This is the “Behind The Scenes” post for “The Woman In The Water“. Please read the original story first to avoid spoilers.
This story was the first idea that I had and tried to write for this year of short stories. For some reason, it wouldn’t come then, and it wouldn’t come a few weeks ago either when I tried it again.
My initial plan this time was for there to be an actual ghost, and for the whole thing to leave Eric alone and bemused on the pedalo. About halfway through, when I was writing very slowly and getting distracted every few minutes, I realised this wouldn’t really work. So I decided to change things around and came up with the ending we have here. Once I thought of it, I couldn’t wait to get there.
The inspiration for a lot of this came from a song the Edwardian tenor, Ernest Pike, whose song “Rowing To Hampton Court” was going through my head all yesterday. Once Ernest turned up, I knew things were going to be all right…
Incidentally, this is the third set of names the characters have had. They were originally Yvette and Edward (as of the fourth of January), and in the first time of writing this story, they were Edward and Alice. Neither of the previous sets of names seemed to fit right.
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