Never meet your heroes
People say you should never meet your heroes.
But what about your characters?
Alright, so it’s not a question most writers have to deal with. After all, they can’t meet their characters – at least not in the form in which they appear on the page.
Project Black Hungarian is a little different in that respect. Indeed, one of the things that makes it stand out from your standard novel is the fact that the people in it are very definitely real. Not only do they exist in flesh and blood; they also took part in WAVE 2013.
Alice N.York and I started writing PBH shortly after that particular expedition came to an end. For almost nine months, I carried an image of the participants in my head. I thought about how they spoke, how they behaved, how they interacted with one another.
Gradually, I got to know them. I spent so much time with them that it was impossible not to. They became, for better or worse, part of my day-to-day life.
Then, almost a year on from signing the contract, after months and months of toil, I finally met them.
Did the meeting live up to my expectations?
Stay tuned in the next few weeks to find out…