Black Hours Diary No 7: Because sometimes it just won’t work

Well, I’ve hit another brick wall. And it ain’t due to mid-drafting blues or writer’s block.

It’s all down to trains. Or rather steam locomotives. In The Black Hours there’s an action sequence where the villains battle the main character across a train that’s trying to break out of the quarantine zone in London. The train is out of control, the villains have the main character in a tight spot, and there’s no obvious way of stopping the train. Like a true cliff-hanger serial, what does the main character do?

As the writer, I say, the main character bumps off most of the villains and then finds out a way of decoupling the train. In reality, there is no way of decoupling rolling stock from a steam engine when it’s moving at top speed.

So what do I do? Do I use artistic license to achieve the impossible and decouple that darn train? Or do I cut the sequence completely because without decoupling, the main character will be killed (and then The Black Hours would be just a tragic novella – not a novel).

Fuck a doodle do.