Here’s this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, courtesy of the lovely Linda. Please do take part, it’s fun to write and also fun to read the contributions from everyone else.

This week the prompt is a word that starts with ‘m’. Here’s my contribution. And you’re welcome to a slice of the programme that is constantly running in the back of my mind as I get on with the more mundane parts of my day…

My word that starts with ‘m’ is ‘manipulated’. No, it’s not about me, not now, at any rate. I have been manipulated before, but I’m older, wiser and stronger because of it, so there is that. That ain’t happening again, no siree (I don’t talk like that, it just seemed appropriate).

Words such as ‘manipulated’ are the themes running through my work in progress novel, Anti-Virus’, which is, and isn’t, about a pandemic (it’s kind of a Schrödinger’s pandemic, if you will).

Dystopian fiction, like many other types of fiction, requires an antagonist or two, or three to balance your protagonist’s journey through the pages. In my novel’s case, this involves a particular person, an organ of state and an industry. It’s one thing to determine if a particular character would act a certain way, but quite another to ask myself if an organ of state or an industry would do so. Or is it?

The simple answer to whether a person or indeed a non-natural entity would do anything to get their way is actually a question –

ARE THE STAKES HIGH ENOUGH?

The answer to that question might not be so easy…!

Oh the joys of writing a novel. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.