That's a really interesting insight. I'm not a writer (well, not of fiction, anyway, I haven't written bits of other stuff at times), but I never thought about things this way. I always assumed writers did a lot of research first. Or did some research as they wrote when they came to something they weren't sure about.

The memorial is just how I imagined it. But the view of Skye, is breathtaking! I know pics most likely don't do it justice, buty they're just so beautiful! I do so want to visit Scotland someday!

(Can! I! use! any! more! exclaimation! marks! in! one! post!?)

Linda, thanks for the link to the tree house. I image Keir's tree house as similiar to the one with the tree in the middle of the interior (on page 2 of the link) and the hanging rope ladder on the outside. I just love these visuals!

I'm sure most do. I don't suppose I represent the majority. But I've found research slows me down. I get so impatient and want to get on with the story.

I felt a bit sheepish about the way I worked until I read an interview with Sebastian Faulks who said he wrote a draft of BIRDSONG (his WWI novel largely set in the trenches) and then researched it afterwards to see what he'd got wrong. He hadn't. What he'd imagined lined up with the reality.

I think what I do is enough research to be able to start writing, then I just make stuff up. But my imagination is informed by preliminary research. (But in the case of a blind person in a tree house, I just had to make it all up! How could I research?) But I do research afterwards and show the books to experts. (A partially sighted person read SG in very large print so she could tell me if I'd made any bad errors.)

You might also be interested to see the photo I was working from when developing Keir as a character. (I tend to work from photos, just to develop the physical aspects of characters.) I was having a lot of trouble "seeing" Keir and I thought it was probably a lot to do with the fact that Marianne couldn't see him, so he was hardly ever described. Anyway, the character was reluctant to come to life until one day I opened a magazine and saw a photo of an actor and there was a moment of total recognition. Here was a guy who had (at least in the photo) the combination of sensitivity, vulnerability and virility that I was trying to create with Keir. Once I'd seen this photo, I never looked back.

He'll look a tad familiar to you here on this forum.....



Gerard Butler of course and - hooray! - he was a Scot too.

Wow - now I know why I loved Keir

So when I sold the film rights to SG, you can imagine the way my mind was working.......

But I don't think the production company will be able to afford Gerard. Although the producer says some Scots actors will work for a smaller fee to stay home in Scotland. She also said she knew cameramen who would work for nothing to get a 6-week shoot on the Isle of Skye.

The film may never get made. It takes years to get a film together. They have quite a lot of funding from Scottish sources, but no screenwriter on board yet and you don't talk to actors until you have a screenwriter apparently.

But I can dream....

Thank you so much these pictures Linda.
It really helped visualize the setting of the plot.

I have found some old articles and video from the 20th Anniversary of the tragedy.
Survivors remembering the catastrophe, and how they'd coped with it
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7487437.stm

and just a short video from that ceremony...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/7490142.stm

I am particularly moved to tears...

I think this book could make such a good movie...
Maybe Gerard would do it, hopefully so...He's still Scot at heart...
Hopefully it will get made, fingers crossed.

I can't remember if I wrote this elsewhere in the forum, so forgive me if it's a repeat... When I went to Aberdeen to do my research I found that when I talked to people - even people who weren't there that night and were too young to really remember the tragedy - they couldn't talk about what Piper Alpha meant to them without welling up with tears. And as I say in the book, everyone eventually said, "They were so young.."

It was a national tragedy and a scandal. Feelings still run very deep in Scotland, though I think apart from the 20th anniversary, the event is largely forgotten in the rest of the UK.

My daughter works for the National Theatre of Scotland and she has tried to encourage me to write a play about Piper Alpha. I'm surprised in a way that no one has already. But maybe there's no play for the same reason that I wouldn't want to write one on the subject: nothing good came of that loss. Further oil platform disasters have occurred since. It's still a dangerous job. The company responsible changed their name and carried on trading. As Marianne says, "It was a corporate massacre, but no one was ever prosecuted."

I'm sure there will be a movie made about the Chilean miners. But I doubt people would be queuing up to make the movie if they'd all died.