Post #2890083

#WritersCoffeeClub 25 May: Share a late-stage change you made to a work. Mrs. Cleyton’s story is very much about a descend into madness, and one of the things that contributes to said madness was her conversion to Christianity after her family died. Christian themes were getting interwoven into the story, but I didn’t know how to resolve that part of her story until very late when I was writing the final version of her last two chapters. She was a horrible character, deeply narcissistic, but I still wanted to portray her as being human, flawed but struggling, someone clasping for a glimmer of hope. Someone you can empathise with, despite everything. So in the end, she goes so deep into her psychosis that she manifests a miracle to save her, and she experiences true mercy as the act saves both her dogs and helps her regain a bit of her sanity. But somehow she recognises that she is into it so deep that she can no longer turn back, so she interprets the miracle as an encounter with Jesus and she becomes a true believer rather than seeing the church as her support network.