DTD—447 words, in which my heroine scares me

By Holly Lisle

Okay. Aleksa is tougher than I thought. A lot tougher.

And scarier.

I got her story tonight, and the scare wasn’t the story itself, which made perfect sense in context.

It was this bit, right here.

“You can’t blame yourself—” Mike started to protest, but Aleksa stopped him.

“I don’t,” she said. “[Spoiler snipped.] I have never felt an instant’s remorse for what I did.”

This line changes her. Puts her in a different category of character. Still heroic, but darker. If she were a superhero, she could no longer be Superman. She’d have to be Batman—the Frank Miller Dark Knight version.

I ended it there, because now I need to think. I need to come to grips with the line. With her sea change. With the affect this has on the rest of the book. If you’re new to writing novels, you might not realize that a single line can divert an entire novel into a new channel, the way a single fallen tree can cause silt build-up, the creation of pools, eddies, and backwaters, and the shifts in erosion patterns that can over time change the course of an entire river.

So.

I’m thinking. Meanwhile…

How’s your writing coming?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved