The anxiety over the death of a fictitious
character
I was on chapter six of my new story
yesterday and I came to the part that I was dreading to write. The story was in
the Hippolyta series, and between the one that is published Hippolyta,
[Ultimate loyalty] and the one I am now writing there are another seven
that read in sequence.
In the time that I have been writing
these stories about Hippolyta, I have had her fighting against and with the Hun.
She has fought with and against the Alans. She defeated the Goths and the rogue
Vandal general and his army, just to look after the trade route that ran from
the Orient in the east, to Britain in the west.
I have written 90 chapters, and 480.000
words about this most fierce queen of the Amazons. As silly as it might seem I have
ridden next to her in all of her battles and they are many. I have watched her
lead her army of fierce warriors into battle with the Hun, bringing generals to
their knees. I have not just written these stories of her and her exploits, but
lived every chapter and paragraph. My imagination has taken me east of the
black sea to war on the plains north of the Caucasus Mountains in the realm of Hippolyta.
She lived in the middle of the fifth century, and she was a person I pulled out
of mythology and gave her a real life.
I knew a long time ago that what I did
in this book would be inevitable sooner or later. I had to kill Hippolyta, or
to be more precise allow her to die. I never realised how attached I was to her
until her death scene and her last words. I knew the reality was that she was
fiction and I could erase her death and rewrite a recovery, but I thought that
by doing that I would be trying to cheat death. My story in my mind was so real
that I knew that I could not cheat life and time or go back.
After I did it I felt a great feeling of
remorse and anxiety as if she was a real person. I felt no different after
writing her death than I did when my real life wife passed away seven years ago
and the sensation spooked me a little. In my mind she was a real person to me,
because I created her and nurtured her through all of her battles. It was me
and not her faithful barbarian, Danilo that found out the secrets of her
enemies, to relate to her at her council fires. It was me that dedicated my
life to protecting her and placing her a day in front of her enemies.
She was Hippolyta, queen of all Amazons,
and it was me that was mesmerised with her exploits. It was me not Danilo, who
was sitting near her while she made her battle plans. I was living the story I was
writing. I could imagine the smell of the pine forests she made camp in, and coughed
when the wind blew fire smoke in my face. My imagination has no boundaries and
they are only mine alone making me unique among many.
When starting her stories I had no idea
what would take place, only that another nation of warriors wanted her realm. Her
battles were always as much of a surprise to me as they would have been to her
had she been real. As I would be writing I would rest for just a few minutes. It
would be then when my imagination would take me a few paragraphs forward, and a
battle or crisis would be there for her to deal with. My first story about Hippolyta
which is now published on Amazon as an e book I have to admit is a good story,
but I don’t think it compares with the seven that were written afterwards.
She has carried out horrific punishments
that existed in the time. I had made her so real in my mind that I at one time I
sat back and called her a wicked bitch out loud. I then laughed when I realised
I was so deep into my own story, and it was not her carrying out these horrific
punishments but me. I have moved on to another chapter and hopefully I can
leave Hippolyta in the mists of time, as I move forward with her daughter. Hippolyte,
queen of all Amazons.
Be well Ian.
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