I was looking at a passage from my seventh chapter yesterday (no, I'm not posting it; it gives away details I'm not willing to divulge). It's set at a villa overlooking the Aegean, and features several members of the terrorist group, the Covenant, relaxing. An operation the group has undertaken has just succeeded, and back home in the Middle East, anger and unrest is growing as a result.
It's a group of three women and two men, waiting for the return of their comrades. One of them is working. Two are suntanning. The last two, a couple, are frolicking in the pool. And as I read the passage, it seemed to me that these people could have gone down that road not taken. There's a history between these people, and oddly a friendship. There was just the right sense of a bond between them. I found myself liking the chemistry between them. And I wondered how things might have been if I hadn't decided to, oh, turn the lot of them into a pack of ruthless terrorists. Oh well.
Other thoughts: I've been writing an unnamed British Prime Minister, who will return through the book, and writing him oddly as a rather good person. I don't know the current PM David Cameron well enough yet to know if he fits the part. My PM is written as a man who, in the wake of an assassination, will not throw senior security officials to the wolves or ask them to fall on a sword. He takes a page from the Harry Truman school of thought: the buck stops here. If only real politicians could be like that.
Down the line, I'm thinking some Brits might be saying, "That's very kind of you to write our Prime Minister as having such fine character." While others will be ranting, "Oi! You 'ave any idea 'ow much of a wanker he really is, guvnah?"
It's a group of three women and two men, waiting for the return of their comrades. One of them is working. Two are suntanning. The last two, a couple, are frolicking in the pool. And as I read the passage, it seemed to me that these people could have gone down that road not taken. There's a history between these people, and oddly a friendship. There was just the right sense of a bond between them. I found myself liking the chemistry between them. And I wondered how things might have been if I hadn't decided to, oh, turn the lot of them into a pack of ruthless terrorists. Oh well.
Other thoughts: I've been writing an unnamed British Prime Minister, who will return through the book, and writing him oddly as a rather good person. I don't know the current PM David Cameron well enough yet to know if he fits the part. My PM is written as a man who, in the wake of an assassination, will not throw senior security officials to the wolves or ask them to fall on a sword. He takes a page from the Harry Truman school of thought: the buck stops here. If only real politicians could be like that.
Down the line, I'm thinking some Brits might be saying, "That's very kind of you to write our Prime Minister as having such fine character." While others will be ranting, "Oi! You 'ave any idea 'ow much of a wanker he really is, guvnah?"
My response to the former will be "Thanks!" And to the latter, of course, it will have to be, "Well, my version is a fictional character. And could you repeat that in English?"
Writing the Canadian PM, however (assuming the jackass who's currently in the office is still around; perish the thought), I would definitely have to make a clear distinction. I'm thinking the Prime Minister would have to be a woman. I don't want FrankenHarper getting any ideas that I'd approve of him.
Writing the Canadian PM, however (assuming the jackass who's currently in the office is still around; perish the thought), I would definitely have to make a clear distinction. I'm thinking the Prime Minister would have to be a woman. I don't want FrankenHarper getting any ideas that I'd approve of him.
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