Okay, this is one cut scene that I’m not at all proud of – but it’s an excellent example of a trap that writers can fall into. Even Dorothy Dunnet, the writer I esteem above all others, waded knee-deep into this mire before beating a wise and hasty retreat. It is – the address to the reader, in the guise of a character.

In a novel that has a narrator, this is all well and good. The narrator can speak to the reader and, as long as it stays consistant, it can work. But in a novel with a third-person narration, the faux "I found this manuscript, the real writer is someone else, definitely not me" crap grates on the nerves.

But, when you’re working on the third or fourth full edit, and feel the need to make changes for the sake of changes, that’s just the brilliant four-o’clock in the morning idea that can ruin a good book.

Mine was that the novel was written by someone who had studied at Shakespeare’s feet, another actor in his company, who penned the novel after Shakespeare’s death and passed it down through the ages until I "discovered" it. Total crap. Complete errant nonsense.

But it let me play with spelling for a day. Then Jan read it, screwed up her face in disgust, and walked away from the computer. No words were necessary to convey her contempt for the notion, leaving me to cut and paste the text into another file, to be hidden from all light of day – until now, when I willingly share my shame as a cautionary tale to other writers – "Beware! This Almost Happened To Me!"

Apologie

This shovld haue beene a Playe, I do confess. This heere shovld haue beene a Playe or a Poem, but I lack the Wit. Neyther wit nor words, nor worth, Action, nor Utterance, nor the power of Speech, to stirre mens Blood. Like Antony, I doe but onely speake right on. ‘Tis true I am a prosean creatvre. The Master did always call me Dull.

But Master Will, as I oft heard his Players call him, had Faults of his owne. He loathed Surprises, and he enioyed endings more than starts. As with The Life and Death of Julius Caesar he told the Death onely, so too with his great Comedie of Romeo and Juliet he told just the end. Told it gloriovsly and well! But I haue seen the Bookes he vsed for Inspiration, from which he breathed such life. The tale was Full, but not Complete.

I have heard the actors say there is no character kens he is just a bitte rolle. I belieeve this to be trve. It depends onely on whose is the story told. And that rests with the storyteller.

I haue not the Measure to matche him, nor Desyre to trie. Plaine and blunt, I write from the start I see. But since children make poore heroes, I choose a soul with an affinitie for myne own. His is a large rolle in another’s Play, even if I must inuent it so. A life stolen for my ends. The Master might even have been provd. He was all ways a most excellent Theefe.