The predominant feeling among the line sevens right now was a baritone eddy of hope. It hadn’t been there before, and it sounded a lot like Fergus.
Linesman
Back in Linesman, we never really gave much thought to the sound of line seven. We knew what it did (even back then), but the sound? There was that one throwaway line about it being a baritone and not much else.
When you’re writing a trilogy you don’t always consider how what you write in book one will impact what you write in future books.
Sometimes, serendipitously, something you write sparks an idea that becomes ‘the’ idea for a new story.
Terry Rossio, writer on Pirates of the Caribbean, once said, “Who knew the throwaway line, ‘Clearly, you’ve never been to Singapore’ would turn into movie three?” [Paraphrased here, because I can’t find the original quote.]
And sometimes you write throwaway lines like ‘a baritone eddy of hope … sounded a lot like Fergus’ and realise later that you never really thought of Fergus Burns as a baritone. You’ve always thought of him as a tenor.
You can’t change something that’s written. It took all of book two and part of book three to get into the mindset. Fergus is a baritone. Fergus is a baritone. His voice is deeper than you think it is.
We’re getting there.
Elvis Presley was a baritone. So were David Bowie and Johnny Cash.
Right now, we’re imagining his voice as a cross between Elvis Presley and Teddy Tahu Rhodes.