Hi everyone!
Last week I did one of my semi-regular (as in, irregular) AMAs on Twitter (Or, Ask Me Anything). As always it yielded some interesting questions, but there’s one I’ve been pondering since.
For those who haven’t read it, my third novel, Final Cut, opens with our main character, Alex, driving over the moors towards Blackwood Bay where she intends to work on her documentary. It’s winter, and she’s forced into a ditch by the presence of a dead sheep on the road in front of her.
Although my answer to the question was flippant, and brief (‘Loads!’) I’ve been thinking over the weekend about how that scene in Final Cut evolved. I thought I’d share the tale.
Like many scenes, it began with a true story. One winter in the late nineties (‘98 or ‘99, I think), some friends and I booked a cottage in Robin Hood’s Bay, where we planned to cook food, drink wine, sit around roaring fires in the local pubs, play party games, drink more wine, and generally see in the new year in style.
And so there we were, sitting in a pitch black car, on a pitch black road, in the middle of nowhere.
For those who aren’t familiar with Robin Hood’s Bay, it’s a tiny fishing village on the coast of the North Yorkshire Moors, tucked into the cliffs between Scarborough and Whitby. To reach it one has to drive over the moors themselves, a largely flat area of heather moorland dissected by a handful of valleys and traversed by a number of mostly fairly minor roads. It’s an atmospheric journey at any time, but particularly in winter, which is of course why it suited my purpose for the book.
Most of us had spent Christmas with our parents, and so we were travelling separately. I was car-sharing with two friends, and for some reason we were running late. This meant the last stage of our journey, across the moors themselves, we undertook in darkness and without the benefit of street-lighting. The road ahead was illuminated only by our headlights, and without the benefit of a bright moon (it was cloudy, if I recall) everywhere else receded into murky blackness. ‘Atmospheric’ rapidly became downright ‘spooky’’ but the roads were empty and we were in good spirits as we got closer to our destination.
I was sitting in the rear as we approached a cross-roads, a junction of the two major-ish highways. My friend Simon dutifully slowed, but the moorland was in darkness in all directions and it was obvious that no other vehicle was using the road we were about to traverse. He pulled out, but as he did so the car stalled, the engine died, and the lights went out.
And so there we were, sitting in a pitch black car, on a pitch black road, in the middle of nowhere and half-way across the only busy-ish road for miles, blocking the oncoming lane. We could see nothing, and we ourselves were invisible in the darkness. Simon turned the key, the engine growled lazily, but nothing else happened.
…by the time we were visible it would be too late to slow in time to avoid a crash
Then, of course, the seemingly impossible happened. A car appeared, approaching from the right, travelling at speed along the road we were now half blocking.
I recall the moment distinctly. I looked out of the window as the headlights approached, on a clear collision course with us. ‘Of course the driver will see us and slow,’ I thought. ‘We’re not in danger.’ But then I realised that we weren’t visible, the person in the vehicle would be barrelling along as we had been, secure in the belief that the lack of light on the dark road ahead meant there were no other vehicles to worry about. Yet there we were, blocking the path; by the time we were visible, picked out in the headlights of the approaching car, it would be too late to slow in time to avoid a crash.
Simon tried the engine again, to no avail, and my friend next to him in the front passenger seat began to panic. Luckily though — perhaps precisely because I was completely unable to help due to where I was sitting — I somehow had the presence of mind to calmly say, ‘Simon, turn the ignition and put the headlights on.’
He did so, and also the hazard lights. Suddenly the road ahead was illuminated, but more importantly our car, which hitherto had been invisible, suddenly shone like a beacon, bright as a lighthouse. The approaching car slowed to a stop, Simon turned the key once more to try to get the engine started, and this time it worked. He shifted into first gear, and pulled away. Disaster — for that’s what it would’ve been, if we’d been hit — was averted, and we drove the rest of the way to Robin Hood’s Bay without mentioning what had almost happened.
The objective truth, even where such a thing exists, is no longer what’s important.
I was an aspiring writer back then, and not even one who wrote very much, truth be told. I probably had a notebook with me, but I didn’t write anything of what had happened in it, and even if I had, that notebook is now lost. So, this wasn't ‘research’. It was just something that happened, or in fact nearly happened, to me. I didn’t even think about the incident that often; it was all over in a few seconds, truth be told, and though my mind returned to it occasionally, and increasingly less frequently as the years went by, it was just one of those near-miss moments, one of those, gosh-we-were-lucky-I-wonder-what-could’ve-happened things (much like the time I nearly stabbed myself in the eye with a pair of scissors, but that’s a story for another time perhaps…)
For some reason, though, the experience went in deep. It was there waiting for me when I needed an opening for Final Cut. And so when I wrote that first draft, the story I tell above is pretty much exactly what came out. Alex was driving alone, of course, but everything else — the car stalled on the crossroads, the vehicle approaching at speed — remained pretty much as it had in my memory.
But over subsequent drafts the story began to evolve. The truth of what happened was slowly replaced by a fictional version of events that better suited my purpose and the needs of the story. Soon, Alex’s car no longer stalled, but instead the body of a sheep brought her to a standstill, and questions began to arise about how that sheep got there. The approaching car went from being the instrument of Alex’s (near) downfall, to her rescue vehicle, though later she’d begin asking questions about why exactly the driver was travelling that road at the precise moment she needed rescuing. In short, I took reality and adapted it for my own purposes, whilst (hopefully) retaining the emotional truth of the incident, the way it’d made me feel.
And I think that’s what’s important about research. The emotional reality is what has to resonate. In Before Go to Sleep, for example, I did a lot of research around neuro-psychology and read a great deal about amnesia and the way memory works. But then, with that done, I disregarded a fair bit, if not most, of it. My guiding lights were feelings, not facts. I always said, if a memory expert or neuropsychologist were to tell me that something I’ve written isn’t quite accurate, that’s fine as long as the reader believes it. Though I myself trained as a scientist, I no longer work in that field. The objective truth, even where such a thing exists, is no longer what’s important.
Anyway, for those interested, I thought I’d share some of that early draft of the opening of Final Cut. I’ve pasted it below, and share it with the usual disclaimer about it being very much ‘first draft’ stuff, so please don’t judge it too harshly. Anyway, I hope you like it.
(PS You can buy final cut here.)
Options spin, I could try again to start the car, I could open the door and run for it, I could sit here and scream, or else roll myself into a ball. But which? No one option feels better or worse than any of the others and time is running out. I freeze, unable to decide, my limbs suddenly mutinous. Then, in slow motion, as if through a frame, I see it happen. The oncoming car hits me, a fireball, a glorious explosion, or maybe something more humdrum. Metal on metal, cars spinning 'til I'm face down in the ditch, my legs crushed in the compacted footwell, the steering column a bloody mess in my chest. Whatever, whichever, there'd be no way I'd walk out of here. I turn the key again and this time, even though the dashboard lights, there's no response from the engine at all. Now the ground gives way and I float. In a moment I'm sure I'll hurtle forwards as the oncoming car hits. I see Dan getting the news -- though I'm not sure who would tell him -- and my mother -- she'll be devastated, and angry -- another daughter to bury -- and then I flash briefly on my funeral -- I've written no will but there's not much to leave anyway, not really, the only money I have is what my mother sends me -- and then... and then...and then...
No. Something, some defiance, toughens within me. No, this is not how I die. I don't know how I'll go, or when, but it's not today, not like this. And then from nowhere the answer comes. I scramble for the key one more, my palms now slick with sweat, then turn the ignition. The dashboard lights again, and this time I don't even attempt to start the engine. Instead I switch on the headlights; the road in front of me lights up, and beyond it the ditch, the hedge, the fields in the distance. The Arctic Monkeys fire up, too, back to the furious rush of track one. It startles me, but I ignore it. I look out of the window. The headlights are still approaching, but I'm pretty sure the car is now decelerating. I wait, and a moment later I'm certain. It's braking, slowing down, and then finally it's stopped. I see then that it's a big car, far bigger than mine. It's black, glossy. A four-by-four, I think. A Range Rover, something flashy, something I imagine Dan envying. But it's motionless now, and I finally release the breath I've been holding for hours. I'm going to be alright. I'm safe.
I try to gather myself. My legs are shaking, my heart pummelling my chest. I'm not ready to get out yet. I look out to the stationary car and watch as the door on the driver’s side opens. A man gets out, then he's coming towards me, silhouetted in the light of his own vehicle, his breath misting the air. It occurs to me that I might not be out of danger, alone out here, but he's wearing a suit, and though I know that means nothing, part of me is relieved.
A moment later he's in front of me, on the other side of the glass. He leans in. His hair is not long, but shaggy, mussed by the wind. He has the beginnings of a beard that for a moment reminds me of Dan, just a little. I try to wind down my window but my hand trembles.
'You ok there?'
His voice is muffled, wind whipped, deadened by the glass that still separates us. But I can hear it. It's deep, friendly. His smile is warm, too, though I may not be thinking straight.
'Yes.' I get the window open. I have to look confident. I can't have this stranger sensing my fear. 'I stalled, or something. The car cut out.'
'Bad place for it.' He holds out his hand. His grip is firm, his skin smooth. I can see him properly, now. He's in his forties, I guess. Maybe forty-five, but well preserved. His face is broad, his eyes dark and set deep under heavy brows. His chest looks powerful, even under the heavy jacket. He glances at the vacant passenger seat then looks at me.
'I'm Bryan.'