In Stonechild, the statues have telepathy. I was standing in front of the Royal Tank Regiment Memorial statue, and an idea popped into my head. It was like a form of telepathy. It wouldn’t go away. So, I discussed the desire to write the book with my family, and that we would have to manage financially.
Being an ex-copper, I treated the project as I would have treated a major incident in the police. My office at home became my incident room. Files for each of the characters, and a spreadsheet for their interactions with each other. A large sheet of MDF went up on the wall and pinned to it, a map of London. I marked the locations of the statues, and if in the story they were going to go somewhere, I detailed how they would get there. During all of this, I was playing out scenes in my head and developing traits for my characters.
I made two, week-long trips to London, took over five hundred photos, and walked and timed the journeys made by the characters. If the main character, Molly, was to climb under a bridge using some scaffolding, I did the same to see if it was possible, sometimes under the cover of darkness! Often, I would stand in front of a statue imagining how it would come to life, and what it would look and sound like. With Boudicca, I had to think of how she, her daughters, and the hoses and chariot would leave their concrete plinth and the effect of them crashing down onto the road.
I needed to have Molly and Charlie’s parents out of the way, so they took a plane from Heathrow and flew to South America. That led me to introduce my love of airports, which are full of emotion. At the same time, Alcock and Brown coming to life and causing a major incident was a great opportunity to bring in some police tactics. The Metropolitan Police were kind enough to let me spend a day at Heathrow Airport to learn about their operating procedures and how they respond to incidents. I’d like to think that now, should the statues ever come to life, they have some preparation in place.
So, I hope you enjoy the story and its message. Please do leave a review on here. Being a self-published author really helps and I appreciate your views.
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