody rags of bodies. This I wanted to capture in this scene.
The scene is the pivotal one which launches my male teenage MC into his story arc. He has disobeyed his father who sent him to urgently fetch help to protect their village from an army that has appeared out of nowhere. But the MC makes a detour, because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, particularly his father, and it means he doesn't arrive to get the help quickly enough, and he's injured and even more delayed.
So, the pivotal scene comes when he’s coming back to the village, and he’s got a fair amount of guilt and trepidation already. And as he walks into the commons and see the bodies of everyone he’s ever known, liked, disagreed with, argued with, loved, hated lie strewn around there’s this stillness even as his eyes register every detail of what he sees, so that he can replay that every moment of every night and blame himself.
I think that’s the darkest, and toughest, scene I’ve ever written. It balances so between despair and melodrama and incredulity. But I think I pulled it off.
What’s your darkest or worst scene?
I was reading THAT scene in my second to last book, in order to get back into it so that I could do the necessary edits. Then I come here onto the board and read the thread about the darkest scene you’ve read.
So here's the third. What I want to talk about is dark and hard scenes, because THAT scene in MY book is still fresh in my head, and it’s possibly the toughest scene I’ve written. This doesn't fit into the other thread, so hence a new one, with a new focus.
There are so many things going on in THAT scene.
Do you know that death can be very still; almost serene. This at the same time that it crumbles your inside and trash your brain. You stand outside, looking at how you fall apart - yet there’s this calmness. This serenity. This big quiet with bird song and fluttering butterflies and sunshine and buzzing flies on bloody rags of bodies. This I wanted to capture in this scene.
The scene is the pivotal one which launches my male teenage MC into his story arc. He has disobeyed his father who sent him to urgently fetch help to protect their village from an army that has appeared out of nowhere. But the MC makes a detour, because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, particularly his father, and it means he doesn't arrive to get the help quickly enough, and he's injured and even more delayed.
So, the pivotal scene comes when he’s coming back to the village, and he’s got a fair amount of guilt and trepidation already. And as he walks into the commons and see the bodies of everyone he’s ever known, liked, disagreed with, argued with, loved, hated lie strewn around there’s this stillness even as his eyes register every detail of what he sees, so that he can replay that every moment of every night and blame himself.
I think that’s the darkest, and toughest, scene I’ve ever written. It balances so between despair and melodrama and incredulity. But I think I pulled it off.
What’s your darkest or worst scene?
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