My Journey Writing ‘A Boy, A Man and Death’

When I started writing A Boy, A Man and Death, I wasn’t writing the book to publish it. I was writing to purge feelings and attempt to gain an understanding of the people I am forced to share this world with, though a good few I quite like, some I’ve come to love. What sat me down at my keyboard was a desire to understand why people are the way they are, and what separates good people from bad sorts. I wondered where the line was between good and evil, because it certainly isn’t light and dark. I had so many questions. The kind that lingered after deep conversations, nightmares, and those moments in which I found myself staring at a stranger too long and wondering what would happen if my life had gone like theirs; or if I hadn’t made any of the long series of critical and small decisions that lead me to where I am today, differently. I wasn’t writing for an audience. I was writing a thought experiment for myself, and over time it began to feel like if I didn’t get this story out, it would rot and fester in my chest. In the place my heart was supposed to be.

David, one of the story’s main characters, showed up with a busted nose, a rage problem, and too much emotional baggage for a fifteen-year-old. He came out swinging (literally), and I couldn’t ignore him. He was me in those first, infantile pages but I needed to distance myself from the character. And then came Chelsea, then Ivan, then Damien. Oh, Damien. It started to snowball. People with jagged edges, hard pasts, soft and toughened hearts hidden under the hard shell of their own trauma. They felt real before I had a real chance to define the plot.

The writing itself? Chaos. Absolute chaos. I wrote some chapters like I was under threat of being set on fire, then I would take days or weeks to slog out single scenes or chapters because they clawed at me in defiance, like monsters fighting to be let to go and return to the depths of my soul. The manuscript fought back. Hard.

Some days I loved what I had, other days I wanted to bleach the whole thing out of existence, I wanted to delete the whole thing in its entirety. But my partner urged me on through it all, encouraging me after a great session, and supporting me through the tougher moments. Seeing and receiving love while I poured my darkness onto the page. That’s how I knew it mattered.

I wasn’t writing a tidy story. Truthfully, it was an absolute mess. But it was human. Ugliness in all of its beauty. I could feel myself getting closer to my answer, edging ever slowly to clarity and finally seeing what separates a good and decent person, from the evil and malicious. I wanted to understand at what point innocence was lost.

If you’re a fellow writer, here’s the cold truth as I see it: I doubted this project constantly. I told myself no one would want to read this, because I didn’t want anyone to read it. That it was too dark, too weird, too much like dragging an old nail across living bone. That it would be misunderstood. After I opened up to the idea of publishing, I started worrying that it wasn’t polished enough or commercial enough or likable enough. What if it was too low-brow?

But I kept writing. Not because I believed in it every day, but because I knew I wouldn’t believe myself again until it was done.

Now, here I am. Draft two is complete. Editing is still hell. But the bones are good. The blood is real. And it feels like A Boy, A Man and Death is exactly the kind of story I needed to tell, whether anyone asked for it or not. I have no apologies.

If you’re on a similar path. writing something personal, painful, or risky, do not back down, you grab that wolf by its jaws and you fight it all the way to submission. Tell it exactly how it needs to be told. You don’t need to soften your voice. You just need to finish the damn story.

This one nearly killed me.

But I’m proud of it.

If this book ever ends up dog eared, tear stained, or thrown across the room, thank you. That means you felt something.

That’s all I wanted.

Yours, Lucian Carver.