How to Move Forward by Going Backwards

An interesting thought occurred to me recently whilst pushing on with getting a first draft of my new novel down. The thought was that whilst I was trying to get my first draft down as quickly as possible new ideas and plot points kept occurring to me. Although I write with a kind of outline – especially for the first half of the book, so I do not get stuck - I also like to leave myself open to new directions as I write. And writing as fast as possible for first draft seems to be best for me.

Some of the ideas that occurred to me were good ones that seemed to have come up epiphany-like from the ‘girls in the basement’, but should I stop and incorporate them? I wanted to do just that but it meant going back and introducing something much earlier in the draft in order for it to make sense. Which, in turn, meant that I wasn’t actually moving the story forward. But the extra material did add more depth (or a subplot) to the story. Great you might say…

But doing this kind of toing and froing took time (when I was trying to write fast) and it also risked me becoming confused as to where I actually was in the story.  Plus, although I had a fair idea of where the plot would eventually end up, I had no clear idea of the ending so introducing more story lines could potentially jeopardise my entire plot if I wasn’t careful. So, what to do?

I read somewhere that a good idea was to keep a revision sheet alongside you as you write so that you can jot down the idea as it occurs to you. Also to make a note of where the material needed to be introduced (approx.) and then continue to write the draft as if the plot point was already incorporated. Lately I have been trying this method with my present book and it is surprisingly easy. I know I will have much more work to do in second draft but once I have the main story down I don’t feel the pressure to rush through that. In fact I like to take my time and re-consider everything that has gone into the story.

Anyway this is my best tip of the year!

Do you have any good tips to pass on to others to try?

Ready Made Flaws - Phobias

“There is nothing to fear if you refuse to be afraid.” Ghandi

One of the most useful plot devices I’ve found is to give a character a phobia. It doesn’t have to be a major phobia – although many premises have used the more common phobias such as agoraphobia, (fear of open spaces) claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces) or arachnophobia ( fear of spider.

Everyone knows and understands that a phobia is simply an irrational fear of something but when applied successfully to a character, it can lift that person right off the page and make them seem so real and relatable and gives them a ready-made flaw.  Sympathy is easily engaged – as most of us have some irrational fears at some point.

That is not to say we are all irrational – but depending on circumstances, we all have the ability to act irrational under extreme duress. If the phobia is something that a main character is struggling against then that makes it all the more desirable as readers will root for the character and want them to win that battle as well as succeed in the main story goal.

Phobias also give the writer the opportunity to twist and turn with the plot and have largely unexpected outcomes. In my first book, my main character had a phobia of mist, steam, fog etc. Mainly stemming from the fact that she was scared what the mist could be hiding… I had great fun with that one!

Although we talk about irrational fears, they are not really irrational to the sufferer - only to other people who look on. Phobias do not just pop up from anywhere. They are generally rooted in a character’s past. Sometimes so deeply hidden that the person has little insight as to where it came from in the first place. But dig a little and it will come to light. For instance my protagonist (as a very young child) in my first book "Insight" had discovered her mother dead in a steam filled bathroom – hence her abiding fear. But she barely remembered the incident as being in a steam filled room as she had been so traumatised by discovering her dead mother that she had suppressed the memory.

So, phobias – big and small - can definitely add spice to your story and even help to bring your characters to life on the page.

Have you ever thought about using a phobia in your stories? 

Terrible Trouble

Hubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

I suppose we love to see our hero/heroines in terrible trouble so we can admire how they ultimately get out of terrible trouble. It’s what all good fiction is about, whether it be romance, horror, mystery or whatever.

The problem presents itself early on and usually the concerns and worries pile on as the story progresses.  But the thing that fascinates all readers is asking the questions of ‘how are they going to get through this or cope with that?’ This is where story gets to us because we put ourselves in their places and worry if we would do the same thing.  We root for them to succeed in their endeavours because if they can cope then so would we.  If it’s a good story, we identify with the character and we want them to succeed against all the odds. It confirms something to us about human nature and the will to survive, I think.  And when at the end they do rise up and overcome their terrible trouble we cheer for them.

As writers it is our job to create that terrible trouble and then throughout the middle of the story make the terrible trouble even more terrible until finally the hero has to step up to the mark in some way, deal with the terrible trouble and be heroic to save the day! Hooray!

 

So, do you find it easy to pile on the woe for your charcters?

IWSG - Target Practise

Talk about insecure - thats me! And it's why I joined Insecure Writers Support Group
But certain things do help me. I have certain rituals but then I guess, most of us do....One of the things I slavishly follow is word counts. I can no more give them up than I can eat just one small square of chocolate! For me it is ritualistic and necessary.
I set a target for my writing week and then for each individual day, depending on what else may be required of me in terms of the rest of my life, and then I go for it! You’d think that would be great, eh? Not a bit of it. You see for me it’s all or nothing… If something gets in the way and I have less time, I will abandon the day. It’s a case of ‘have a chance of getting there or not bother at all’! Can’t be healthy can it? Once I start however it would have to be a pretty serious emergency for me to forgo my target  and settle for less.
In my defence, I am generally realistic with what I can achieve – I learnt a long time ago that not being realistic was a sure fire recipe for disaster and next to know words done at all!! My method does get me there though so I have learnt to trust my instincts and respect my need for targets.
I think it may be the ‘tick off’ bit of my psyche that controls this. I love’ to do’ lists and can’t help but experience a sense of achievement when I tick something off. The word count sheet is similar and I feel satisfied when I can tick off that I made my target. Mo matter that the writing might be total garbage!! As someone said, elsewhere, you can’t revise or edit something you’ve not actually put down on paper. Now that’s another story…

Happy writing every one!

What rituals do you insist upon?

Cliff Hanger Promises...

One of the first things I tried to conquer when I started writing thrillers was the art of cliff-hangers. I tried my hardest to get my hero/heroine into terrible difficulty and then leave then… well, hanging!

But I often rebelled about doing it as it didn’t always fit the story. Then I realised that you simply had to lead the reader with the promise that something was going to happen and then delay the actual happening. The page turning suspense that this caused was the answer, I thought. So I practised it fervently.  Scene cuts also helped – i.e. moving to a different time, place or character and then coming back to the present dilemma later in the story.

The only problem was that sometimes it still felt like a kind of breathless ride where no one gets time to reflect properly or for the reader to drop down the tension.  Even the most hair-raising ride can seem tame if someone gets too used to it.

It wasn’t until I understood the art of using scenes that I realised I didn’t have to go over the top. Scenes with character, conflict, conclusion/disaster made a lot of sense to me and once I realised that the character must have a want/ objective at the beginning  and that objective should not only be unmet by the end, but the character must be worse off, then I began to see that here was the natural cliff-hanger. The character now has an even greater obstacle to overcome. How will he cope? What will he do? The reader, hopefully, worries for the character and that will keep him turning the pages just as if it is a cliff-hanger.

“We throw in as many fresh words as we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it alive and vital. Virtually every page is a cliff-hanger—you've got to force them to turn it.”
― Dr. Seuss

 

So do you try to put a 'will he won't he' question at the end of every scene? Or do you save cliff hangers for chapter ends or even for every page?

Seeing is Believing

In supernatural thrillers and horror stories one of the parapsychologies will usually figure somewhere along the way.  Clairvoyance is one of these. The dictionary says clairvoyance is ‘the ability to perceive things that are usually beyond the range of normal human senses’.  But I think many people associate it with the power to ‘see’ into the future.  (My current WIP features this a little so I must confess I am rather fond of it!)

Second sight or ESP is one of these ethereal subjects and it can be a particularly helpful plot device; remembering, of course, that we are talking about fiction and a willingness on the part of a reader to suspend disbelief.

The idea of being able to ‘see’ (or sense) something that is not within the bounds of normal is not a new one. It has been used from the early beginnings of the written word and tales from the classics and mythology are steeped in them.

The main areas of second sight seem to be Remote Viewing, where a person can ‘see’ something that is happening a long way away, Precognition, where a person can ‘see’ and foretell something that is about to happen, and Visions where a person simply ‘sees’ something (it may only be a flash image) but has no idea if it’s from the future, past or present.

Telepathy, premonition and telekinesis are also closely related to second sight.

Of course the scientific community does not accept any of this stuff as it requires proof that is just not available. The various researchers into the area are of the view that most of it is fraud, self-delusion and guesswork. But that doesn’t stop the believers and it certainly doesn’t stop the notion of second sight being fertile grounds for the imagination in fiction writing.

One does not have to believe these things to enjoy a good story that uses any these ideas. If you asked the population in general how many believed in the paranormal you would get a much lower number than those who read the fiction books and watch the films. This is what suspension of disbelief is all about; in that, just for the period that you are immersed in a good story, you are willing to step into a universe where all things are possible. This is the nub of all good plots and fiction in general. How else would we enjoy Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings?

The other interesting thing for me is that if you have one character who believes in the paranormal and one that doesn’t then that sets the story up for even more conflict and tension, quite naturally without having to work at it.

What do you think? If you make a world ‘real’ enough for the reader, can you suspend disbelief?

How to Thrill to a Kill

“Kill a man and you are an assassin, kill millions of men and you are a conqueror, kill everyone and you are a God.” Jean Rostand.

I love that quote but life is not sacred in the telling of a good thriller story!

How many ways can you kill a person? How long is a piece of string, you ask.

One of the most intriguing ways I came across was using an ice stalactite! Believable or not – it was written into a story. Of course as far as working out what the murder weapon was, the police had a hard time for there was simply a pool of water on the floor by the time the body was discovered.

It’s fair enough food for thought though. Thriller writers have to come up with ever more ingenious ways to commit their make believe murders as we’ve all heard it all before.

In a seminar once, we were asked to look around the room and find ways to kill a person. It was just a bit of fun! But it was unsettling and yes, funny, what the imagination of 15 people came up with. Apart from the obvious ones like pushing guy through an upstairs window (we were on the 6^th floor at the time), strangling and bashing someone’s head against the floor, there were some inventive scenarios. One chap suggested grinding up the board rubber and shoving it down someone’s throat. Another wanted to crush a person’s chest by piling all the furniture (which was very heavy) on top of him, whilst someone else suggested using the light fitting to electrocute!

Perhaps those are a bit far-fetched but you get the picture…

So have you any interesting ways a villain could commit a murder?

From Backyard to Graveyard

A Grave Matter...

The subject of graveyards or cemeteries is something that fascinates me. As a writer of supernatural thriller novels the sombre oppressive atmosphere of a graveyard, imbued with such reverence and awe as befits the dead, is a great place to start. Its melancholy sense of past misery seems to hang in the air like some unholy miasma as legions of the living have cried rivers of tears in their intense grief and loneliness. What a sad place for the living…

Death is inevitable for all of us and in a graveyard we are reminded of the frailty of human existence like nowhere else. The fascination for me, when I visit graveyards, is to look at the oldest graves and inscriptions and wonder what happened to the person… Sometimes great ideas for stories spring forward from this as I try to imagine what life might have been like for the said dead person.

But apart from that there is the great unknowing… What does happen when we finally confront our very existence? Scary stuff, indeed, for most of us… Unless you have great faith in your own brand of religion/belief… Most of us do not want to be reminded that we are going to pass into the great unknown someday. Perhaps that is really the scary part about graveyards and cemeteries.

But spirits, ghosts and things that go thump in the night are also great things to think about in graveyards…



So let your imagination fly!! If you dare…

Do graveyards/cemetaries scare you or are they just places of great sadness?

The Promise of Premise

Writing thriller fiction – the Promise of a Premise

So what exactly is a premise?

Ta Da! I have a dictionary definition to hand…“Logic proposition from which inference is drawn” Mmmm… Are we much the wiser?

The point of the premise in fiction is that it truly is a kind of road map of where the story should go -and where it definitely should not! When I first started writing I did not understand this concept properly and, I must admit, I do still sometimes struggle with defining it for some of my story ideas. But when I get it right it really is as if a cloud clears and my ideas begin to coalesce properly in my mind.

Sticking to my premise makes me keep to the point of the story all the way through instead of veering off at tangents and getting lost. When I wrote my first stories I did not plan - just went with the flow of a good story idea. But before I had gotten very far my story idea started changing as I stumbled upon new and fascinating stuff for my character to get into… I ended up in a hopeless mess with no idea of how to straighten it all out. Then I suddenly remembered the original story idea and realised I had unintentionally abandoned it.  (If you are a ‘seat of your pants’ kind of writer a premise of some kind is, I think, essential.  But maybe you can stay nicely on course without one.)

Anyway then I read a few books and realised that premise was what I was missing. It is not the plot of a story but the main point and leads directly from the main story question to the resolution at the end. James Frey describes it as “A statement of what happens to the characters as a result of the core conflict in the story.” For example: In Dickens’ Christmas Carol the premise would be – ‘looking and learning from past mistakes leads to redemption and forgiveness’ because in the end, of course, Scrooge is a changed character. In my latest book ‘The Afterlife of Darkmares’,  the premise I used was ‘mother love can overcome everything, even ‘other worldly’ threats. ‘

Adding subplots and other characters does not change this central theme of the story because the thread running through and holding it all together is premise which once promised must be delivered on at the end.

This is how I try and stay on track. But maybe you know a better way to keep to the central story line?

How to make the Supernatural into Natural Thrillers

Making the Supernatural seem Natural?

Turning the supernatural into the super-believable? That, as I see it, is the challenge to all paranormal thriller writers. Making supernatural elements fit into a thriller story so seamlessly that the reader accepts them without question, is not easy.

After all the vast majority of readers who enjoy this kind of fiction are perfectly reasonable sane individuals who do not necessarily believe in ghosts, spirits and things that go ‘whooo’ in the night. But just like sci-fi readers, they want to wonder and ponder the unanswerable questions. Just for the time it takes to engage with the story readers will willingly believe if we give them a good reason to.

That’s not to say that once the book is read the reader will believe any of it but just for that book the reader suspends disbelief. This, of course must happen with all stories but it is so much more difficult when dealing with the paranormal.

Of course, making the world the characters inhabit detailed and colourful and having the characters themselves rich in human traits and emotions (even if they are spirits or whatever) helps. If the people in the story believe in the other-worldly elements and do so right from the beginning as a matter of course, then the reader will too. Events follow in a normal and accepted way and lo! - the supernatural becomes the natural for that story.

For me the furthest I will go into using the supernatural is to introduce elements of ‘what if’ into a story. What if someone’s soul/spirit does not die with them but carries on in someone else’s body? What if a spirit wilfully inhabits someone else’s body and makes them do things they would never normally do? What if someone has the power to read certain people’s minds? What if this power is hereditary and a child is unaware they have it? What if someone believes that if they preserve a person’s body after death they will gain power over life and death and eventually become immortal themselves? (See The Afterlife of Darkmares ). What if a person really does have a double and the double/doppelganger bends the person’s will to make them murder their own child?

I know, I know. All of these have been done before but not by me and my imagination. I had fun with these stories and will continue to use similar scenarios in my writing. But apart from the paranormal additions my plots have conflict, suspense and follow normal storytelling rules and my imagination, with the help of my muse, adds width, depth and a sprinkling of magic – at least I hope it does…

Happy Writing!

Do you read paranormal thrillers?

 

How to make a thriller really matter - raising the stakes!

All the steps in creating a plausible plot in thriller writing, I believe,  must come from the premise of an antagonist (villain) wanting one thing and a protagonist (hero) wanting the direct opposite. This creates the basic conflict that will drive the story to its final climactic end. Layered in and around this conflict may be more subplots and story lines that enrich the central story. In other words the story is multi-layered and thick with intrigue and suspense. It is this potent mixture of forces set one against the other that is the engine behind any thriller story.

The stakes in a thriller must also be very high so menace and threat are around every corner. Of course, the greatest threat (and the one many successful stories have thrived on) is world domination or a catastrophic event that threatens the entire world. For example ‘War of the Worlds’, ‘Alien’ and various James Bond’s epics. Plotting a novel like this may start fairly worryingly but then the plot should rise to epic proportions and stakes go higher and higher as more danger is piled on and more people realise the gravity of the situation and a race against time.

But it doesn’t always have to be about threats to the entire world - it may simply be threats to a main character’s nearest and dearest! And, in my opinion, the best way to raise the stakes is for the reader to strongly identify with the characters in peril and thereby worry for their safety. So the plot cannot be all about action and suspense - character development and engendering empathy is integral to the plot too. Put together it should make for one heck of a thriller…

Worry ought to be a key element in a thriller, do you agree?

'The Witcheye Gene' - Thrillers and Auras

 Writing Thrillers and using Auras

When I was writing my second book ( The Witcheye Gene) I thought it would be interesting to use the paranormal-type phenomenon of auras. I was quite surprised when my research turned up the fact that it was not strictly true that it is entirely a paranormal/supernatural occurrence. My dictionary defines an aura as “an atmosphere or quality of air considered as indicative of a person or thing” but I think that meaning is not quite the same thing. After all, I think we can all recognise that an angry person can exude a certain aggressive-kind of vibe. This person could be said to have an aura about them.

The other meaning of auras is to forewarn of impending epileptic attacks or migraines etc. They indicate the brain is signalling to the sufferer that it is about to happen. These auras can take different forms such as certain smells, sounds or tastes that are experienced by the individual. So an aura in this case can be an important early warning system.

But the kind of aura I am talking about in supernatural thriller writing is the kind of aura where a person is said to have a luminous radiation of light or energy around them that can actually be seen by people who have special powers. There is lots of controversy about this phenomenon but in the land of the paranormal it is exactly the kind of thing that adds flavour and mysticism to a story. And allows a great deal of license in designing credible plot line… I think I used it to good effect when my character – who had a measure of supernatural power – could seea very dark aura around a character.

There are said to be 7 layers to an aura with each layer relating to different human characteristics, and each layer has different colours and different frequencies. So the light wavers and changes colour. Attributing characteristics or using the aura to highlight true motivation is also a useful plot device. For instance an aura could be red signifying suppressed anger or blue signalling calm and rationality. It could be orange for health and vitality or yellow for inspiration and intelligence. Black, of course, would be about evil intention or death… These are simply suggestions but I’m sure you can see how it could be used for good effect. Or maybe not…

In real terms, it seems that we all have an aura – even worms and insects have them – for they are simply magnetic energy fields. It’s just that most people cannot see these fields with the naked eye. Makes for juicy story lines, though… Don’t you think?

 

how to write thrillers that stay forever in the memory...

Write thrillers with bags of emotion...

When out with friends for a chat and catch up, we often talk about the books we have read (or not read as the case may be).  My friends sometimes think I’m a bit ‘nuts’ as I tell them I often don’t finish novels.

I am a person who hates to waste time so I will only carry on reading a book if the writer has caught me up in a story (involved me emotionally). If I am not enjoying a book I will cast it aside and not waste further time on it. It doesn’t even have to be a really bad book for that to happen – it may simply be that it is boring me a bit. I know that sometimes if I continue it will get better but why should I bother when there are so many other juicy books to get stuck into. On the other hand I know people who will persevere with a book – provided it is not that bad! The engine that turns so-so fiction into well-loved and remembered books? Emotion!

When I ask friends what a book is actually about and they cannot remember I know it wasn’t that good. For me the plot has to hang together well and the story must engage some kind of strong emotion in me. Whether that is horror, happiness, sadness or sorrow an emotion of some kind must be there. When I think back to books I read as a child/young woman I find it is the emotion I remember most clearly about the story.

 I generally judge a good book by how well I can remember it weeks later. If it truly stays with me, I know it was a great book. One such novel in recent months was “The Incredible Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”. That book almost brought me to tears at the end and I can remember most of it even though I read it a while ago! Whereas the one I read last week was fairly good but I can’t remember it without a prompt! Another great recent read was Jo jo Moyes " Me Before You"

No, I know they were not really thrillers but there ARE plenty of thrillers who are awash with emotion (both love and heart warming terror to name but two). In fact I would say thrillers cannot be good stories (no matter how much of a roller coaster ride) without that all important connection to the reader.  Take for example the stories of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tess Gerritsen, and even Jodi Picoult.  They are all chock full of supense but they also look at our very human frailties and our relatinships with each other. Great reads every one of them!!!

Of course Charles Dickens may have been the best ever for injecting masses of emotion into his stories as well as suspense... Who could ever forget the image of a small thin boy holding out a bowl and asking meekly for more?

 Do certain stories have a big impact for you?

Premonitions - To See or Not To See?

Premonitions may be quite useful in thriller writing – they can and do indicate future events (often going horribly wrong) and they can be arbiters of death, dying or even some cataclysmic world-wide happenings.

Premonitions fascinate us because our understanding of how things can be foretold (or foreseen) without the aid of the usual human senses does not lie within the normal limits of our innate abilities. How can a person look into the future and – some would say - why would a person want to look into the future?

Through the ages, from time immemorial, there are countless instances and stories about premonitions and seeing future events that could not possibly have been foreseen. Or so it seems…I think most of us would agree that there are stories where we are stumped for answers and a quick straw poll of any largish group of people would, I am sure, come up with one or two stories that defy the laws of existence. And it all adds to the mystery…

One of the most famous people who claimed to foresee the future was, of course, Nostradamus. His writings and prophecies are with us still today – 500 years later. When I looked up his work and his life I found the following:

“Recent research suggests that much of Nostradamus’ prophetic work paraphrases collections of ancient ‘end of the world’ prophecies (mainly Bible-based), supplemented with references to historical events and anthologies of omen reports. He then projects those into the future in part with the aid of comparative horoscopy. Hence the many predictions involving ancient figures such as Sulla, Gaius Marius, and Nero, as well as his descriptions of "battles in the clouds" and "frogs falling from the sky."

But even when all the charlatans are taken out of the equations we still remain fascinated with the idea that some people can predict the future and some ordinary people can have ‘once in a lifetime’ premonitions ( especially about a loved one).

In my own writing (The Witcheye Gene) I used the concept for one of my characters but the visions only came about because of a particular familial characteristic of different colored eyes. And it was quite limited otherwise it can seem contrived and in the worst way seem like a ‘deus ex machina’ . But I did find it quite fascinating to research and include it in my plot. It actually ratcheted up the tension when one person could foresee something but no one else believed them.

 

Do you beleive some people can 'see' the future in some form or another? Have you ever used the idea in your own writing?

 



Vile Villains with Redeemable Flaws!

To say a villain in a thriller story is flawed is like saying coal is black!

Of course a villain is flawed, I hear you say, otherwise he would make a pretty poor antagonist. A “good” villain has a personality that most of us would not aspire to as he may be capable of the most dastardly (I just love that word!) acts. I am, however, talking about a villain who may be flawed because he/she has some decent human traits that show us he isn’t totally bad. The only villain who could be said to be totally bad is the devil himself, I guess. Most others started out as innocent babies and children but maybe something happened to make them bad. Or maybe not – maybe they simply have more of the undesirable human traits in their genetic make-up. Nasty traits do exist to some extent in all of us, but hopefully most people have control of those urges and anyway have more humanity and caring for fellow humans. 

How villainous a character is depends mostly on the type of story you are writing. If the villain is a love rival or a corporate executive he may not be so nasty in all areas of his life… But on the other hand, if he/she is a horror/supernatural villain, he may have no redeeming features at all. For example a bad character may be wicked and malicious to people but may love animals! In this way he is a flawed character and not true to the caricature of through and through evil which we may assume him to be. 

 Always, when using villains, a suitable adversary/hero is necessary and it is the juxtaposition of their characters that allow the most conflict and tension in a story.  The hero who has faults is a much more interesting character than the perfect boring type of individual. I think we can relate better to him because he is flawed – as we all are too. Similarly, we all know people who we consider to be horrible individuals but we know (maybe deep down) they will have some redeeming characteristics too.  

For me, giving my villains one redeeming human trait, amongst all the vicious, nasty ones, makes them much more interesting ( and indeed fun) and if their malevolent ways came about because of something that happened to them – well, it just makes them all the more intriguing. Not nice and not worth rooting for but maybe a little more human. And more importantly more believable…

Do you give your villains a small touch of the nice-ies?

 

Viva La Blog!

Viva La Blog!

 

I have been blogging for quite a while now and I absolutely love doing it – even though I am sometimes pushed for time. It’s a busy busy world, I fear…

I have relished reading many folks’ blogs (although actually wished I hadn’t visited with just a few) and I love the chit chat with commenting and reciprocating. I feel as if I have made many new friends, whom I will probably never meet, but I feel I know them reasonably well anyway. Their lives, I have learnt are just as full on as my own and I realise I am not the only one who sometimes struggles to keep all the balls in the air. Linking to other people’s blogs and joining in blog hops, tours etc. is also great fun.

One of the other great things about blogging, I have found, is that it sharpens my writing up and gets me to practise being brief and concise without losing any of the essence of what I am trying to say.  In fact, I would say I am probably a better writer because of blogging. I am constantly stimulated and enriched by reading other blogs – I never realised there were so many interesting and innovative bloggers out there. .. Fine fodder for inspiration and good story ideas!!

 I used to worry about the time it takes up but nowadays I am much more chilled out about it as I realise it is actually helping me become a better writer.  It is teaching me something else too – perseverance! When I started I had no followers or readers and rarely did anyone say anything useful to me. Now I get so much from my comments and loads of advice and tips about writing generally, that I sometimes feel a little swamped. But it all comes directly from blogs. Viva La Blog!!!

BUT I do have one or two small gripes… (Please bear with me as I’m sure other people might agree with me.)

Why do people use the captcha? I know it is supposedly more secure but it makes me want to scream.  I have sometimes spent more of my precious time trying to get it right than I did reading and writing a comment! I refuse to do it anymore. If I cannot get it right the first time now I am inclined to leave it! Which is a shame when I have read a post and have something to say… It also makes me wonder if those bloggers really want comments when they are making their readers jump through hoops.  The reader should always come first in our thoughts and plans – I say!

The second gripe is about the length of some blog posts! I do not have time to scroll and read through great long excerpts or ‘all around the garden’ opinions. Please, please be brief-ish! I for one will be much more likely to return and read future posts.

There! Gripe done! I feel so much better…

 Do you have blogging gripes? or am I on my own?

Airy Scary..

Atmosphere

Atmosphere, in my opinion, is one of the most difficult things to grasp in writing thriller fiction. In my own preferred genre it is perhaps a little more clear-cut as all speculative-type fiction should be suffused with a sense of the unnatural or unknown. A kind of fearful anticipation of what could happen or what might happen - that is beyond our normal understanding.

But I think atmosphere is important in so many other ways. It creates certain expectations in a reader that must then be lived up to.

Atmosphere is created by various things. Settings help to a large extent and so do characters themselves but also the language used can also create atmosphere. But the atmosphere must fit with the story and so it is something I always give a great deal of thought to before I even begin writing.

I suppose the easiest atmosphere to imagine is a scary one such as the type used in ghost stories. The clichéd haunted house that creaks and moans or the fog- shrouded moor that hides dark secrets. The hooting of owls and wild life at night - or the abnormal absence of the same!

Other types of genre fiction have their own clichés, of course. I do believe atmosphere is closely related to the emotion you are trying to elicit in your reader. If you wish your reader to feel anger than an unpleasant atmosphere (or setting) will help. If you are looking for a tender emotion then a romantic setting may help. However it is not just about setting. A harsh factory floor can be made atmospheric and romantic with the right words and actions.

The trick (and the challenge) is to create your own sense of atmosphere to embed in your story, without it being clichéd. More difficult than it seems, I feel. For atmosphere is ethereal and like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder ( apologies for the cliché).
Do you find it easy to develop a sense of atmosphere that fits with the story/genre?



By The Pricking Of My Thumbs...

Wickedly Wicked

Wicked!  I just love that word. It conjures up images of witches and wizards for me and I always think of the late Ray Bradbury‘s brilliant novel “Something wicked this way comes”. He took his inspiration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, of course.

Nowadays it is used by young people as a replacement for the word ‘brilliant’ or something similar. It is also associated with the word ‘cool’ – as in something or someone being ‘hip’ or current. Whoever said language was not a living breathing changeable entity!

Anyway, I digress. What I mean to talk about is the original proper use of the word. When I looked it up in my dictionary it said it meant evil or sinful. But then there was a whole host of harsh words from ‘abominable’ to ‘abased’ to ‘shameful’ and ‘vicious’. In fact over fifty similar words! Many of which I have used time and again in my own supernatural thriller writing.

But nothing says something evil quite as succinctly as ‘wicked’. It goes best with villainous characters and horrific deeds.

“To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.” Voltaire said.  A wonderful quote, indeed... I think one could weave an entire story around some of the quotes about wickedness.

A good word like this can be as helpful in horror/thriller writing as love is in romance writing. But it can equally be much overused and abused.

Do you have favourite words that you feel inclined to use more often than not?

 

Creepy Crawly Jiggery Pokery

The Unfashionable Flavour of the Occult

Nowadays Occultism ( the study of the supernatural)  is a subject that is rarely seriously discussed. The horror genre has moved on - in the sense that much of the horror story telling today is set in everyday life - and the tales tend to express the fear of the unknown in ways that many of us can relate to.

The word Occult is described in the dictionary as ‘secret, mysterious and supernatural’.  A meaning that signifies to many the ‘practise of the Black Arts’. That, in itself, is a term that has fallen out of fashion nowadays.

Many believe in the power of good and evil and the eternal struggle between these two extremes of our human condition but the Devil himself and the pseudo-science of demonology have long since fallen by the wayside for most people. We no longer live in the superstitious dark ages of magic, mayhem and witchcraft.

However that does not mean that many of the paranormal aspects of the occult have disappeared. Indeed, they are alive and well in many good stories today.  For example vampires, monsters and other worldly beings are in full flavour at the minute. 

For me the use of ordinary people - rather than devilish, vampiric, evil monster/villains -  gives a much greater feel of horror. After all it could be me or you trapped in a modern horror story… (A La Mr King).

But the Occult is still very useful in a modern horror story, as there are lots of subtopics within it. The influences of things like astrology, ESP,  numerology, clairvoyance, telepathy, telemetry, premonitions, doppelgangers and hypnotism – to name but a few – are still with us and can be used to good effect in a good thriller/supernatural story. Everyone knows what these things mean even if they don’t believe in them.  But…. Haha, you say… You just never know…

That, I believe, is their power. As Shakespeare said in Hamlet:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Do you enjoy a story with some supernatural-type elements in it?

 

A Curious Thing Happened...

One of the things I learned early on in my novel writing was that you must have fully formed multi-dimensional characters. I wondered what this actually meant and after reading around and talking to other writers I realised that the characters (at least the main ones) must come to the page with an agenda, motivation, likes, dislikes and tons of personality.

Of course, you cannot bore readers to death with masses of personal history, but what you can do is compile a character sheet with all the personal traits you want the character to have – as recommended by many a ‘how to write’ author… But wait… That still didn’t feel quite right to me. How can a simple list of likes, dislikes make a person? The answer is they don’t!

But I made my lists anyway and then a curious thing happened… I found myself wondering ‘why’ this character would like this and ‘why’ did they hate that?  I started writing more (on my character sheet) about the character’s childhood, upbringing, status in life and what brought them to this point in their existence. Suddenly I had a story character with formidable motivation who felt real – great! But it did not exactly fit the plot I had in mind. What to do? I changed the plot.

I did this with other characters too – especially the antagonist – trying to go against the main traits I had in my protagonist. Voila – I had inbuilt conflict. When I finished doing all the character sheets I realised I had stacks of back story which I could draw on at any point in my story without going into information and descriptive overload.

I have to say this method of drawing up extensive back story really worked for me and I think my stories benefitted enormously from my knowing what motivated the characters.  Most of this work never saw the light of day, of course, but it helped me to have it in my mind that a certain person would react/behave in a certain way because they were pre-programmed by fate, upbringing and circumstance. I like to think my characters ‘came to life on the page’ – tried and trusted cliché I know…  Sorry.

So now, when I am trying to put a story together, I start with the germ of an idea and then go onto character pretty quickly so I can write their history and what makes them the person/character that they are.  It generally results in a well-rounded, believable plot too. At least that’s what I like to think…

So, do you write character sheets that tie in with the back story?