Change of heart, mid-story.

The following post contains some spoilers for my future book, Night Falls. Don’t keep reading if you want to be surprised!

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I just finished writing a book. Well, a rough draft of a book, anyway. I’m currently letting it mellow before I start work on edits.

Two things occurred to me about the story and plot and also made me realize that a writer never writes in a vacuum.

First, I saw a post on Facebook about how when Inigo Montoya kills Count Rugen in The Princess Bride, he doesn’t waffle, he doesn’t say “I’m the bigger person and so I will spare you.” He says, “I want my father back you son of a bitch,” or, to interpret the line a bit, “you cannot give me what I truly want, you cannot undo what you did to me, and so nothing can save you.” And it’s so satisfying. There’s no feeling bad for Count Rugen. There’s no moment of remorse from Inigo. He’s been searching for the man who killed his father for decades and fallen into drunken despair over not being able to find him. And now he’s finally done it! He doesn’t know what to do next, but he did what he set out to do. We feel satisfied and hopeful for Inigo’s future.

In Night Falls, I have Ian and Sebastian pursuing a bad man. All the available evidence points to him being remorseless and not likely to stop. Sebastian has every intention of killing this man. Ian is reluctant, though she knows rehabilitation is unreasonable and incarceration is impossible.

I originally wanted to have the ultimate victory ring a little hollow, maybe not be as satisfying as Sebastian once thought it would be. But two things stopped me.

One, that Facebook post, and the moment in The Princess Bride it refers to. Sometimes, revenge just feels good. When an irredeemable bad guy gets what’s coming to him, there’s a sense of justice, a sense of karma. The audience cheers.

Now, I know what people might think: real bad guys are not irredeemable. Real villains are complex and have their own stories. Count Rugen is a bit of a stereotype and an unrealistic cliche.

Which brings me to the second thing that made me reconsider my plot: Real life. Real bad guys can be, in fact, unredeemable. Uncomplicated. Greedy. Nasty. Unlikely to be saved or turned around. I’ve known more than one child molester, murderer, drugged up thug who’s met an early grave, and I’ve never felt the least bit bad about it. There’s been more than one time I’ve heard about someone nasty kicking the bucket, and it’s actually brought a little smile to my face.

Now, the first time this happened, I felt weird about it. Like, that person sucked, but death isn’t something you should wish on anyone. They were only going to keep doing what they were doing, or get away with whatever they’d done, or not feel bad for what they’d done, but dying isn’t a good answer for a person’s sins, etc, etc.

But since then, I’ve realized: Sometimes shitty people die young. And it’s really okay. We all die. Death is a natural process that comes to everyone, no exceptions, and if someone shitty dies sooner than average, that’s not bad. And thinking so is nothing to feel bad about.

If that’s getting a little too dark for you, well, that’s okay. Everyone is entitled to their world view and ideals. Mine tend to be a little darkly pragmatic. I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist. Sometimes bad people mend their ways. Sometimes they don’t. Thinking that they all can and so they all will at some point is — to my mind — hopelessly hopeful. It’s not going to happen. Sometimes it’s better if those people meet an early end. There will always be more where they came from.

So I decided to put that in my book. Ian might be reluctant, but by the end, when the baddy’s dead and gone, she realizes that she feels better. He can’t hurt anyone else ever again. He’s been hurting someone she wants to consider a friend, and people that friend cares about, and now he can’t anymore. And she helped with that. For Sebastian, it still rings a little hollow, but not too much. He’s satisfied while still being unsatisfied.

The second thing that occurred to me about the story as a whole (remember there were two things at the start of this post?) was that Sebastian has a lot of fights in the book.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a fight scene. There’s nothing wrong with a couple of fight scenes. But Sebastian is a total badass. He’s just going to dominate. That’s enjoyable to an extent, watching a badass you’re rooting for kick ass, but a story should challenge the main character. Fights aren’t hard for Sebastian. He kind of loves it.

Emotional stuff, though. He struggles with that. He’s also got a darkly pragmatic way of looking at the world (wherever did he get that??), and he’s been doing better with feelings the last few years, but he doesn’t have his emotions nailed down. He has a hard time with complicated emotions.

I put a couple of emotional challenges in his way, but it occurs to me that there need to be more. That’s where he’ll grow and develop the most. That and learning to trust Ian to have his back. He’s not used to working with anyone else, and even if he trusts Ian, he won’t automatically change his fighting or hunting style to rely on her. That will be tricky for him to start doing, though he’ll see the benefit of it right away.

And that is what edits are for. I wrote a book, and now I can see how the story would benefit from some changes. As has been said ad nauseum, writing is re-writing.

Of course, the reason it’s said over and over again is because it’s true.

So let the re-writing begin!