Twist the Knife

Our characters hate us. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. It’s a hazard of this job we’ve chosen, and it’s one we usually accept without complaint. But this time some of our characters are ghosts, and, well… we don’t want to be haunted, you know? Nevertheless we persist — for you, dear reader. It’s all for you!

We know that, intelligent and discerning bibliophile that you are, you don’t want to read a novel about pleasant people who experience nothing but joy. Apart from being unrealistic, it wouldn’t be very interesting.

So when we’re hammering away at the plot rainbow, and we reach a decision point like, “Should Istvan Von Rupert crash his custom zeppelin, or get food poisoning from eating raw snails?” the answer is usually “Yes.”

The above example introduces physical peril for poor Istvan, but in our books he’s actually more likely to face emotional or psychological turmoil. So, “Will his wife leave him, or will he lose his job?” might be a better illustration. And again, the answer is probably “Both.” No matter how much we might like Istvan (which really isn’t very much, but that’s beside the point), we need to complicate his life for our own amusement, and yours. The scuzzier the decision feels, the better it generally is. And anyway, aren’t ghosts supposed to have tumultuous backstories?

A writing partner is someone who will help with the exorcism that will inevitably result from pissing off the ghosts as much as we’re planning to.