Secrets Revealed

Kidron Valley, Israel

Tomb of Abshalom, Kidron Valley

After a spell where I wasn't writing much in my solo work in progress (long story that I'll explain some other time), I've found my muse again, and have gotten back into the writing. From here on in, it's a matter of writing towards the end game, so to speak. What I've called the Very Bad Thing (no, I'm not telling) has happened, and the fallout has led to shots already being fired between opposing armies.

Where I've recently left off before the weekend was a scene that spanned three pages, at the end and beginning of two chapters, and it was a difficult scene to write. My main characters, along with a group of police officers, meet with a man in a hospital during a building crisis, a man who has information. He's also dying of cancer, and has a few weeks at most to live.

When I introduced the character early on, I knew I'd be bringing him back for just this purpose. He's held onto a secret for a long time, for what he honestly felt were the right reasons. Now, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, he realizes that secret might well have something to do with how it was accomplished, and he wants to unburden himself to the authorities, to make it right. Call it what you will; a guilty conscience put to rest, though the man himself is guilty of nothing.

I knew as I started writing the sequence just what kind of information had to be conveyed in the scene. What made it difficult to write was another matter entirely. The patient is in pain, wanting to keep a clear mind so that he can tell the authorities what he knows. And so he's refraining from sedatives and painkillers, despite the pain it causes, until he can reveal his secret.

I wanted to write him and convey that pain. That meant clearly showing a man fighting against the disease in his body, trying to rally the failing strength to speak. And writing this character meant doing something that was difficult on a personal level. As I wrote the scene, I was reminded of my late brother, who passed away several years ago of cancer. It's actually the second time in the book I had that experience; an earlier character reminded me very much of him.

Now the scene is written, and my group of spies are armed with a very big piece of the puzzle they've been putting together. Where they go from here is a matter yet to come. I'm enjoying writing it though...