My Magnificent Octopus Part VIII

I am determined to finish this bloody book if it kills me!

I moved from early to late shifts yesterday, but of course you can't program your body to adjust that quickly. Even without the alarm getting me up at 5.30am I was still awake in time to see the sunrise. I had over 6 hours to kill before I had to go for my bus, but financially I was stranded in my apartment. Time to dig out the memory stick and crack on with the novel.

...and I did, and it flowed, and it felt great. For the past week or so I have played out the rest of the novel in my head in various different ways, but it's amazing what happens when I start to type. As I finish one sentence, the entire plot can take a new twist, and I'm fighting to get it back on the original track. The story literally evolves as it is written. But there is a reason I am letting my dedicated blog readers know I have been back in front of the laptop...

...I've made a major mistake and it is ingrained right through the plot.

Without giving the plot away too much, I'll try to explain:

A key part of the story involves a historical event, one that is in no way famous or memorable (in reality, the very fact it is not a significant event is also part of the plot) but it is still a historical event. It involved real people who have real names and real professions (again, both of these facts are significant)

Ok, the big problem is their names play a key part of the story and from day one I've been spelling one of them wrong. Only one letter, but still it's incorrect. (Imagine spelling the surname Thompson without the 'P'. Still a real surname, but technically a completely different word.) Of course I can use the 'Find and Replace' function in Microsoft Word, but as I've already explained, the name is significant, including the spelling.

So, I have a dilemma. Do I carry on, pretend the original (real) person spelt their name the way I have been doing it and thus keep my plot intact, or do I go right back and change it all. No one that reads the book will EVER know who the original person was, and would never bother to check, but what if I got the book published? There will always be one clever sod out there who would pull me up on the mistake.

It really is annoying me now. It's such a small thing, and yet such a key element to the plot. It has also come at a time when I am really getting back into the writing too, which means it's holding me back in more ways than one.

..I'm sure I'll think of something!

p.s. Thompson/Thomson was just an example, that isn't the real spelling mistake I have made. I used that in tribute to the detectives in the Tintin stories who are always incorrectly referred to as the Thompson twins, despite the fact they are not related and have different surnames. Any true Tintin fan probably already knew that :D