Recapitulation and Coda

This is going to be very short because I’m very busy.

I’m coming to the end of the first draft of Humphrey and Jack and I’m very excited. I am holed up in an isolated cottage in the Peak District. The setting is beautiful but apart from three trips to the pretty village of  Tideswell for food and booze, I haven’t been anywhere. I was going to go to Chatsworth, but no. I am as a man driven. You won’t believe me but I have not even been to the pub at the bottom of the lane.

I only turned the telly on once, to watch University Challenge on Monday. I have not seen the news other than the usual hyperventilations on Facebook. Same old. I feel the better for it.

I’ve just completed writing a series of police interviews which have necessarily brought forward lots of clues which I carefully planted earlier in the novel. That’s why I call it the recapitulation.

Tomorrow, I shall start on the coda. I hope this final chapter will spring quite a few surprises. In Martin, I changed to the present tense at the end. Readers tell me that the gear change was smooth and unobtrusive and that it accelerated the action and added to the lyricism of the last page.

In this book, I am going to try this again but I am going to do something even bolder, which is to bring in a totally new character and change the point of view completely. I’m hoping this modulation will be satisfying.

I am dreaming of a corresponding change in the kind of camera angles, shots and movement when my book becomes a blockbuster movie.

Dreaming is healthy, right?