Ever wondered where the initial planning, thinking, and formation of an idea for a book comes from? Well Tom Bale has shared some notes from some early planning alongside a note about how the inspiration for his brand new book Deadly Games came about! Keep reading below ⬇️
Like many of my ideas over the years, this one came to me late at night. Around one a.m. I was half-watching TV while working on another book. Something I saw on screen inspired the image of a vicious criminal who happened to be married to a woman who was both beautiful and good-natured. With such a pairing, wasn’t it inevitable that someone else would fall in love with her, with potentially disastrous consequences?
A rush of inspiration followed, of the kind that indicates you’ve got an entire novel, not just a vague idea that might soon slip from memory. My protagonist, Harry, was almost fully-formed in that instant: a middle-aged man, sweet and kind and somewhat hapless, but also in the throes of grief. His son died in what was deemed to be an accident, but Harry is convinced that my bad guy – Nathan – was to blame. The rest of his family want to accept the official account and move on, but Harry can’t do that.
And with that I had my story: Harry’s single-minded quest wouldn’t merely be for justice, but for revenge. And as if vowing to kill Nathan wasn’t dangerous enough, he compounds that danger by falling in love with Nathan’s wife, Erin.
Writing a novel requires a big commitment of time, so it’s often the case that a brand new idea, no matter how compelling, has to wait in line until a gap appears in the schedule. But in this case I was close to finishing the first draft of another book, and had nothing else lined up – which meant that just two weeks later (on the same day I completed that other first draft!) I dived straight into work on DEADLY GAMES.
In the first week I wrote twenty thousand words, and soon found that Harry and Erin were inhabiting my brain day and night, constantly supplying me with little extra details that I could bring to the next writing session. (Yes, this does sound bonkers, but if you’ve written fiction you’ll know that the characters can become as real to you as your own friends and family.)
Ultimately DEADLY GAMES was written during a productive but turbulent period when, frankly, an awful lot of things went wrong and not much went right, to the point where I began to resign myself to the idea that my writing career was over. Thankfully this unhappy period ended with an offer of publication from Boldwood, and now it’s a thrill to know that my first new book in five years will finally be available to read.
Get your copy of Deadly Games here: https://mybook.to/DeadlyGamesBook