When I sat down to decide on the revolution of days for my protagonist in Chasing Midnight, I knew I could choose any moment in a twenty-four hour period for him to catapult backward one day. For me, there was only one clear-cut choice. Midnight, the metamorphosis from one day to the next, holds a mystique other times of the day don't share.
Dawn and dusk capture our attention during moments of dazzling spectrums of light reflecting off thin, high clouds. Maybe in our fondest memories we dipped our toes into a lake and watched the last gasp of summer fade to black. Or in the darkened hours of morning, after staying awake all night out of trauma or bliss, the tangerine light on the horizon reminds us of new awakenings. New chances.
But midnight--the dark, inescapable moment between yesterday and tomorrow--is the only one powerful enough to shove us headlong into another day. While dawn and dusk can gather and stir for long stretches of time, midnight lasts only one revolution of the clock. One sixty-second interval capable of aging us, setting our course, and consuming last chances.
Midnight is a kiss on New Year's Eve. A stroke of time responsible for turning a coach to a pumpkin and a princess back to her true identity. It dances through the gardens of good and evil and is the ticking time bomb that defines every choice the hero in my novel makes.
What does midnight symbolize for you?
