Hi dpg

I’ve not really fully fleshed it out yet, but my starting point is his repression. His catharsis is to write out all the bad urges and ideas he has in his novels (I’m sure many writers will empathise with that), but really all he’s doing is burying them deep down inside him, within his soul. I figured that if he did this for long enough it would really dirty his soul, and once his soul broke free it would just rampage, totally uninhibited, to do everything the writer has always wanted to do but dare not.

I could have gone the traditional route and, once he was soulless, allow him to be free of all inhibitions, but that seemed to be the expected thing to do, so I considered it to be stale and cliched and to be avoided.

Thanks dpg. I liked the idea of reversing it, and also turning the whole ‘hero dies and brings back a malevolent spirit from the other side’ thing on its head. The main character is haunted by a spirit that he believes he brought back from the other side, but the ironic twist is that it’s his own soul. In essence, he’s being haunted by himself.