Bluebeard

I am writing away for Nanowrimo and still working on ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’ but last night as I was scribbling away, (I write longhand in notebooks and type it up later; it works for me) I came to an awful realization.

My nano novel is a rewrite of Bluebeard. I needed to come up with a story idea in a day and that story has always fascinated me. If you don’t remember, Bluebeard is the guy who married between 7 and 107 wives, in different versions of the tale, and murdered them all. She asks for a few minutes to say her prayers, which he grants (wtf - as if?) and she goes up on the roof and waits until her brothers rescue her. The feminist in me objects. I want her to rescue herself.

His last wife is my heroine. In my story she knows that he is going to kill her. She has opened the room where the bodies of the other wives are hidden and she knows his secret.

My one sentence summary is:

Hyacinth, a curious and clever girl is married to Bluebeard, a wealthy landowner, when she discovers she is his seventh wife and the others have been murdered by him so she must fight for her own life and fight for justice for the dead.

I have written a chunk of it and I have struck a problem.

I like Bluebeard. I have made him sexy and gorgeous and he adores his little seventh wife. He will beat up anyone who hurts her. He’s my Hannibal, I suppose. He will love her until she crosses that line and breaks his rules. The betrayal for Hyacinth will be worse when she understands what he is. She will be devastated and it will be really hard for her to see what she doesn’t want to see.

I like Bluebeard.

And I have to kill him. And that is really hard to write.

Plus, in my other fanfiction story, they have almost reached the battle with their archenemy. I refuse to write a Stephenie Meyer non-battle chat in a paddock, so characters that I love are going to die.

And I will have to kill them.

If one story was fluff, I could use writing it as a break from writing the other, more intense emotional story, but I have unwittingly set myself up for tears in both.

Sigh… better stock up on tissues.