Sorry for the late post—I’m experiencing one of those cold viruses that makes your head feel like a balloon on a string and I’m currently trying to type this with my fingers on the keyboard and what’s left of my brain floating near the ceiling.
Let me know how it goes. . .
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In my current WIP are two characters who aren’t supposed to be alive.
One of them wasn’t supposed to be on-page at all—he was supposed to die before chapter four. But I delayed the execution for logical reasons (I hope) and then put it off until I decided whether it should be he or another minor character who would take one for the team.
To my surprise, they appeared to take this personally and began circling each other like territorial cats or a couple of immortals from Highlander,* determined to be the last one standing.
The potential death sentence was the only thing they had in common. One was a grifter and one was a retrieval expert. One made a living being noticed and one was a professional ghost. One was gregarious, the other laconic. One had a record and a reputation and the other one . . . was a mystery (especially to me). One of them demanded a POV, while the other leaned back and smirked, above such petty ploys.
They annoyed each other, goaded each other, and oh, man, the snark:
But somewhere along the line,they both became indispensable to the story . . . and maybe to each other.**
I kept switching between their playlists to the point where I finally shuffled them together. Again, this isn’t a complete list, but it’s a good approximation and roughly in the order they were added (click the pop-out player to listen):
I honestly don’t know if anything traditionally romantic will happen between these two—it doesn’t seem like any of my business, really. In the words of another character, “Maybe it won’t; [he] isn’t a man I understand . . . But he’s pretty protective of [her], whether she likes it or not. You didn’t notice?”
I suppose it’s enough that she does.
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*Or, continuing the musical theme in an unexpected and slightly embarrassing direction, NSYNC.
**Which doesn’t mean that I won’t have my death. In fact . . . hmmm.
Earful of Cider 