What We're Writing Week - Julia looks for disasters

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Like Debs, I'm also traveling today; not, sadly, to the UK, but to Washington DC to help out my sister. I was originally going to lend a hand to her booth at a street fair tomorrow; Barb is a Realtor and will be offering passers-by free photos of your dog with Snoopy. My sister is the sort of woman who owns a full sized Snoopy costume, as well as a Minion and a Gingy (from Shrek) costume. (She is, no lie, one of the most fun people on the planet.)

However, I'm also staying because her family has been under some sort of voodoo curse. Two weeks ago, Barb fell at a Ravens game she was attending with her oldest boy, badly bruised her face, broke two teeth (!) and concussed herself. Then, a week later, her middle son fell and busted his wrist in two places. So along with handing out real estate into and signing folks up for her mailing list, I'm going to be helping with housework and holding down the fort while her son is in surgery Monday.

This Series of Unfortunate Events - you'd hardly believe it in a novel - got me thinking about the role of disaster in fiction. One of the things I always do while planning elements of my next book is to ask myself, "What's the worst thing that can happen to this character?" Some times it's physical - a character breaks a leg in the middle of a murder investigation, or becomes addicted to amphetamines and sleeping pills. Some times, it's emotional - two people who can't be together fall in love. Some times it's taking a character who is perfectly competent in her sphere and dropping her into an environment she's utterly unprepared for. That's what I've done to Officer Hadley Knox, former California girl, in this excerpt from AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY.

 

The next blaze was different; a straight peeled strip with a bit of bark dug out on either side, roughly cross-shaped. What did that mean? She bent over, shielding her face for a moment from the relentless snow, trying to slow her racing brain enough to picture the chief making the marks. It's the first one he made. They had come up the long, steep slope of giant pines and climbed over a stone lip. Van Alstyne had said something about marking the trail while Paul was writing directions on her arm. Which meant the edge was right in front of her, a stone's throw away.

She strode forward. If she could just get over that bluff and start heading down the mountain, the militia would have at least two directions they'd have to search. When she got to the bottom and turned onto the old creek bed, they'd have to split their search again. Every turning would force more choices for them, and less chance of being caught for her. Of course, there was the matter of her being able to tell east from west when she couldn't see more than a couple feet--

She stepping onto air.

She screamed, cartwheeling wildly, tipped forward and went down, back leg dragging behind her, thudding, rolling, pounding. She hit a massive tree with the force of a woodsman's axe, all the breath exploding out of her lungs. She lay there for a time, sucking in air and crying and hurting all over.

Eventually, she rolled to her stomach, got her knees and hands beneath her, and clambered to her feet. Her hat had flown off somewhere along the way, and when she carefully shrugged free of her backpack, saw she'd the two side pockets were empty. Her water bottle and the gun, gone.

Shit.

Dear readers, what are the in-novel disasters that stick out in your mind?