Often a story will come from an image— from a dream, a magazine or in this case Pinterest. The first time I saw the photo, a shiver ran through me. I’m not prone to shivers and there was no rational reason for this one, the image, for many, reasonably mundane: it was that of man in silhouette, blurred in rain, and holding an umbrella. I started collecting similar images, the germ of a story festering at the back of my mind. Do germs fester? The C17th had a pithier term for a tune that you couldn’t get out of your head: maggot, one that will turn into a fly and buzz there non-stop.
Back to ‘Umbrella’ the working title of something I should finish in ten months or so. I’m 12K in so no going back.
Starting is the important thing and allied to that, the actual ‘beginning’—one that hooks from the start. Getting back to the ‘festering,’ two villains gradually emerged, Sabine Richter and a Bulgarian occultist called Rykov. The next problem was motive. Even villains need motives even, perhaps, a redeeming point or two. And somehow, I need to incorporate rain in all its many forms? A Bulgarian rain demon anyone? Google is your friend.
The story begins with Sabine Richter on the run from Castle Wewelsburg, the centre of Heinrich Himmler’s occult obsession. Sabine is no angel but it’s hard not to feel sorry for her when she jumps from the frying pan—Himmler— into the fire: 1937 Newport and the magician Rykov.
The next crucial ingredient was the first victim. There’s going to be lots of them, but the first one is crucial: the initiatory sacrifice. The sacrificial lamb proved the hardest part of those first twelve thousand words. The name came easily; it shot through the mind as though it had been waiting there all the time: Daphne Long.
Poor Daphne, created as a convenience, a means to an end. A sacrifice has to be made, and she’s it—blood the universal currency of demons. But of course, she’s flesh and blood, and she’s more than a name. She has to be.
Dispatch her without backstory and the reader has no reason to care either way. And this is the weirdness of writing though at the same time predictable, you become invested in your character, in this case Daphne Long from Potter Street in Pill.
I put the killing off for as long as possible, googling needlessly into the mechanics of cutting a throat, the tactile and physical experience. But avoidance activity can only go so far. The day at last arrived, a hot Saturday morning. Daphne’s last few moments on earth.
After it was done, I stared at the screen and felt blood on my hands, for it was me that had killed her, Rykov and Sabine the puppets. I’d felt the warm flesh, sinew and cartilage, experienced the blood. And now I sat in a cloud of guilt and seller’s remorse. Murder never comes easy.
RIP Daphne Long.
4 comments:
RIP Daphne Long.
I've done numerous research into the best way to cut throats, hang people, etc. No one should look at my Google search history. And I once read somewhere that remorse after killing a character off is a real thing! Read that after killing one of mine off, haha!
Hope you're keeping well 😊
re: googling needlessly into the mechanics of cutting a throat, the tactile and physical experience.
I can only hope MI5 knows you're a writer and not a mass murderer doing his homework.
DRC brought up something that could be useful. How does the killer feel after the fact?
PS Since "Umbrella" is only the working title, you might want to consider giving it some gravitas in the real title. Maybe like the 'Wicked Umbrella', or something equally perverting.
DRC, My Google search history is equally dubious— and you’re right. It’s the characters you kill you remember, rather like books lost
Maria, MI5 would have a field day but the searches are so eclectic they’d have some trouble profiling 😎 .
Ref title that will come of its own accord. Umbrella was just to name a document I could easily find because I’m essentially lazy 😀
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