The third book in my Song of the Towers series, also named “The Song of the Towers”, is so close to being released! And yet while I had the copy edits sitting in front of me, and I was doing a read through, I came up against a fight scene that just didn’t feel quite right.
But I didn’t know why. I knew it bothered me. I knew that it was almost there, but I wasn’t sure how to fix it.
I then started to wonder if I did need to fix it. Was I over-thinking it? Was it actually fine? Should I just do the final copy edits and go to print, or…
But…
Maybe…
I can’t explain why it felt weird. Why it wasn’t quite right. It bothered me. I read the scene through again. I read the scene aloud. I made some changes. I read it again. It was better, but not quite right.
Then, in true style, I shoved the whole thing into a drawer and started a new book. It was also Christmas, with the crazy that went on with that, as well as having the kids at home for school holidays, and it was summer, so I jumped into the ocean and went camping and did my best to forget about it. Except that I still had people pinging me in my messages (when is book 3 coming out?)
The other night I woke at 3am. My daughter was awake, said she couldn’t sleep, and it was ridiculously hot. I helped her go back to sleep, but I lay awake on my phone, playing games. Finally, by about 4.30, I was exhausted enough to try again. I lay there, eyes closed, and began to think about my characters. Erin, and her deep desire to fix the world around her, to save what could be saved, to shout at the world and say “why not” when people told her she couldn’t do a thing. And I began to think about what motivated her. I began to think about how she was just a small character in a big world and how the sorcerers were just so much stronger than her, and so much more powerful, and numerous. And I considered the fight that frustrated me.
Then I had it. I had why the fight bothered me. I had what I could do.
Did I write it down? No, I went to sleep.
In the morning, I was irritated that I hadn’t reached for my phone to write down the notes, and yet when I pulled paper toward me at breakfast, it came pouring out. I could fix this, and it wouldn’t take much, just a few tweaks here and there and suddenly the decisions that Erin made were right for her, not for me, and that was the crux of the matter. I might have had the idea of how the original scene played out, but it wasn’t true to the characters, and once I’d made that realisation, the rest was easy.
(image from King Arthur movie – actually nothing like Erin’s fight, to be honest, but it’s a cool image and I like Charlie Hunnam)