Avoiding a Difficult Conversation
I've been avoiding a very difficult conversation. One of my characters has to give his wife some extremely bad news. He's an alien mind that has taken over a human body. She's basically married an alien. Of course she could leave him, but he's also about to tell her that some more aliens have just arrived and they want to take her daughter back with them, to the cloud collective, as a consciousness, leaving her dead body here on earth.
I'm honestly finding this incredibly difficult to write. I asked my wife for a perspective and she was so good at thinking it through from the wife's viewpoint. My understanding of how that woman will feel when she hears the news (when she finally accepts it, of course, which might take some time) has increased so much thanks to my wonderful spouse. I'm sure that if I had to sit her down one day and tell her that I'm an alien I know exactly how she would react - although I'm not sure what she'd do with the body afterwards.
The difficulty I'm having, though, is finding the words. I'm not sure how my alien would best explain the situation. Thanks to my wife, I know how his wife is going to react, but again I need to find the dialogue.
Of course I could cop out completely and write the scene from the daughter's perspective, having her hear raised voices from downstairs and just catch the odd shouted phrase from the other side of the living room door, but that feels like the coward's way out.
Typing this here has helped me to focus my thoughts and intentions and I think my next step should be to brainstorm on paper some of the phrases, thoughts, emotions and swear words that might be banded about during the scene.

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