Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Changes made...

I have a lot of work to do on Place of Safety, and I'm already honing in on it. First was one character's name -- Father Pat needed changing. Sounds like something out of a 1930s Boys Town movie starring Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Cagney...with a dash of Bing Crosby. He's now Father Jack, cozier than his real name, Father John, a hipster priest sent to Derry to take over for Father Demian, neither of whom Brendan really trusts of believes.

I'm also finding I need to solidify the timeline of the story before I do much more, right now. I had Brendan's brother, Eamonn, talking about the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in a section set in 1967. Not right, since King died in April 1968. I also had Brendan seeing Joanna for the first time on Shipquay Street and that didn't work. I like him seeing her the first time after working on Colm's father's taxi...which leads to all kinds of complications.

Something else I'm doing is updating my grammar. I got into this silly habit of putting a period after a dash, which is nonsensical. I'm also removing spaces around my ellipses; I like how that works a lot better. Plus, Derry of the Past is helping work out the logistics of Brendan's area prior to redevelopment. I have a map of the city from about 1946 or 47, and I know some of the houses on Nailors Row still existed in early 1972, but I think they were empty and there was nothing else around them except the city walls they faced. It's just, numerous roads were done away with during this period and others were redirected, completely, making it hard to work out what was where and when.

It's funny, but by tearing apart whole neighborhoods and resettling people left and right, the Protestants running Derry gave the Catholics pushing for equal rights even more ammunition...not just political but physical. When it came to slinging rocks, plenty were to be had; and the Rossville Flats gave the boys hurling petrol bombs (Molotov Cocktails) the high ground and put them pretty much out of the reach of the RUC and Army until they established an actual base on the top floor.

Talk about the law of unintended consequences...

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