On writing Sharpe
.
So last night I was writing a new Sharpe fic. It's currently set a few years on in the Convergent universe, but I may change that*.
In the story so far, I have Sharpe dead drunk, being hustled out of danger and left practically unconscious while stuff happens elsewhere. And then I typed,
"May I join you?" fully intending for this line to be said by the tavern keeper to the man posing the serious danger to Sharpe. Then this happened:
"Surprised, she looked round to find Richard standing in the doorway."
And I'm sitting here with my hands still on the keyboard like "WTAF, that simply isn't possible. How is he doing this? Literally five minutes ago he was too drunk to stand up."
And Sharpe just took over the scene, simply insisted on it, and now I have to decide whether to change the first bit - which I like a lot - or the next bit - which I also like - or just write my way out of it. I do have some ideas for that, which play to Sharpe's extraordinary mental strength, so that's probably where I'll go.
I'm quite used to characters writing themselves, and let's not forget that Sharpe as a character is strong enough to write himself into a relationship with Lucille against Bernard Cornwell's explicit intentions, so he obviously has form, but I'm not used to characters doing something so completely off the wall as to stand firm against an adversary and speak confidently to him when five minutes earlier they couldn't stand up.
~ ~ ~
*By the very name of the series, it's implied that there will be a happy ending, and that's definitely my brand. I don't want to screw over the people who are invested in the series - supposing there are any - in confident expectation of a happy ending. But on the other hand I've never really seen the relationship as portrayed in Convergent as being successful in the long term. They're simply too different in their attitudes to life and they really don't know each other as well as they assume they do. But whatever, at some point I'm going to have to decide which way to go.
So last night I was writing a new Sharpe fic. It's currently set a few years on in the Convergent universe, but I may change that*.
In the story so far, I have Sharpe dead drunk, being hustled out of danger and left practically unconscious while stuff happens elsewhere. And then I typed,
"May I join you?" fully intending for this line to be said by the tavern keeper to the man posing the serious danger to Sharpe. Then this happened:
"Surprised, she looked round to find Richard standing in the doorway."
And I'm sitting here with my hands still on the keyboard like "WTAF, that simply isn't possible. How is he doing this? Literally five minutes ago he was too drunk to stand up."
And Sharpe just took over the scene, simply insisted on it, and now I have to decide whether to change the first bit - which I like a lot - or the next bit - which I also like - or just write my way out of it. I do have some ideas for that, which play to Sharpe's extraordinary mental strength, so that's probably where I'll go.
I'm quite used to characters writing themselves, and let's not forget that Sharpe as a character is strong enough to write himself into a relationship with Lucille against Bernard Cornwell's explicit intentions, so he obviously has form, but I'm not used to characters doing something so completely off the wall as to stand firm against an adversary and speak confidently to him when five minutes earlier they couldn't stand up.
~ ~ ~
*By the very name of the series, it's implied that there will be a happy ending, and that's definitely my brand. I don't want to screw over the people who are invested in the series - supposing there are any - in confident expectation of a happy ending. But on the other hand I've never really seen the relationship as portrayed in Convergent as being successful in the long term. They're simply too different in their attitudes to life and they really don't know each other as well as they assume they do. But whatever, at some point I'm going to have to decide which way to go.