Why Did I do That? A lament by Rhys Bowen

RHYS BOWEN: How many times does a writer create something she wishes she hadn’t? Or write herself into a hole? Or both? I have friends who have given their character a dog, only to get angry letters from readers pointing out that the dog hadn’t been fed for fifty pages and not walked in the second half of the book. I made that inadvertent mistake when I gave Molly Murphy a baby. She has to flee to Paris from New York and arrives there with the baby. Oh mercy me! She has to find someone trustworthy to leave the baby with when she’s out sleuthing. Then she has to rush back to breastfeed it jus when she's about to discover an important clue.

 Now I’ve written myself into a similar annoying situation in my new book, tentatively titled THE TEASHOP AT THE EDGE OF ETERNITY. 

 It is World War II again. My heroine is a Londoner whose house is bombed and she’s buried in the rubble. Rescued, taken to hospital, she is evacuated out to Lincolnshire on the East Coast. I wanted her to start the story with nothing. Absolutely nothing. And show her resilience as she builds a new life for herself. But here’s the problem: she has nothing. She has been given the basic toiletries—comb, toothbrush, washcloth and clothes passed along from the poor box, but I keep coming up with things she needs and she DOESN’T HAVE THEM. Nor has she any money to buy them. Her husband (the bully) is in the army overseas. He has a Post Office savings account she can't access (and maybe more money she doesn't know about) but she has no money in a bank. (She kept the household money in the teapot on the mantlepiece) She is injured so she can’t work. She is placed with a single woman who will feed her for now but… how did people survive? Where will she go from here? Was there a government hand-out for those bombed out of their houses? Lots more research needed here. 

But here is research I have done: since the story moves to a bomber base, I was taken to air museums and saw WWII bombers up close and personal!

 Here is the scene when the bombing happens:

In the middle of Sunday night she was awoken by the wail of the air raid siren. She sat up cautiously, trying not to bang her head on the table top above her. How far off was the siren? She was already learning when she needed to take action fast and when it was all right to get dressed and then decide if she needed to shelter. In the distance came the rumble of approaching planes and the sound of the ack-ack. The rumble grew louder. So many of them this time. Josie wondered if she was doing the right thing, staying put under her table. But then the first wave of planes was overhead. No time to go to the shelter in the Tube station now. 

    

 Suddenly there was a whooshing sound and a deafening explosion nearby. The windows were blown in, the blackout curtains luckily stopping most of the glass from flying into the room. Sooty air came around the shredded curtains. The smell of burning and brick dust. Instantly the sounds from outside were magnified—screams, shouts, the bell of a fire engine. “Some poor person on this street,” she thought and wondered if she should come out from the table to take a look. She was reaching out to find her slippers, mindful of the broken glass when there came a second whoosh. Then, almost instantly, an earsplitting blast. She was thrown back, the air sucked from her lungs as she tried to cry out. The world was falling around her. Bricks were raining down. Something hit her head and she knew no more.

 Josie opened her eyes to total darkness. It hurt to breathe. Something was across her face. My hair, she thought and tried to lift a hand to brush it away. But her arm wouldn’t move. She tried the other arm. Then her legs. Something was pressing on her from all sides. She was trapped. Buried. She wiggled her toes and was relieved that they, at least worked. So did her fingers. At least she wasn’t paralyzed, but the implication of where she was began to dawn on her. “A tomb,” she said to herself. “I’m in a tomb.” And she felt panic rising because she had been buried prematurely. But then she heard the sound of an all-clear siren, the closer clanging of an ambulance bell.

     “Help!” she called, trying to make a parched mouth work and force air into her lungs. “Somebody help me.” The latter phrase was stopped by a fit of coughing as she breathed in the dust and dirt that covered her. She tried to see where she was. She realized then that her house must have collapsed around her and she was covered in debris. 

Odd slivers of red light came in through the gaps in the curtains, creating a surreal glow through the layer of dust, but she couldn’t make out the table under which she had slept. Had she left her shelter before the bomb dropped? She couldn’t remember. And then, as she looked up, a sudden gust of cold wind stirred up the dust and it cleared for a moment, making her gasp. Above her was the night sky and she was looking at a star. She took it as a omen, a sign from heaven that everything was going to be all right.

So writers--have you ever written yourselves into a corner?  Readers, does it bother you when the writer doesn't feed the dog enough?  And what do you think of the title?