The end to Wilful Murder is underway and aiming to be finished by the end of 2025. The first 70,000 words of Wilful Murder is set at River Don  and surrounds where as the last 50,000 is set at Penguin Creek and nearby locations.  Will Ann find another husband? This is the burning question to be answered and also when does this book end? My first readers are very keen to find out what happens next and while I know what could happen, I am not sure what should happen.

I pitched Wilful Murder to the ASA pitch workshop in July 24. I didn’t get any takers and realised that my first readers were right – I needed more to finish the book. The manuscript was the length of a finished novel, but it was not complete. There wasn’t enough pay off – my main character Ann does not get enough of a happy ending. So I’m drafting the remaining scenes and adding in events from her later life to give a better sense of her character arc. She will demonstrate how far she has come from her origins and her family.

As this is an historical fiction based on a true story of a person who lived, I know exactly when she dies. Do I keep writing until then? Will that be a sad ending? Do I try to end on a positive note with a sense of achievement instead. There are a couple of interesting events in the two years up to her death that are good plot points and demonstrate some of the relationships with her family and how well she has grown. I’d like to include them but I might have to bring them forward in time or move her death out in time.

A workshop I attended by the Historical Novel Association in 2023, explained that the end of the book is when the character does or doesn’t get what they want. Trouble is I have to decide what it is she wants 🙂

One thing I don’t want to do is end the book when she gets married. It seems so corny to end the book at that point but it seems a high point of her life to get the guy. This isn’t a romance that I’m writing and I want Ann to be a success in her own right not just an appendage to a successful man.