The post 225 How to Write Reverse Harem Romance with Cara Clare appeared first on Sacha Black.

Life’s a funny old thing, so often we go through difficult times and have to make hard choices. Sometimes we lose friends, loved ones, gain new ones, have children. We travel and feel moved to change our entire lives. We give up careers and start again. I’ve seen my fair share of cross roads probably the most significant was being told if I waited to have kids, it might be too late.

My choice?

Turn left – be young free and have money, travel.

or

Turn right – fork out thousands for fertility treatment and suffer losses and emotional torment.

I turned right. It was the right decision, but when you’re faced with a cross roads the decision isn’t always obvious.

This week, the writespiration is all about Cross Roads. Maybe your character is physically at a cross road, maybe they have a choice to make. If you fancy joining in, jot a few words or a short story and I will publish it with next weeks post.

Here’s mine:

He was trembling.

“You’re pathetic,” I growled.

His incessant twitching was irritating. The tap, tap, tap, of the tightly wound knot rattled against the chair I’d tied him to. It was giving me a headache.

I put the cold barrel of the magnum against my temple hoping the cool metal would ease the ache and pulled another dining room chair out. I sat down in front of him. 

“You got a choice, Marty.”

Sweat dripped off his face and crawled across his shirt. I pointed the gun at his chest, rubbing the barrel into the sweat.

“Get a grip of your self…” I dug the gun into his chest a few times. Each time, he wince harder. 

“Baby… honey… You don’t have t..”

I slid my finger over the hammer and pulled it down till it clicked. 

“Did I say you could talk?”

He pulled his lips tight and shook his head.

“You had twenty years of marriage to talk, Marty. Now it’s my turn.”

“I’m sorry baby, I didn’t… She didn’t… I won’t do it again, I swear.”

I raised my hand and fired the gun at the wall. The crack thundered across the dining room. The bullet ripped into the glass cabinet. Glass splintered and showered the dining room table I had laid night after night for twenty years. My favourite china set plummeted to the wooden floor  shattering and camouflaged itself in amongst the glass.

“Look what you made me do, Marty,” I said waving the gun at the remains of my dinner set, “that was my best fucking china.”

I stood up. My chest felt tight. Blood rang in my ears. I scanned the dining room with its matching curtains and furniture.

“You took the best years of my life, for what?” I peered at the collection of photo frames filled with nephews and nieces instead of my own children.

“A bunch of whores and prostitutes?”

I shook my head and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“I was going to give you a choice. But you know what I realised, Marty?”

His lips flopped open.

“Don’t fucking answer that… I’ll tell you what I realised. You don’t deserve a choice. This is my cross roads.”

I leant into his face, my nose millimetres from his.

“You stink like shit, Marty,” I said wrinkling my nose and trying not to breathe in his sweat.

“I want a divorce… and this…” I said pushing the muzzle of the gun deep into his crotch. He flinched, lip quivering. A wet patch spread across his trousers. I pushed my finger onto his lip, “shh,” the corners of my mouth curled into a toothy grin and I cocked the hammer.

“This is for the for the two decades of tears I shed each and every time you fucked another woman. This is so no one else will ever have to cry for you again.”

I fired.

***

So to last week. I loved last weeks writespiration, so I will endeavour to post it again albeit it with a different word, I think it produced some fascinating entries with wonderful insights into all your minds!

First in with a response to last weeks Writespiration was:

Rachel with this fab entry

There was an eerie silence lingering in the air. Everyone eyeballed each other wondering who was going to be the next to stand up and say something. They were all thinking. No one wanted to be the bearer of bad news and played “nose-goes” inside their heads willing someone else to say something.

***

Next Helen with a super eerie entry

Silence. It was all around him. Weighing heavy on his ears, on his time. Time that he scratched out, one by one on the damp bricks, the only indication that it passed the slivers of light through the barred window high above. No one came to see him. No one cared, it seemed, that he still lived.

***

The wonderful Michelle joins us this week and gave an emotional entry

Silence. A beautiful voice, his laughter are forever gone. Lost in silence are the sweet words. “hey, Mum, love you.” The silence is unfathomable. The silence tears at the heart.

***

Geoff gives his best TanGental entry this week :p

Silence is a long way from home, which is a hollow noduled bucket in Minneapolis and rather twee in a woebegone sort of way. Carriage bags have a habit of breaking silcne wit a rustle and a grimace. Shoping with silence is a chore and

***

Hugh follows Geoff with some equally tangential thinking – I just love where these are taking

If silence is golden then why am I not rich and living in outer space where it is silent. I love being silent like in the silent films which I don’t understand because they have no talking in them and are often in black and white and all fuzzy to watch. I wonder if they served popcorn in those days?

***

Jane gives this beautiful entry

Silence. The word sounds so loud when I think about it. Like when you put your head underwater. The sound of water. And the night air when everything else is quiet. Except the silence.

***

Sarah‘s written a cracking entry

Silence. Beeping, hacking, coughing, talking, yelling, beeping. Fleeting moments. Time is gone. Walls close in. Hoping. Waiting. For silence.

***

Foy joined in this week with a wonderful dialogue entry

“Would you shut up already?! I told you we’re not going to the zoo to harass the lions today.
That’s next week.”

***

The post Writespiration #44 appeared first on Sacha Black.

Now, to the winner of the worst possible sentence from last weeks writespiration, and boy did we have some cracking entries. And by cracking, I mean awful!

The winner of the most terrible opening line is………

Jane congratulations Jane, you wrote the most terrible opener, giving everything away and breaking all sorts of rules in the process! Fabulous entry:

‘It was terrible knowing that they were all going to die in a house fire, except for Jill who runs off to South America with the postman who apears in chapter sixteen, that Simon would fail his Oxford first year exams and end up working as a petrol pump attendant until he throws himself off a bridge in chapter twenty one, and that her operation would be a disaster and leave her housebound so when she drops her lighted cigarette onto the sheet she can’t even raise the alarm, but you have to live through the next four hundred pages, don’t you?’

Runner up goes to Keith for the most depressing adverb rich opener I’ve ever seen! Fantastic effort Keith

John wasn’t sure where he was going; walking solemnly and forlornly through the pea-souper fog, straining his weary eyes to make out the slightest detail murkily presenting itself to his age-worn visage; the laughter lines for which he was, until recently, famed giving way to worry-lines as he plodded relentlessly through the misty, dewy, heavy, moisture-laden air under a leaden sky that was constantly threatening to unload its heavy cargo, its payload, its bounty onto an unsuspecting world below, a world where hope had given way to despair, where happiness had been supplanted by depression, where gaiety had fallen prey to solemnity, a world whose very atmosphere, the elemental structure that is designed, intended, purposed to support and nurture life, is slowly, but surely, inexorably and remorselessly threatening to stifle it, to extinguish it, to render it extinct.

***

Helen Jones new to writespiration, gave a stonking effort with this terrible opener. If my wife had been choosing the winner, Helen would have won – it made Mrs. Black laugh out loud.

‘He had always liked penguins, and those shoes with the velcro fastening.’

***

Geoff was far too good but he does get an honourable mention for the two most disgustingly vile sentences:

‘And it’s confirmed: Nigel Farage will be the next Prime Minister.’

‘The only interesting about Tarquin was his toe-clipping collection which he had spent years cataloging: this is his story (with illustrations).’

***

 To this weeks Writespiration, remember, don’t look at the word till you are ready. Set your timer for 60 seconds don’t edit just write fast. Scroll down to see the word:

SILENCE

Here’s mine:

Why is silence so deafening? It ached in my ears, the pounding silence swallowed up any thoughts I had. It hurt. Hurt like the loss of my parents. No more voices to call me in at the end of the day. No mother to shout upstairs “dinners ready.” Just endless silence.

The post Writespiration #43 appeared first on Sacha Black.

How do you read? What happens to you?

Drifting off into another world when reading might be wonderful for the joy of the story. But it presents significant problem for me if I want to learn anything from the author.

When you read, are you reading as a reader or a writer? I always read as a reader. Allowing myself to be completely absorbed, to feel what the characters feel, smile at their wins and cry over their losses. But how do you stay consciousness enough to pick out the points you can learn from and still read like a reader?

There are the obvious things all readers like:

• Gritty multi-layered characters with hopes, dreams and faults.
• Characters being tested to their limits
• Pace – enough to keep you interested
• Story arc and a climax
• A statisfying ending
• Some kind of antagonist or bad guy
• An absorbing world

There are more, but you get my point. I don’t want to write a blog post telling anyone to suck eggs, or whatever the phrase it. These points are standard. It’s the more subtle things that I want to learn from. The nuances, the individual word choices in a sentence that give vivid imagery. Or the sentences that make me catch my breath and read faster, faster, faster because I just HAVE to know what happens. Or the actions a character takes that make me fall in love with them a little more.

There’s no magic to my method. I try to read a fraction slower than normal – hard if it’s a pacey book. I keep a pencil, highlighter or trusty index finger to hand depending on how I am reading. If on my kindle, then I use the highlighting function to highlight any I pick up. To ensure I keep buried in the book, I use my emotions as a flag system. If I smile, I check myself – why did I smile, a quick scramble back through the previous paragraph and hey presto, I just learnt a new trick. If I find myself scanning faster and faster, feeling desperate to just know, then I do the same. If I cry, if I feel anything, I stop and try and identify why.

Some of these might seem odd given you wont have any of the few hundred pages of context I had. But I thought it would be helpful to share some of the things I highlighted from the last book I read (End of Days):

1. ‘…can see the frustration stiffening the lines of his shoulders.’

Why did I highlight it? I guess because it painted wonderful images, in one sentence I knew exactly how he felt, and what it did to his body, I saw and felt the emotion.

2. ‘I put my hand over my mouth to keep from calling him.’

That’s the protagonist speaking, and a display of physical action showing her innocent love for the male lead. I thought it was so sweet an innocent and a beautifully honest depiction of what a teen might do to stop herself from calling out to the boy and admitting something she didn’t want to.

3. ‘The October wind tugs at my hair. Dry leaves float by, lost and abandoned.’

As I admitted in my post describing my writing process I’m still developing my ability to do description. This is a great example of weaving atmospheric description into the story – plus it gives away a piece of description about the protagonist too – which can be difficult when writing in the first person.

Some questions from me to you, I would love to know the answers to:

1. What do you naturally pick up on when you read your favourite stories?
2. Why are they your favourite, as a writer why do you appreciate them?
3. Do you collect and highlight pieces of text? If not, do you do something else to gather your favourite excerpts or ‘lessons’?

The post Read Like A Writer – Collect Words. Collect Sentences. appeared first on Sacha Black.

I don’t think I am alone in obsessing over reading blogs about writing, but all it does it confuse me. I mean, how much attention do we really pay to understanding our own writing process?

Until recently, when I had an epiphany, I’d spent a long time thinking there was a right way… a right writing process I should be following. There isn’t. I decided to sit down and really give my process some thought, because if I can understand my own process, then I can shape it and tweak it to maximize my effectiveness. I hope this post helps you do the same.

Everyone’s process will of course be different, but if you are in any doubt about your own method, if you’re blocked or just feel something isn’t right, then I strongly recommend you do your own version of this to understand your process. Because I love visual things, I have depicted it in a pyramid:

 ***

Usually I prepare and organise till I’m blue in the face, lists run in my blood. But it wasn’t working for my writing, so I let go of doing most ‘preparation’ to write this novel. One thing I couldn’t let go of was an outline. I need it, for my sanity! For me, it doesn’t have to be massive, but because getting the timeline/action down is the most important thing in my first draft, I need a paragraph outlining each chapter. I never follow the outline to the letter, things get moved, cut completely and then changed again, but it’s a guide.

Step 1: Decide what you need before you start – an outline, a synopsis, masses of research or just an idea.

***

PLOT

This is where you figure out what is most important to you to get down on the page first. This will also be dependent on how you work out and develop your characters.

Step 2: Decide what’s most important to you in draft one.

Here are my questions to help you work out your own process for draft 1:

• What do you like doing first?
• How do you develop your characters? Do you know them before you start writing or do you see how they develop on the page?
• How well do you know your setting before you start?
• Do you need to do lots of research?

I tried to use character sheets and interview each one before I started, but it didn’t work for me and trying only made me tie myself in knots worrying I was a shit writer because I couldn’t answer the questions.

So I sacked the preparation off and let the characters develop on the page. For me draft one is all about timeline and action. I need to get the basic plot down on the page. There’s only a little bit of creativity and imagery woven in to the story at this stage. I can’t get everything perfect in the first draft, so I don’t even try. I don’t worry about the chapter, three chapters ago, that Ive decided needs a rewrite, I just keep going. But how do I combat this incessant need to edit?

Step 3: Create an editing map.

I create one place, with a designated section for each chapter. Dump decisions or notes about chapters or characters or whatever you like under the appropriate chapter section. That way you keep your thoughts and decisions ready and organised for when you want to edit.

The benefit of an editing map is it will allow you to pattern spot your thinking. If you find you constantly put notes about characters then you know that’s what needs to go in the next draft. If you comment about setting then work on that next and so on.

***

CHARACTERS

Have a break before starting draft two, the longer the text the longer the break should be, but its up to you to decide how long is right for you. I imagine I will put my manuscript down for a month or two – or as long as I physically can.

Here’s where I hack the manuscript or story to pieces, I focus on finalising the timeline. Moving chapters or scenes till they are right, but I get it right here. Once this draft is over I don’t want to have to move the timeline much more. Whilst I do this, I study the characters. Picking up on their salient traits, emphasising or minimising them, checking consistencies and making very rough notes about each one, so that I get consistency across the whole story – bit like an editing map but for the characters – let’s call it a character map.

Step 4: Check your editing map for patterns of your thinking before you start editing- whatever is most salient is what you should work on next.

Step 5: Create a character map – it can look like whatever you want, and be as big or small as you want but should have relevant or key bits of information about your character to ensure consistency when editing.

Step 6: Once the timeline is finalised plot a loose map of chapters / scenes so you can easily find bits you need when editing.    

The character map ensures I check their back story and history and start weaving in detail.

Finally I start thinking about the world and environment. I know a lot of detail about my stories world before I start writing, so I don’t need to do much work to create it, more weave the detail in, in draft 3.

***

WORLD-BUILDING

Have another break before starting draft 3.

This is world-building time. I know for some people this will be the first draft stuff. But not for me, world-building comes in as a finishing touch – madness given the genre I write (fantasy/dystopian), but my world building is really done before I outline. The world in my current novel is what came to me first, so even though I only start to weave the detail in now, I already know what needs doing. My other focus in this draft is to finalise characters, detail, backstory and ensuring all the foreshadowing is in the right place.

Step 7: Check your editing map again

Ask yourself:

• What’s left to perfect?
• Have you checked details?
• Is your world complete?
• Are your characters perfected?
• Do you need to foreshadow?
• Does your timeline work?

***

PERFECTING THE MANUSCRIPT

I’m rubbish at proof reading. But I have to at least attempt it before giving it to beta readers and editors. So I proof read, check everything, over and over till I feel like I have done as much as I can do. I check:

• Characters
• Timelines
• Consistencies of: characters, world, locations, storyline, descriptions etc
• Grammar/spelling/word order/sentence structure etc
• General errors
• Story arcs / character growth

***

BETA FEEDBACK

This is the bit where you crap your pants a little – your hand shakes as you tentatively give your manuscript over to be critiqued by beta readers.

Once you stop crying! You edit in your feedback and hey presto you’re ready to pay a developmental or copy editor or seek an agent or whatever you feel your next steps should be.

 ***

RESEARCH

Step8: Research along the way, don’t get stuck making all the decisions before you start

There’s one section I haven’t mentioned. Research, and that’s because I research constantly. From before I pick up the pen, right through to the end of draft 3. I don’t worry about having all the tiny details before I start, or I would never start, plus I change my mind too often to decide everything before I begin; so I research details along the way.

***

This post is not meant to be a guide to the only writing process– the complete opposite in fact. This post is just my personal method of writing, my process. It will only be right for me. But what I hope it does do, is help you get some insight into discovering your own process. 

What does your pyramid look like?

The post 8 Steps to Discover Your Perfect Writing Process appeared first on Sacha Black.

It has taken me an inexplicably long time to read just one book. I am actually a reasonably fast reader I can sink a few books in a week if I have the time. Alas, baby Black has prevented this from happening, and shamefully, not only is this the first book I’ve finished this year, but worse this particular book has taken me way over six months to read. Tut. But huzzah I have finally finished it.

I have only (from memory) written one other book review, for A Disturbed Girl’s Guide to Curing Boredom, because I loved it so much I felt compelled to write about it on amazon and goodreads and such like.

But having read a few posts recently, about the benefits of book reviews, and the difficulty people face getting genuine ones; I figured it was my duty (as a budding writer) to review every book I read henceforth. So I will, and I will post them here, because where better? I will also reference them on my Reading for leisure list. But more importantly, I am going to try and sway the percentage of books I read towards the indie end, there are a couple of traditionally published books out this year, I have been waiting for, but otherwise, I am going to take a leaf out of Dylan’s book and ‘Pay It Forward‘

I’m caveating this review because I have no idea if I will say the right things… feel free to tell me if I have missed anything that should be covered in a review…?

To the book – Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld can be found on Amazon if you are interested in buying it.

The Amazon Book Blurb:

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an ‘Ugly’ into a ‘Pretty’. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time. But then she meets Shay, who is also fifteen – but with a very different outlook on life. Shay isn’t sure she wants to be Pretty and plans to escape to a community in the forest – the Rusty Ruins – where Uglies go to escape ‘ turning’. Tally won’t be persuaded to join her, as this would involve sacrificing everything she’s ever wanted for a lot of uncertainty. When she is taken in for questioning on her birthday, however, Tally gets sent to the Ruins anyway – against her will. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she could ever imagine: find her friend Shay and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. What she discovers in the Ruins reveals that there is nothing ‘pretty’ about the transformations… And the choice Tally makes will change her world forever.

MY REVIEW:

I was originally drawn to Uglies, because it is comes from my favourite genre. YA Fantasy/Dystopian fiction. But also that’s what I am trying to write so I have been consuming everything I can get my hands on! Most (not all) books in this genre are written in the first person. Anyone who has read this blog for a while would know, I have a strong distaste for third person novels… unless they are written so well I can’t tell. I’ve even ranted about the third person POV, in the third person POV! So when I started reading Uglies, I did struggle to get passed the POv. I found myself annoyed by the protagonists name being littered across every page, and multiple ‘Tally felt this, or that,’ made the character’s emotions seem dubious at best.

That being said the concept of this dystopian setting was fantastic. I think it’s highly relevant to the model and surgery obsessed teens of today. What a pertinent and timely reminder to readers of the YA genre of the dangerous surgery and looks obsessions pose. For it’s appropriateness as a moral and ethical centrepiece for its targeted age group, I salute it. I would happily go under the knife, and It made me stop and think.

This book was painfully slow to start, I nearly gave up on a number of occasions. But several friends who have read it to the end encouraged me to persist because it ‘gets better’ as do the sequels (so they say). So I persisted, and to a certain extent they were right.

The book speeds up, eventually, but not until precisely 64% of the way through. I say 64% ‘exactly’ because, judge me not, I read the thing on my iPad kindle app. The point is I actually took note of when I started to enjoy the story. 64% is too far in to have kept me captive under normal circumstances, if it wasn’t for my friends I would have given up at 30%. I am a fan of speed, pace and action, this book does not give that until two thirds of the way through. And yes, I get that theres a story arc and most of the tension and climax comes at the end. But the world setting and history filling in, was too long, and too slow. I can’t for the life of me even remember what happened before 64%.

Sadly I didn’t feel much of anything for the protagonist either,ok, I did, a bit. But I didn’t cry, or get worried and feel bereft when I finished the book, and believe me, some books definitely do that to me.

By the end of the book, I was reasonably satisfied because it had action and was pacey. But, in the last couple of chapters, there were long paragraphs of description, it felt like the author was running out of words, and couldn’t afford the dialogue. The ending itself was not overly satisfying. It ended, and some storylines were closed. However, it was left wide open for the sequels, so much so, I didn’t really feel like I got closure on anything. I know that series are meant to be left open, (we have to make money somehow) but shouldn’t a book also give closure inself? I think so.

Would I recommend this book? If you read this genre regularly, then you will probably love it. At the moment, I expect the spectacular, I want to be wowed and inspired to write, not feel like I could do better. But, if you like YA fantasy/dystopian fiction then I would say, give it a go. If you don’t, don’t waste your time.

At a push, 3 out of 5.

The post Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld appeared first on Sacha Black.

April brings the start of another series, as I start to look at the villains in my novel, I thought I would share with you the things I learn. But first: Audience Participation Required…

I want to run a poll, to see who your favourite villains are? Comments below. There are no rules your villains could be from literature, TV, Film, Theatre or anywhere else for that matter, and you can have more than one if you like.

The Telegraph has a list of the 50 Best Villains if you need some inspiration.

It’s not something that I have thought about very often. Don’t we usually have a favourite hero? Not a favourite villain. But villains are the characters that linger, that you love to hate, so why haven’t I thought about this before?

I had a little look at the list and picked out my faves from it.

Captain Hook is on there at 40

The Joker from Batman is at 23

Patrick Bateman from American Psycho is at 17

Hannibal Lecter at 14

Lord Voldemort came in at 5

Cruella de Ville came in at 2

Not on the list, but one I had to add is, Ursula

She had to make the list, partly because I have a strange obsession with Octopuses, but also because I loved the Little Mermaid, until I watched it on maternity leave, and realised the absolute horror of the contents, cue a feminist rant on The Abomination That is Disney.

I asked the wife who her favourite villains were and she said the joker, but specifically Heath Ledger’s joker, we both agreed there was something special about the way he played it, neither of us have actually figured out what that ‘special’ was yet, but I’ll come back to you! I find it interesting that most of the villains on the list were male, and that as a result most of the villains on my list are male. But I will write another post about that later. Suggestions on good female villains?

So who else can you add to my list of ultimate villains? I would love a big old list to be able to deconstruct and study, so if you have a moment, please do comment.

If you liked this post, subscribe here to hear about the release of 13 Steps to Evil, my writing craft book designed to help writers craft superbad villains. Due for release MAY 2017. 

The post Crafting Villains Series #1 Who’s Your Ultimate Villain? appeared first on Sacha Black.

If this Writespiration inspired you then jot a few words, a poem or a story and post below and I will post them with a link to your blog in next weeks post.

Here’s mine:

What is Love? By Sacha Black

“What does it feel like, Mama?”

“What does what feel like, Joseph?”

“Love.”

“Well,” I said picking him up and drawing him into my chest, “It’s warm and squidgy, and filled with cuddles and warmth. It sounds like glorious sunshine, and birds chirping in spring and sometimes like waves crashing on the sand.”

“Oh,” he said wriggling out of my arms. He frowned at me, and puckered his lips into a pout.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“But, if love sounds like all of those things, then what does it taste of?”

I smiled to myself and planted a kiss on his forehead.

“What’s your favourite food?”

“Mama don’t be silly, you know it’s ice cream and marshmallows.”

“Then honey, I strongly suspect that love tastes of ice cream and marshmallows.”

***

Last weeks writespiration had three fantastic submissions:

The first a moving tale of innocence by Geoff Le Pard

Dust

No pavement this
A line of dust
Trod hard by toil.
Sifting grains held
Till the rains come.
Or tears and sweat.
Or blood.

Only children now touch
With curiosity,
Wiggling toes,
Questioning fingers,
Filtering grit,
Sizing each piece,
Testing for abrasion
On soft untroubled skin.

Only children have time
To explore.
Lives not yet
Trammelled by toil
And sweat
And blood.

Soon enough the rains will come.

***

The second a wonderfully emotional Haiku by Rachel

The dog sat, waiting.
He looked at his surroundings.
His family was gone.

***

The third submission was a beautiful tale of childhood memories by Charli Mills

Little Towns by Charli Mills

I lagged behind our guide, tugging at my daughter’s sleeve.

“Rose, this is like a scene from my childhood.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Mom, you grew up in North Dakota. This is Nepal.”

“Look—that little girl. Give her braids and that would be me, playing in the street while Pa loaded our wagon.”

“Seriously, Mom.”

“And that man in the doorway. He stands, arms folded, like Nels the shopkeeper. And that woman in the striking material. His wife I bet. Nels’s wife always dressed better than everyone else.”

“What is with you? We are in a foreign country.”

Nepal inspired me. I now knew that I would return home and write about my childhood. “Every place in the world has its little town on the prairie.”

The post Writespiration #32 appeared first on Sacha Black.

My aim here, is to see if I can convince you to get up close and personal with your own inner psycho…

Have you ever watched Dexter? If you haven’t, you should. It’s great, Wiki says:

‘Dexter is an American television drama series. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down criminals who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.’ 

A rubbish blurb if you ask me it doesn’t give half the detail of Dexter’s utter brilliance. Dexter is a psychopath. Not a sociopath as lots of people would lead you to believe. Sociopathy has a biological element, i.e. you are born like it. Dexter witnessed the murder of his mother as a wee laddie and it scarred him into emotional apathy hence, he developed psychopathy.

The interesting thing with Dexter is that although he can’t quite feel emotion, he wants to. He doesn’t want to kill people, he wants to be good and a nice person, but his ‘dark passenger’ doesn’t let him, he gets these urges to kill, so his adoptive father teaches him how to kill and get away with it, but he is only allowed to kill people that adhere to the ‘code’ i.e. a very bad person who escaped from the police.

What does this have to do with your own personal inner psycho, and more to the point, why can it make you a better writer?

Well, the writers of Dexter literally torture him, and torture us by torturing him. Throughout the 8 seasons, Dexter teases us with ‘almost emotions.’ For example, Dexter gets a girlfriend and eventual wife (Rita) who fully believes that Dexter is in love with her, so much so they have a child together. What is magical about this series and why I am writing this, is the extraordinary juxtaposition this creates: Dexter’s is unable to feel emotion, yet he strives for a normal life and indeed grows fond of Rita, and their son Harrison who he would protect with his life.

The lesson I have learnt from Dexter is just how important it is to torture your characters, and in every way possible. If you torture your characters your viewers or readers feel even more for them. I felt tortured with Dexter as I watched.

Emotional Torture:

Dexter is put under some extremely emotional torture throughout the series. For example, he tries to live a normal life, and have disguise – which involves Rita, but actually, he ends up being extremely fond of her, and they get married and have a child. We watch as he wrestles with himself and his own inner turmoil trying to work out if he does actually feel anything, whilst knowing he wants to spend time with them and be with them, not something he is used to. So when we see Dexter finally attain what he has been striving for – some semblance of normality and a sense of love. It is ripped away as Rita is brutally murdered which = Dexter emotionally tortured. Utter brilliance. I cried, a lot.

But the important lesson here is he was tortured. I felt for him, and as a result it gave him a ton of depth as a character. Here are the main ways Dexter was tortured, and the elements I think you should include in your stories to help readers feel for your characters:

Mental Torture:

Dexter constantly has to hide who he is, his murders and all the shenanigans he is up to. In one of the series there is another killer ‘The Ice Truck Killer’ who threatens to expose his whole life, he works out who he is – his real brother who he was separated from as a child, and this brother dates his adoptive sister. The torture Dexter has to go through juggling all the balls and trying to prevent his sister from being murdered leaves him exhausted, exposed and vulnerable, and quite frankly, me on the edge of my seat.

Physical Torture: 

Not always appropriate granted it will depend on your novel, BUT, there are some things you could do – say for example you are writing a chick flick book you can still physically torture your character. If they had a long journey to take, you could make it physically demanding, put obstacles in the way, make it exhausting for them. Dexter was beaten and tortured on a number of occasions through out the show, every occasion only serving to make us feel even more sorry for him, but then it was appropriate to the show and also kind of karma for him. The interesting thing is, despite the number of murders he had committed we empathise with him and completely excuse his murderous behaviour, quite worrying really!

Moral Torture: 

This was perhaps on a par with emotional torture for being the best method to get me on the edge of my seat. Despite being a psychopath and a killer, Dexter had morals. And lots of them. He lived his life strictly by ‘the code’ which his dad gave him. He would only kill certain people if they met the code, but throughout the series we watch as people who don’t match the code push him, and threaten to expose him, making him test his morals and everything he believes in, because if he went against his code then he would just be some common murderer. It’s his moral code that makes him interesting and unique, and what drives the viewer to see what he will do, how far does he have to be pushed before he will break his code? Who would he break the code for?

It’s a fascinating case study and if you haven’t watched it, honestly you should. But what’s the point I am actually trying to make?

Torture your characters… Get up close and personal with your own inner bit of psycho in order to create strange and nasty methods for torturing your characters, it will only serve to make us readers turn every page until the book is finished. Use the types of torture above, obviously you don’t need to use them all, and obviously not all at once, or  not even all in the same story. In fact it is probably better not to. But do use some of them. Push your characters to their limits, make them have to work hard for their goals and it naturally brings their character to life, gives them layers, texture and grit and importantly creates something the readers to enjoy.

My question to you is:

What’s your inner psychos preferred method of torture?

I think my psychos preference is for moral and emotional torture, I love a bit of moral torture to really test your characters fibre. How far can you push them before its too far?  Can you crush them? How far is too far? What would make them break? My inner psycho is going nuts thinking about how I can torture my characters next, and also about timing it just right, right when they think they are plain sailing… boom!

I would love to hear from you…What’s your inner psychos preferred method of torture?

The post The Dexter Effect – How to use your inner 'Psycho' to write better – The Crafting Characters Series #5 appeared first on Sacha Black.

In part one, I outlined why I didn’t like constructive criticism. As a brief summary,

You damage yourself, It makes you feel like shit, Criticism is negative, Criticism slows you down, Asking for criticism shuts your brain down, Giving constructive criticism makes me feel like crap, Just because society says so, isn’t good enough, Writers deserve respect not criticism, It’s ok not to be criticised.

To see the detail behind the topics above visit part one of the post. Before talking with two people who are experienced with constructive commenting, I wanted to delve deeper into the detail of what constructive commenting actually is. But first, I wanted to thank you all for how many detailed and thoughtful comments you submitted on the last post.

How to constructively comment:

Here’s the meat of this two parter. Hopefully I have convinced you in part one that constructive criticism is dead, and we need to hail the era of constructive commenting. As I ready mentioned my definition is:

 A method of constructively appraising a piece of work, using positive reinforcement.

For me the principles of constructively commenting are:

Say things politely and respectfully. (read things back to yourself before you send them back – how would you feel receiving the comment)

Be specific – Give Examples If someone has made a continuity error, tell them, highlight it and point it out. Just saying

‘oh I think you have some major consistency issues‘

Is not helpful in the slightest. Highlight the section and be polite.

‘I wasn’t sure if your character was meant to be wearing blue or red in this bit, but I noticed that it changed part way through.’

See how much nicer and politer that is, whilst still pointing out the problem?

Make suggestions – If someone’s character needs some work, tell them, and tell them what they could do to improve them. It’s no use saying, your character lacks depth, or I don’t feel anything for them. Tell them how to improve. ‘Have you thought about your characters backstory? I would love to know more about their history at this point in the story.’

What about

‘I wanted to ask you, how do you think your character feels here? How do you think this event has effected them? You could expand a little on this event to include some of that’

So much better, and more positive than, your character sucks, and I don’t feel anything for them. I have been told this, and that’s what prompted the thought behind this post.

Be Balanced – Even if you hate their work, there is ALWAYS something good about it. Whether be pacing, dialogue, style, a specific piece of description the options are endless, use your writers imagination. If you can’t find something positive, politely make your excuses and withdraw yourself from giving feedback. Don’t crush them by not giving any positive feedback. But the other point is don’t only give positive feedback. The reason the writer asked for your feedback is because they want to improve. So help them improve.

Top and Tails – Start positive, end positive. Do the constructive commenting bit in the middle. But more than that, summarise. Its always helpful for you to summarise at the end because quite often I find that I get an overall feeling about something, but haven’t found a specific example to highlight it (yes I am contradicting myself) but it could be that generally you feel there isn’t enough detail, or there’s too much emotion and it’s made a chapter melodramatic. Sometimes there aren’t specific examples for overall feedback but it is still valid, and you might not pick up on it until you start to summarise.

***

I asked my Writers Bureau Tutor Esther Newton about her experiences with constructive criticism and constructive commenting.

Esther have you ever had constructive criticism that you found difficult or hurtful? How did it make you feel, and how did you deal with it?

Yes! I’ve received plenty of constructive criticism over the years. I felt awful at first and as if I should give up writing there and then. But some of it was particularly stinging. Some criticism was helpful but a lot just seemed negative and a put down. The way I dealt with it was to leave it for a few days, then get up and dust myself down, grit my teeth and push on to prove to myself that I jolly well could be a writer!

What do you think constitutes ‘good’ feedback.

Where there’s a balance. I always highlight the good points in a student’s work and focus on those. Then I’ll focus on areas which I think could do with a little work and help to improve the story/article/novel etc., before finishing in a positive light – it’s always good to encourage and I’d hate to ever put anyone off writing.

Do you ever get feedback on your work now? If yes, how do you process it?

Yes. It’s been interesting getting the feedback from my book of short stories. Most of it has been very positive, but my daughter said I focus on death too much! She found the stories depressing. The stories were written over a number of years and prize winners of various competitions, so they weren’t written one after the other. Nonetheless, in each story, my intension was to deal with issues centring around sad events, but to finish in a positive, uplifting way. But I took her views on board and feel fine; not everybody is going to like everyone’s writing and you can’t please everyone. I think I deal with constructive criticism much better than I used to.

As your student, I think you constructively comment. But, I am interested to know, as a tutor who critiques students’ work continually, where you would put yourself on the scale of critiquing?

This made me smile. I’m actually often referred to as the ‘kind’ tutor. I always like to be positive and to encourage others in their work. I think it would awful to slate someone’s work (not saying any of the other tutors do) but I’d hate to feel I’d crushed someone’s dream. We’re not all going to be the next J.K. Rowling, but who’s to say we can’t write what we want to write? There’s a market out there for everyone, even if it’s just the small press, having a reader’s letter published or for ourselves because we love to write.

What techniques or principles do you use to give feedback?

As I mentioned I concentrate on what’s good in a piece of work and point out why. I think it’s important for a student to know what’s going right and then I make reference to anything which could benefit from a little help. I mention why and make some suggestions for improvement. At all times I try and keep that sense of encouragement.

I was a writing student myself and my tutor used this approach, which I found fantastic. It’s what kept me going, learning and enthused. So I guess it’s thanks to him that I do the same.

Finally, having seen my brief explanation of constructive comments vs. criticism, do you agree or disagree with the principle of only asking for constructive comments?

I can completely see where you’re coming from and why. I hadn’t actually realised that constructive commenting is my way. But it is! So, of course, I heartily agree. Though, I do have students who want criticism and so I work on that side of things for them if they ask. Though, even so, I think I still work more towards constructive comments!

***

I wanted to ask someone who has received my constructive comments what they thought of my style. 

Keith agreed to let me use him as an example, I’m (slowly) beta reading his novel The Orphans and employing a constructive commenting method to give feedback. I asked Keith what he thought of my feedback, this is what he said:

How did the feedback I gave you differ from other feedback you have received in the passed?

Most assuredly. With the exception of one person’s feedback that was completely positive (much appreciated but not overly helpful), some feedback I have had has felt like having my work marked. Your feedback felt nearer to a tutorial.

How did the feedback make you feel about your work?

More positive than I was expecting. I particularly appreciated your comments about the aspects that you liked. I am quite readily discouraged, and it is easy for me to look at the criticism and believe that the odd nice or encouraging comment is just put in there to make me feel better. Your comments left me feeling that you really did enjoy the work but were offering some excellent suggestions that could make it even more enjoyable.

In terms of the level, style and depth of feedback how was it pitched?

I found the mix of detailed and general comments to be very useful. While the general comments gave me plenty of meat to work with, the more specific remarks helped to fine-tune my re-working.

Do you think the style of feedback I give is different to constructive criticism you have received before?

Your feedback is less like marking and more like mentoring. I don’t think I can say much more than that.

Now you have read the arguments, seen other research, heard from a giver and receiver of constructive comments I would really like to know what you think about them???

The post 9 Surprising Reasons You NEED to Stop Asking For Constructive Criticism Part II appeared first on Sacha Black.