Phew. Well, I don’t want people to think I’m a Debbie-downer when it comes to writing. Quite the opposite. Last week’s post clarified one side of my argument that everyone should be allowed to write: that it can be a hobby that consumes spare time and fosters guilt if you don’t give it fair attention.
Now let’s address the other side of the coin: I’m going to paraphrase the move ‘Ratatouille’ here when I say that “Not everyone can write, but a good writer can come from anywhere.” The weird thing is that so many skilled and imaginative people talk themselves out of trying to write a book, well before they really get stuck in to trying. Why is that? I think there are two main reasons: Elitism and Exposure. Fear of writing elitism, and writing as a way of self-exposure. Let’s start with the first point: books have always held this air of being something pure. Reading as a pastime used to be the preserve of the upper class: it was a luxury of a skill. Therefore, even though you get books aimed at kids with titles like “Aliens Love Underpants” nowadays, books still have and perhaps always will have a shade of conservative elitism to them. So by extension we all inherently believe authors to be the cultural keeper of the keys, to be connoisseurs and artistes in their profession, untouchable and unquestionable. I think that intimidates a lot of would-be-writers, really: it can be easy to walk around a bookstore and feel as if every page of every book landed perfectly formed on the shelves. Don't be fooled: beneath the veneer of prudish perfection that books generally have are layers of hard-earned sweat, blood, grit and tears that you will never see. But it’s high time we stopped seeing writing and authorship this way. Writing is messy. Delightfully, deliciously messy. A dirty, virile mongrel of an art form. The editing is, in a way, an unwelcome formality, like the hangover after a wild party. I’m not just blowing hot air, here. Think about it. In this modern era, everyone over the age of five can write, and we can all write darn well if we put our minds to it. Writing is the most democratic form of artistic expression out there. Sure, photos and films you shoot, music you make, paintings you paint craft you create all say something about you as a person and as an artist. But they are limited to an extent by the nature of their medium and the skill of whoever is wielding it. Writing has none of those things. Unless we're being pedantic and calling language itself a limitation, writing isn't limited in this way, and barrier for entry is low. Put it this way: you couldn't pick up a guitar or a brush and expect to be as good as Slash or Monet in a week. But I guarantee that on a good day, any layman on the street, with a little bit of good sense and discipline, could write a few passages that wouldn't look out of place in an Ernest Hemingway novel. So why is it that people who proudly indulge in a deliberately bad jam of piano-playing for fun and share mediocre photos with all of their friends online will run for the hills the moment you ask them to write a short story? Well this brings me on to my second theory as to why people fear writing: fear of exposure. I think its because of writing asks of you. It asks you to dig deep into yourself and show it. No other form of expression exposes you as a person quite like writing. Think about it. Because writing is such a democratic skill that involves nothing more than the arrangement of letters and numbers, to make it work as an art means harnessing something very personal: your innermost thoughts and ideas. There is no medium to hide behind. And some people are very uncomfortable doing that. The trouble is, some people completely over-think just how deep they have to dig. They take the age old mantra of write what you know way too far, and think that they have to spill their blood and guts on the page to be worthy, exposing their deepest fears, darkest secrets and skeletons in the closet in order to be validated. The result is usually some kind of uncomfortable semi-biography of endless misery. And some of these end up being published. You’ll see these in your book store: usually wrapped in identical white covers with black-and-white photos from a lost childhood. ‘Pity Junkie books’, I called them. That’s not what it means to write. When we talk about harnessing the self, we mean your imagination, not your life experiences per se. Wait, now I didn’t say you shouldn’t use your events in your life as idea fodder – you should – but you are selling your imagination short here. People shrug the imagination off as being some wishy-washy nebulous thing that has now relation to your real life. On the contrary, your imagination is a delightful mishmash of experiences mixed with your ideas, fears, hopes and beliefs. Not only is this a much deeper vein to mine for writing gold, but this doesn’t ask you to expose yourself utterly. So, with all of that said, get writing! Seriously, now we’ve debunked the idea of writing as an elitist preserve that demands digging up your soul, you should be able to write with no fear. Anyone can write, including you! So get to it!
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I often make mention of Harry Potter on here. I’m not shy of my admiration for J.K Rowling’s creations: simply put it is a very well made series. But then the series ended, and the fanbase grew up and eventually moved on. So what does a reader who had stuck at the boy wizard’s side move on to? The reader is now a decade older, and wants something new to sink their teeth into, something with that same sense of place and deep worldbuilding that Harry Potter did so well, yet more mature, layered and…well, older. Enter ‘The Name of the Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss. Whether by accident or by design, Rothfuss really captured the zeitgeist here. He answered the question “what would a magical University be like?”, and boy does he answer it well. And yet, while I use the phrase ‘Harry Potter for grown ups’ as a compliment, it does Rothfuss’ novel a disservice because there is so much more to it than that. The Name of the Wind tells the story of an unassuming innkeeper called Kote, who is tracked down by an autobiographer of sort called Chronicler. It turns out that Kote is in fact an alias, and this innkeeper is the legendary Kvothe (apparently it rhymes with ‘Quothe’), who despite still being young already has an illustrious past, rumoured to have been a key player in the war being waged across the land right now. Over the next three days, Kvothe agrees to recount his past to Chronicler over the next five days, detailing how he came to be who he is today. The Name of the wind is Day One, taking us from his beginnings as a child, and how he rose from being a street urchin to being the rising star of the University. What really shines in this book is that, despite being firmly rooted in a world of fantasy and magic, it feels utterly, utterly real. Not just by the evocative settings conjured by Rothfuss and a magic system so grounded it’s almost a science, but also by how Rothfuss steers well clear of your expectations. If you’re imagining wands and wizards, swords and sorcery, elves and dwarves, then you are going to be disappointed. Except no, you won’t be disappointed really, because instead you’re going to delve into a story that feels fresh and anti-cliché. That last bit is really important, I think. Kvothe’s fortunes and wellbeing hang by a thread for nearly the whole novel, and the way the narrative can turn on a dime and throw curveballs at you really keeps things tense and unpredictable. Just because our protagonist is down on his luck doesn’t mean another bad thing is waiting around the corner to make it even worse, for example. Nothing ever comes easy to Kvothe. Though he is talented, he really needs to fight tooth and nail every step of the way, making his moments of victory, even the smallest of good fortunes, extremely satisfying. But most of all – and this is one point I’ve never seen a review mention – is that the book feels utterly relaxed and at ease with itself. It isn’t paranoid about holding your attention: the book is a slow burn, opening slowly and the action is few and far between, but it works because Rothfuss nails the key points of giving you characters to care about and then putting them in situations that you want to see them interact in. This effortlessness in weaving a compelling narrative that doesn’t need to chase down and pin the reader’s eyes is refreshing and makes the novel all the more stronger for it. The Name of the Wind is an excellent novel, and one that I would recommend to anyone looking for a big, immersive read that celebrates the small, the quiet and the different. So, NaNoWriMo continues forth. And as we enter the fourth and final week of November, would-be authors up and down the land are discovering the painful side of writing. The side where you stare at a blank piece of paper for three hours and you start pulling your hair out in the hope that ideas will come with them. Your brain feels like a wrung sponge, and you steadily build up balls of scrunched up paper around you (or, if you’re working on a computer, you steadily accrue tabs on your browser of clickbait that you ‘accidentally’ clicked while doing ‘research’). But that’s not the most painful thing. No, the most painful thing about writing is the after-effect of this: that feeling of disappointment and emptiness in yourself for your lack of productivity. And this leads me on to my main point: while I still stand firmly by last week’s post where I said that anyone should be allowed to become a writer, it does come with a big fat warning stamp, written in big red writing: ‘The Writer’s Curse’. Let me explain. Writing is the ultimate hobby, I think. There are literally no limitations, only the ones that your own imagination sets. You can write anywhere, at anytime, and it’s either ludicrously cheap to do or it’s basically free. And my word, is it fun. I don’t understand why everyone in the world isn’t a writer, at least on a fictional level. It is your ideas manifested into the written word. You create your own universe, your own rules, your own stakes, and as far your concerned real living and breathing characters to inhabit the pages. And then you move and progress things however you wish. I belive I’ve said this before, but writing is like having a movie set, a crew and cast with an unlimited budget and unlimited time constraints. When you’re a writer, you can go anywhere. And this is how writing sinks it’s teeth in. I remember when I first caught the writing bug: I couldn’t stop writing whenever the chance took me. I would carry sheets of scrap paper around in my schoolbag and pull them out to write whenever the chance took me. I filled an entire box file with scribbled-down half ideas, short stories, pictures, maps…everything in my brain spooled onto paper. Whenever I was away from writing, I itched to get back into it. During that time, I remember feeling extremely at peace with myself. My usually short temper had suddenly elongated, calm in the knowledge that I could always turn to doing some satisfying writing when I got the chance. But most importantly, I never felt bored again. Got a spare moment? Twiddling your thumbs? Well, I could just do some writing. Because it was such a simple thing to do, I didn’t have an excuse not to do it. But then real life caught up with me. Exams, University, jobs, budgeting for food, taxes, bills…writing couldn’t fill all of my spare time forever. And sometimes, after a long day of work, you are so utterly exhausted that you just want to relax. And so, over the years I have had long, dry spells where I have basically written nothing. Not that I didn’t want to, it’s just that being a 20-something saw a lot of changes in my life that continue to this day. Moving to and living in Japan didn’t happen overnight. And here’s where the Writer’s Curse crept up on me: just because I wasn’t writing didn’t mean I stopped being a writer. Because of how ubiquitous writing is, it’s not like other pastimes that you can pick up, do for a while then put down and forget about until the next day. I don’t think a day has gone by for the past 14 years where I haven’t thought about my writing and my projects and ideas for at least a little bit, and that makes the days where I do nothing about it feel so disappointing. With the Writer’s Curse, you will always cimb into bed on those days you do nothing or very little, hating yourself for it. “Why couldn’t you have gotten some work done on the train home from work?” you’ll say to yourself. You won’t even forgive yourself for the times you weren’t thinking about writing: “You could have been cooking up some new and wonderful ideas!” You are never allowed to really, truly relax or be bored. You will always feel a little restless, those projects and raw ideas nagging at the back of your brain for attention. Even if you have paid your dues for the day and pumped in some hours of work on your writing, you’ll still never feel really satisfied: you’ll just go to bed that night feeling as though you could’ve done more. Once a writer, always a writer. It is a wonderful, elegant yet simple thing, and to this day I genuinely get a kick out of doing it. But because of that, if you aren’t doing it, you will feel rotten about yourself. So, if you are the kind of person who enjoys their relaxation or values their spare time for other pursuits, I strongly advise you to beware the Writer’s Curse before you even begin. Because if your start, you may never be completely free from it. I think that one of the big things that readers look for in a book they're picking up for the first time, and this is something that writers are really pushed to do as well, is to have an opening that really seizes the attention of the reader. Grabs them by the eyeballs and keeps them glued to the words on the page. This is what we call the hook. Or at least I call it that. Writing a hook sounds easy, but it's not as easy to pull off as you think. But the master of the hook is Simon Kernick, expertly demonstrated in his novel Relentless. This is a book that really lives up to its name. If you think that you've read books that succeed in seizing your attention, then Kernick takes it to a whole new level. He grabs the reader by the neck and slams their faces against the page, holding it there until the last page is turned. Now, I'm going to describe the opening of the book to you, and it will sound like spoilers because it is so event-heavy, but this all happens in the opening chapter. In fact I think they even describe it this way on the back cover too, so I don't think I'm spoiling anyone's fun here. Relentless opens with normal everyman Tom Meron playing in the garden with his two kids. He gets a phone call, and it's Calley, an old friend he hasn't heard from in years. Just when Tom thinks that this might be a friendly call to catch up with him, he notices the way Calley sounds: in pain, scared, like someone is hurting him. Before his friend is murdered over the phone, Tom hears Calley say the first two lines of his address. The phone dies. A murderer knows where he lives, and Tom's children are still playing outside. And that's just the beginning. Now, I dare you not to want to find out what happens next! This is what Kernick does so very well: he excels at hurling you, the reader headfirst into a situation that nobody would wish on their worst enemy. On top of that the protagonist, I this case Tom, is just so normal that you instantly relate to him, so the second he gets that fateful phone call, you not only fear for him and cheer him on but you can easily imagine yourself in that situation. I mean, if you had a phone call like Tom Meron did, what would you do? The way the narrative plays out, the way Kernick lays out Tom's thought process and actions, feel completely believable and real. It's like seeing one of your own darkest fears brought to life on the page. It's not perfect mind. So powerful is that hook that it dictates everything that follows as the rest of the story seems to build itself around that incident to justify it. It's like Kernick thought up the terrifying opening first, then decided how he could explain it later. He does it quite well, mind. Relentless is a thrilling rollercoaster ride of a book, and it's one of the most gripping books I've ever read. Your knuckles will be white as you clench the book tight and tear through the book. And you will tear through it, because you will always want to know what happens next until the grand finale. vember is a pretty auspicious time in the writer’s calendar, thanks in no small part to the initiative called ‘NaNoWriMo’. Nanowrimo is an acronym that stands for National November Writing Month. It is a casual initiative in which you challenge yourself to write 50,000 words in one month, which is an average of 1,667 words a day. To give you an idea of that length, 50,000 words is about the length of The Great Gatsby or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe is a pithy 36,000 words by comparison. Although there is an official Nanowrimo website where you can declare your progress and sign in to update, you don’t have to: basically, if you want to do Nanowrimo, you can jump right in, right now, write 50,000 words before November 30th and you’ve won. You don’t need to actually get an official stamp of approval to start or finish. The rules are also quite loose: the main rule is that “if you believe you’re writing a novel, then we believe you’re writing a novel too.” What is in the 50,000 words is up to you, as long as you wrote it. There are no prizes, and no further measures beyond that 50,000 words, not even for quality of writing. Now, as you can imagine, there’s a fair few people in the writing and publishing industry that hate Nanowrimo. And they have pretty good reasons to do so: Nanowrimo actively encourages quantity over quality, after all. I remember browsing through the forums of the official website and the most popular discussion was methods on how to pad out your writing and eek out those few extra words to drag you over the finish line. Now, as we’ve covered multiple times, there is nothing wrong with writing rubbish if it’s your first draft. The problem is that there a lot of people going through Nanowrimo who don’t realise that writing rubbish is actually the easy bit: it is the editing that is the real work. Couple that with the euphoria of finishing a novel (even if it’s the first draft) and that sensation that your first draft is actually awesome and ready for the shelves right now means that people blunder straight into the next step of agent-scouting far too early. As has been discussed in a previous blog post, agents have a pretty hard time slogging through bad manuscripts as it is, so I can only imagine how much bigger that slush pile of envelopes gets in December and January, stuffed full of undercooked stories that may have good ideas but are crippled by wordiness, padding…all of the signs of a story that is quite clearly just trying to bulk itself out to that 50,000 word limit that Nanowrimo pushes. The other, slightly more selfish reason is that we writers really don’t need any more competition than there already is. It’s no secret that readers are becoming a rare breed, let alone frequent readers, and having a growing pool of writers fighting over the attention of a shrinking pool of readers isn’t appealing to anyone. Oh sure, for established authors higher up the food chain with a loyal fanbase it may be easy for them to say “Sure, get writing!”, but for those of us who scramble for the attention of even one reader, the idea of having to fight even harder to make ourselves heard over the thousands of new voices that crop up around November is bound to stir up negative emotions. Having said all of that, there is actually a lot of good to be had from Nanowrimo. I am participating in Nanowrimo for the third time this year. Kami was born from a Nanowrimo project. But while that initial spurt of pure output is important – and Nanowrimo is very good at making you ignore your inner-judges and fears of ‘is it good enough?’ and just get writing – Nanowrimo works best when it is understood to be part of a larger process. Before that 50,000 words should be a planning stage, and after that there needs to be a rigorous editing stage…if the book is finished, that is. Kami isn’t 50,000 words, but 70,000. And to be perfectly honest, 50,000 words isn’t as long as you think it is. It usually clocks in at a rather slim 200 pages. If it is understood that there’s more to writing than writing, then I’m all for it. I don’t care if it adds more competition to the field: if that author has ran the full gauntlet of planning, writing and editing then they deserve as much of a chance at getting noticed and published as I do. And who knows, maybe that author has that novel, the one that will inspire a whole new generation of readers that we are all so desperately looking for. If we're going to be showcasing some of my favorite books, then it makes sense to start with what is undoubtedly my favorite book and indeed entire series. That book is the Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. How much do I love this book? Well, let me put it this way: I cannot tell you what my favorite movie or music is. It changes all the time depending on how I'm feeling or thinking. And it's not like books are an exception: I can't even define my second or third favorite books to you. But even though I've read many excellent books over the years, this book right here has remained firmly my favorite book, without question, for the best part of a decade. The Amulet of Samarkand the story of a young wizard-in-training called Nathaniel, who summons a djinni by the name of Bartimaeus to do his bidding, and that bidding is to exact revenge on an enemy of Nathaniel's by stealing something of theirs, namely the Amulet of Samarkand. But by doing so, Nathaniel ensnares them into a wider conspiracy that is well beyond what they could ever imagine. I adore this book. You know when you hear a book summed up in such a single perfect sentence that you instantly want to know more about story? Well, picture this. Imagine if the government was made up of evil demon-wielding magicians. If that doesn't whet your reading appetite I don't what will, frankly. One of Stroud's many skills as a writer is his worldbuilding and seamlessly filling it in with so many intricate ideas and consistent rules that within mere chapters so feel utterly engulfed in the books' world. The story has such a powerful sense of place that even now, about four years after my last reread, I can still vividly recall not just the action and the characters, but the locations. It really does feel like a living, breathing alternate dimension of London. Because it feels so completely believable and real, you completely invest in the story and action and care for what the characters go through. But let's be honest here: the shining star in Amulet's crown is Bartimaeus. This wise-cracking demon from the Other Place is deliciously smarmy, sassy and very, very funny. I'm serious. I'm not talking about that kind of dry academic funny that most critics use when referring to books, that kind of humor you read and barely raise a smile over. No, Bartimaeus will have you literally laughing out loud. One of the hallmarks of his viewpoint are footnotes, where you can detour off of the main narrative and get some more insight from what Bartimaeus thinks on the topic. So you get some more delightful insight into the world as well as more of this witty demon's quips. But, such is the balance and delicacy of Stroud's writing that, under the layers of snark and demon skulduggery, there is a humanity and gruff kindness to Bartimaeus that makes spending time in his presence not just great fun but genuinely engaging. If you were to walk into a book store, you'll find these in the young adult section. For those who would turn their nose up at such a thing, I implore you to give this book a chance. There is so much going on here for older readers to enjoy: there's a biting political satire at play here, and if you read between the lines of the magician's rule, you'll find a very dark story indeed. It genuinely astounds me that this book and the whole series has not received the same attention as Harry Potter, because not only does it share a lot of the DNA with the boy wizard but it does nearly everything Harry Potter does way better. And I don't say that lightly, because I love Harry Potter. Let me wrap up with this. I don't reread books. I have nothing against people who reread books, I get it, but for me I'd rather move on to a new book than reread a book I already know. Except this one. This book and the sequels are the only books I have ever reread. That's how much I adore them. Please please please, go out and get your hands on this story. I promise that you will not be disappointed. As part of the reboot to PJL, I am also uploading me reading this blog out. Here is the video. The actual 'On Writing' post follows after... The phrase 'not leaving much to the imagination' often gets heard in a negative context, and rightly so. It's usually used when referring to something vulgar or ostentatious that actually alienates the viewing or reading party. And yet I rarely if ever hear it used in a literal context. The imagination being robbed of it’s natural job. The imagination is a powerful tool, and quite possibly the most crucial thing a writer needs (alongside cold hard work ethic and hard graft of the craft). And yet, while writers will all sit and nod at each other when it comes to exercising our own imagination, we all too often take for granted the other important imagination at play when it comes to the story: that of our reader. Too many times I have read a story that was puttering along quite nicely, setting the scene with a reasonable amount of action and place. And then in walks an important character for the first time. Suddenly, the narrative hits a big fat pause button and the whole story freezes over as the writer zooms in on this new character to describe him or her in microscopic detail. The same is true of describing places as well. There are multiple problems to this, some of which we have already covered here at On Writing and or cover in greater detail in future posts. However, for me the biggest problem is actually the most offensive one: that the writer just doesn’t trust their reader. Now, I’m not accusing writers who do this of actively patronizing their readers. Some definitely do; treating their reader like some kind of passive mass that need to be spoon-fed everything otherwise the reader will just imagine a big blank nothing where the writer doesn’t give a complete report on the bodyguard’s swarthy features or the beauty of a red sunset. Other writers are just a little bit over-enthusiastic: they have this brilliant image of what their hero looks like or just how genius the intricate brushstrokes of a painting are. But, malicious or not, the end result is the same: the reader has to plough through a quagmire of descriptive prose, as the writer desperately tries to get the reader to match their own wonderful vision. The result from the reader is a very claustrophobic narrative that loses all sense of pacing when it hits that pause button. Imagine if movies did this, when every time a new character walked on screen they stopped, pulled up a written biography and zoomed in to show you that rune-shaped scar and the thick nose-hair. Look, the simple matter of the fact is that when the reader sat down with your story, there was an unspoken agreement. You, as the writer, will take that reader on a journey. What that journey will be is in your hands, but the reader’s end of the bargain is to exercise their own imagination to fill in the gaps. Because that’s what they are. Gaps. The things that you might be scrambling to inform the reader on might not be important information. So what if your character has a crooked nose that’s in the shape of the Matterhorn? So what if the kitchen has kitschy décor that was in style back in the 80s, looked dated for a while but is now coming back into vogue so the estate agent could upsell a designer kitchen at no extra cost? If these facts are just window dressing, then leave it to the reader. At most, you might want to give them a gentle nudge in the right direction. Say your character has the thickset look of a retired boxer, or it’s simply a kitschy kitchen (which is bonus points for fun wordplay). Trust in your reader to fill in the rest. Let’s look an example: Hogwarts Castle from the Harry Potter series is one of the most famous fictional settings of our time. It’s description upon it’s first dramatic reveal? “Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.” That’s it. A single sentence, barely two lines on a page. Now, I don’t know about you but for the rest of the book I had a very strong image of what Hogwarts looked like, and this was all I needed. I’m certain every other reader out there felt the same. Did myself and every other reader imagine it differently from the movie version, or what J.K Rowling herself had pictured? Definitely, but it didn’t matter, because the core facts that mattered were there, and Rowling trusted her readers, and it made the book even better because of that. Your reader may have their own ideal vision of what things look like as well: if there is no consequence to your narrative, then let your reader’s imagination fill in the gaps for you. It’s a win-win: They will have a much better time enjoying the elbow room in the story, and you will feel unshackled in having to flesh out every physical feature. You may have figured this out already, but I’m neither a horror writer nor reader. It’s not that I have anything against the genre – there certainly is a great deal of excellent work and vibrancy to it – but as a reader it doesn’t fit my page-turning taste-buds, and as a writer…well, if I’m brutally honest I just don’t think I have the chops to write horror. Yet. But there is something about horror writers that I unequivocally respect, and it’s something I think all writers regardless of aimed audience should consider: instilling a sense of fear and dread into your audience. I’m not just talking about visceral fear and dread in the typical sense, mind you. If you’ve read any book that has you turning the page for sheer fear of the character’s lives and wellbeing, because you have this instinctive sense that something big, something not quite known to us yet, is about to make it all go horribly wrong, then that is what I’m talking about. Even good children’s books do this: just look at The Gruffalo. Even then, picture books and graphic novels have a headstart on word-only novels, because they have the added angle of using pictures and visuals to instil that fear. And a layer above that are games and movies, which can harness an even wider array of the audience’s senses to wrap that blanket of cold and creeping dread around them. And the movie has a huge amount of power over the viewer in that regard: it can control the colour palette, the visual tone, the pacing of the narrative…and beyond simply pausing the movie or walking away, the viewer is effectively strapped in to the rollercoaster and will experience the horror exactly as it was intended. That sense of powerlessness and vulnerability is exactly what makes the horror and fear so powerful. And that is why I have full respect for masters of written horror: when it comes to reading, a certain amount of power is handed over the reader, far more than the viewer of a movie. Readers can bring a certain amount of interpretation to the table, and can pace the reading as they see fit. Giving readers that little bit of power can take the edge off of the fear, and that’s why you will see a great number of horror writers aim for different angle. That of the horror within. Think back to the last time a truly horrific story lingered with you. Not just jump scares, but the kind of horror that stayed with you long after the story had passed, echoing through your thoughts a great deal longer than you ever expected it to. Why was that? There’s a good chance that it was because the story resonated with you personally. It spoke to a deep part of your psyche, shook you to your core, and made you ask questions that you never thought to ask yourself before. And isn’t that the biggest horror of all? Not of external fears and unwelcome influences, but that which lies within. That is why, although on the surface horror novels may appear to have a disadvantage, when done well can invoke the deepest and most horrific reaction of all: that of making the reader look inside and not liking what they find. Happy Halloween everybody! |
Off the ShelfHere I share my ideas, musings and advice on the writing process. I also analyse some of my own writing for examples to show how I work. ShowcaseHere I will show off of some of my favorite good and great stories, gushing lovingly over why I adore them and why you should too. I will also show you the other side of the spectrum: bad examples of stories and what we can learn from them.
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