Tag Archives: story

Thought of the Week: The Harshest Critic

The Redemption of Erâth is nearing completion (yes, I know I’m late – I’ve had a busy and difficult week, but the last chapter will be out later this week; you’ve waited this long, you can wait a little longer!), and I’d thought I’d like to share some thoughts on its development. In particular, I thought it might be interesting to discover how it has grown over time, and and how I’ve received, and adapted to, feedback.

They say you are your own harshest critic. They’ve clearly never written for an eight-year-old boy. As you may already know, I began this whole tale as a story for my son, that we might read together as it grew. The inspiration for this came from the serial novels of Charles Dickens, and I loved the idea of keeping him (and myself) waiting eagerly for the next weekend, the next chapter, never knowing what was to come (truthfully; I often had little more idea about the next set of events than he did).

Over time, the tale has grown from the simpler children’s story I had thought it would be, into something much deeper, and much darker. Sometimes I feel almost as if I’m not in control of the tale; that I’m merely the teller of someone else’s story, that I’m merely relating the facts of what happened. I remember trying to explain this to my son one evening; he said, “You mean you stole it?” Ouch.

This is where it gets interesting. I had no idea when I started this that it wouldn’t be my own invention. I thought that I would write, and talk about it with my son, and together we would work out what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that I couldn’t just make up the next chapter. What, then, was I to do with his feedback, and his thoughts? You see, I needed this to be interesting for him.

When I sat down with him at bedtime, for the first chapter, he asked why I didn’t have our usual book (Harry Potter at the time, I believe it was). I asked if he remembered that I had told him I had wanted to start reading a story to him that I had written. He said, “Awwwww…do we have to?”

Auspicious beginning, no? I asked him to bear with me for the first chapter, and make his mind up from there. So I read, and he listened, and he fidgeted, and I was becoming very nervous; at the end of it I asked what he thought of it. “Um…it was okay,” he said. “A little boring.” I wondered if that was what Tolkien’s children had said when he first read The Hobbit to them.

So I returned to the book, and dejectedly started on the second chapter. The following weekend, I pulled out Harry Potter, sat down and started to read, when he said, “Dad, where’s your iPad?” (I had put the first chapter on the iPad to read to him in bed). So – not a complete failure, then!

Things really picked up with chapter three (A Tale of Blood and Battle), and became our weekly routine from then on.

The thing is, it became important for me to keep the audience happy. From this early experience, blood an battle clearly won out over dialogue and back story. But what was I to do? This tale simply wasn’t going to have a lot of blood and battle, I could already see that early on! So I did what any self-respecting historian would do: I embellished.

It became a weekly judgement of storytelling technique, plot interest and emotional level. Sometimes it got too scary (like when the wolves surround Brandyé in a dream); sometimes too soppy (such as when Brandyé and Sonora start to spend time with each other). And sometimes, it was just plain boring (I could tell when he started pretending to ride his stuffed animals instead of listening to me).

Still…in the long run, I think it has been at least a mild success. He’s never asked me to stop reading (in fact, he’s reminded me the few weekends we were away and unable to read), and he’s even told me he wants me to include some creatures of his own design in the later books (some more embellishing here, I guess). He even started writing his own epic fantasy story about ninjas, which is awfully cute.

The wonderful – and torturous – thing about this weekly feedback has been its dreadful honesty. “What did you think of this week’s chapter?” – “It was really boring; can’t there be more fighting next week?” Sometimes I wondered myself if I was dragging things out too long, and here was the proof: if someone who wanted to know more thought it was boring, what on earth would someone think that had no prior vested interest in the story?

In the end, he’s enjoyed listening, and I’ve enjoyed reading. He does want me to write the sequels, as long as I promise there’ll be more battle. I’m pretty sure there will be (embellished or not). But wow – if you ever want to know the truth about your new novel, read it to a kid. They’ll tell it like it is.

Thought of the Week: Get Inside Their Head

A couple of things this week have got me thinking about the concept of empathy, and what it takes to actually think along someone else’s lines. This is something of a two-pronged thought, for the idea of being able to put yourself in someone else’s place is dreadfully important, both in fictional writing and in real life.

I owe the inspiration for this post to The Random Fangirl for her excellent post on bullying. Apart from the naturally troubling nature of such a subject, there was something she said at the end that really got me thinking:

And I didn’t understand. And I still don’t understand. Didn’t these people have parents who taught them better? Couldn’t they see the pain they were causing? Didn’t they care?

Now, empathizing with bullies – particularly those who abuse, harm and kill – may not sound very tactful. But bear in mind – empathy is not sympathy. I couldn’t help but wonder if I could understand, if I could out myself in the place of a person who could willingly cause such harm.

The initial reaction to this is to rationalize. Something must have happened to them in their youth. They must have terrible home lives. Perhaps they genuinely are psychopathic, and unable to understand the feelings of others.

The trouble is, this is the very antithesis of empathy – there is no emotion here. It is incredibly difficult and painful to force yourself to feel what another person feels – all the more so when you find their actions abhorrent. Think for the moment about the phrase “in one’s shoes”; the implication is of switching places, literally standing where the other person is.

Imagine you witness a terrible beating; a person is punching, kicking, tearing and clawing at another – or perhaps you – and will not stop, despite all the screams, the tears, the pleas and the blood. Now, imagine you are the person delivering the abuse. Don’t make yourself stop – continue beating that poor person within an inch of their life.

Why are you doing this? What terrible events could possibly have led you to enact such violence upon another person? What would possess you to continue kicking them in the teeth even as you look upon the blood and the tears and the fear?

And here is the crux – the crossing point into genuine empathy. Answer those questions, genuinely and from the heart. Don’t stop until you uncover the reasons why you would do such a terrible thing. It won’t be easy – you’ll almost certainly be outraged, and unwilling to acknowledge that you could ever be capable of such injustice, because it is so far from the core of your being.

But what makes you different from that terrible person? We are all of the same ilk at birth. For me, the only reason I have to descend with such viciousness upon someone is pure, blinding hate. Then I am given to ask – what could cause such hate, especially if this person hasn’t wronged me? Perhaps I am convinced they have – I see something within them that I am desperately jealous of. Perhaps I am terrified of them, and see no other option – like killing a wasp so it won’t sting me. Then a new question follows this – why am I jealous?

This line of thought will lead you to a great many questions, each one burying down into a new depth of your own soul, into places you didn’t even know existed, or worse, wouldn’t accept. This has taught me that I would most certainly be capable of such despicable actions – in just the right scenario and given the right set of circumstances that led to it. It will be torture to acknowledge these terrible parts of you, but if you can face it, if you can admit to your own failings and insecurities, you might find yourself suddenly able to understand behaviors that you, yourself could never dream of doing.

And this very same line of thought applies to creating the characters in your story. No matter how brilliant and inventive your plot, the entire story hinges on the believability of your characters. Unfortunately, this is probably the hardest part of writing. Hands up who is 100% confident of the quality of your dialogue. What’s that? Only a few? I’m right there with you. Why is it so hard to write convincing dialogue?

For me, part of the reason for this is the instinct to write dialogue out as though I was speaking it myself. All of it. Imagine watching a movie where every character spoke in the same way! Come to think of it, this does happen in film – think of someone like Johnny Depp. For all his brilliance as an actor, a huge number of his films rely on him being Johnny Depp, whether he allows it to run rampant (Pirates of the Carribbean) or tones it down (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

It becomes all too easy when coming up with a storyline for the characters to become the vehicle to carry the plot to its end. The difficulty here is that it can lead to shallow characters, who speak only to further the plot, and act as needed, not as they must.

So I would encourage you to do the same soul-searching for your characters as you would for other, real people. Imagine yourself stabbing someone in the back, or having to decide between saving your by friend or your lover. Forget the plot you intended – it might not work! Follow your character, see what they get up to, and above all, imagine yourself in their place, and then ask yourself: why would I have done this? Your characters – and your readers – will thank you.

Your friends just might, as well.

The Virtue of Voices

My iPad told me it is World Book Night tonight, and Emily Temple on Flavorwire thinks it would be nice if everyone read a book to someone else, instead of to themselves. As an exuberant fan of the spoken tale, I really couldn’t help sharing my own thoughts on this, which is that it’s pretty great. One could argue a spoken story is like the best conversation in the world: you get to say your piece, and everyone actually listens to you.

I remember so very, very fondly the stories and tales I would hear in bed every night from my father growing up. Often it would be a book; Curious George, and then Shel Silverstein, and then The Famous Five. My father had a wonderful, even-paced baritone, his skewed northern accent a lilting lullaby to my young ears (before you get too worked up, not all my memories of you are fond, dad!).

My mother read to me when I was older; Great Expectations was our treat together, and though I often didn’t understand all the words, Dickens’ imagery through her voice simply flowed through me, and I saw every detail of Satis, the house where Miss Havisham lived pent up for so many years (yes…that’s where my blog handle comes from).

Even my older sister, one camping trip in the Italian Dolomites, read me a story which I had forgotten the name of; a magical tale of wishes that came true, and the lessons the children learned from this. I particularly remember the divining rod that found the stream, and how the water that gushed out flooded the farm. I only just now, decades later, rediscovered what it was: The Wish Giver, by Bill Brittain. I thought I had lost this book forever, but its memory – from a single, spoken telling – has stayed with me ever since.

The thing that was missing, though, from many of these tellings, were the voices. Certainly, my mother would get quite excited, and Magwitch got quite a growl to him. I always knew when a character was speaking when my father read to me, but not always which character. There was an exception to this, however, and this was when my father would invent a story. This happened rarely, but was magic when it did: a Story With No-No Book. These were the dark tales, and the grim, and quite suddenly, when the words of the page were no longer there, the voices were all that was left, and it was thrilling. Often these stories would be mysterious, and more than any written book I would be terrified, not daring to know what was going to happen to the hero, who always seemed oddly to share my own name.

And now, of course, I am reading to my own son. Sometimes we share a Story with No-No Book. More often we are reading from a real book (or an eBook). And what I remember from my own childhood has stayed with me: the voices are everything. The narrator may tell the tale, but the characters make it. The Secret Garden was full of (terrible) Yorkshire accents. Treasure Island was full of pirates who sounded just like Robert Newton (except for Squire Trelawney, who sounded like something out of Little Britain). Gandalf was unashamedly my impression of Ian McKellen. It gets to the point where my son not only knows who is speaking when, but will actually call me out if my accent slips even a bit (you try keeping Harry, Ron and Hermione’s voices all distinct).

Even so, with all these wonderful voices (and mind you, it gets pretty difficult to remember what an Ent sounds like a book and a half later), sometimes there’s one character, here or there, that really steps beyond the page and truly, truly comes to life. I’ve only done this a few times myself; the Witch-King of Angmar was so sepulchral and creepy I gave myself shivers as I read his lines. Reeta Skeeter, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, somehow came out with a wonderful lisp, at once sugary and sinister.

Not all voices come out well, of course. Sometimes I’ve had to change a voice halfway through the book, realizing it didn’t fit the character (or that my poor throat couldn’t handle quite that much gargling). Sometimes I just can’t remember what someone is supposed to sound like. Willy Wonka was great in the Chocolate Factory, but somehow went all wrong in the Great Glass Elevator. I attribute it to his being in space for too long.

So what is the upshot of all this? Nothing really…just to say that, if you are going to read to someone aloud, get the voices. It’s all about the voices. Dig deep in your mind, or pull from the latest movie version, but give those characters the life they deserve. Hell – read aloud to yourself! Go on – read the next chapter of whatever book is in your hand aloud. I can guarantee you two things: you won’t miss a word of the story, and your characters will quite suddenly become more alive than they ever had been before.

What are your favorite memories of reading and being read to?