Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Empty Nest
This is my pirate goodbye.
I feel like I’m about to have one of those sad montages. You
know what I’m talking about. These scenes have a Boyz II Men song playing in
the background. Us pirates are garbed in white robes and the light of heaven
shines down on us while we tearfully hug one another promising to keep in
touch.
But in all reality, we’re just messing around and we rip off
our white robes to reveal sultry skimpy pirate garb and pull out barrels of
liquor to ply Satan with while we take over hell.
In all honesty, it hit me a little harder than I thought it
would. I’m not much of a sentimental girl. I don’t like hugs. I don’t like
talking about my feelings. But the thought of saying goodbye to a ship’s deck I’ve
spent countless days upon (well, more like all my time in the Crow’s Nest with
the Undead Monkey) is a little sentimental. It was upon the ship’s deck I
realized I could possibly write an original story. I could branch out from just
fan fiction. That I was capable of telling a different kind of story. I’ve
stumbled plenty over the years but reading the encouraging words of this ship’s
crew kept me going when I wanted to just give it up.
I’m really just a girl who likes to wear baggy sweatpants
and hoodies. I stay up way past a reasonable bed time in favor of romancing the
keyboard with my fingertips in an attempt to write the stories embedded in this
mind. Yet, these few year have made me feel like someone who could be a writer. You made me feel like I just had
to put my mind to it and you’d believe I could do it. So thank you to the crew –
the pirates – who befriended a nobody fan fiction writer on the Eloisa James
board and encouraged me to come blog about a subject I really don’t have any
useful knowledge about (writing). And the commenters who stayed with me even
when my blogs turned into crazy rambling attempts to convey writing things. And
the readers who may not have commented but took the time to stop by. Last the
friends I’ve gained from this adventure. We’ll always be friends. That’s what
this is all about.
So thank you. May I see you again in the future; and if not,
good luck with your own adventures. When the going gets tough remember there is
someone out there waiting to read your story. I believe in you Dear Writer.Dear Commenter.
Dear Reader. Dear Friend.
Tell me what’s been
your favorite part of the RWR experience and what you’ll miss the most.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Generating Writing Power
Influence: “So Dope” Tech N9ne feat. Wrekonize, Twisted
Insane & Snow Tha Product (Something Else, 2013)
Let’s play a game today.
Sometimes I get bored being told by my characters about
themselves. I like discovery and when I stuck in the rut of the confines of my
character perimeters I stray away. I play with generators on the internet that
give me names and personality traits and I use these as a opportunity to rein
in my writer’s onset of ADHD.
So it’s a simple game. Take the first generator- The NAME
generator and get you a character to work with. Or five. Or ten. Or even
twenty.
Meet Lela Maynard.
Lela needs a Personality. So I pull up this generator and find one.
I’m giving her super powers because that’s the mode of writing I’m in right now. Use the Power generator: Fire Breath.
***
Fire licked around my feet, teased my hair. It heated my blood, flowed through like lava in my veins. The feeling pushed me harder, faster. This power over me was seductive. And if he could twist the knife deep in my back, I’d destroy everything we touched.
Just like he did when he walked away.
***
Not again.
The sound of chaos rained down as flying cinder blocks shot through the air. Metal twisted and groaned as it gave way under the intense pressure of broken down concrete. Pieces of paper and plastic curled on edge and floated almost in slow motion, falling and incinerating anything the ash snow touched.
Kids stumbled as they ran like cockroaches touched by light.
The little ones were crying and screaming, the elder dazed and confused, blood
trickling from head wounds and limbs hanging at odd angles and dragging behind
the fast retreating rest of them.
I scanned the area and prayed to the heavens, to the Gods, to anyone listening. The edges of my gaze hazy, and wetness dampened my cheeks. I swiped it away as I stepped gingerly onto a large concrete barrier fallen in the wreckage.
“Maya?” My voice cracked. Pain shot down my throat and intensified in my ears. The taste of blood filled me and I swallowed convulsively to be rid of it. “Maya?”
My lungs heaved with the effort to breath. I toed rubble. Used my fingers until the pads were raw and torn to the muscle. I repeated her name as if it were a prayer, a mantra. She was here. Somewhere. For miles my gaze was filled with billowing smoke and ash and rubble. My ears consumed by the wails and cries of the innocent running away. The pit of my stomach rolled with taste of blood.
He’s gone.
And she was missing. Gone.
“Maya?” Please help me. Please guide me. Please give me something. “Help me, Maya.”
Tendrils brushed along my conscious, urgent, seeking and the rush threw me off balance. I stumbled to my knees and cupped my hands over my ears.
Here! I’m right here.
As if someone grabbed my wrist, I stumbled upright and tripped over fallen blocks and kicked through fire. Her soft voice beckoned from under several walls of concrete. I fell forward, shoving at concrete and gasping for air and screaming.
Bones so fragile they cracked and splintered and would never be whole again. Blond curls soiled with ash and blood lay haloed. Cherub face serene, eyes closed, lips parted as if she were sleeping.
She was gone.
***
Come up with something for fun? And even if you don’t come up with a
paragraph just share what the generator came up with for you.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Past Influences
Influence: “Atonement” Epic Score (Epic Action &
Adventure Vol. 9, 2011)
The day was muggy, I remember that much. The sun was
partially hidden behind the clouds and the humidity spiked so high the summer
stole your breath away if you stepped foot outside. MTV played in the
background as I doled out the cards for a new game of Uno. My sister whined,
bored, sick of losing and hot because even the A/C wasn’t enough to cool a body
down.
It was mid afternoon, not quite three. Two hours before open
gym started for my freshman year of high school. Excitement fluttered in my
stomach all day. My cousin and I had been practicing for this day for years.
This was my first tryout for high school ball. The first time I’d step on the
court in the raging summer and prove my worth to make the team. All the quiet
time I’d spent practicing my dribbling and the relentless amount of developing a
free throw technique (catch,
deep-breath-ball-on-hip-eye-the-orange-rim-from-under-bangs, spin, bounce,
bounce, spin, bounce, bounce, set, eye, shoot). All the times when I’d been
knocked down by the older kids and helped back up. The bruises and blistered
and triumph and heartache- I was going to pour it into this first open gym. My
practice jersey was laid out. I’d washed my practice shorts yesterday. Number
40 gleamed even in the dim light of our tiny shared bedroom.
I’d show the coach I belonged on the varsity squad. I
deserved to play. I wanted the feeling of pride even through the sweat and
tears and triumph and heartache. The pulled muscles and bruised skin. The
sprains and breaks and dislocations- fight with the will to win and never give
up even when you’re down thirty points in the second quarter. Because even when
you’re down and you feel like giving up- there is someone who believes in you.
Knows you’re not a superhero, you’re just a little girl who loves to play
games. And for me, when I was a little girl, I grew up knowing that my grandpa
would be in the front row, mid court, eating popcorn and cheering so loud not
even the proudest parents could drown out. I grew up knowing even though I was
a girl that wouldn’t stop me from doing something I wanted to do or stop me
from achieving goals I set for myself. My cousin was a senior. For three years
my grandpa sat on the bleachers every home game in the middle of the court,
eating popcorn and cheering for my cousin. And every time she stepped to the
free throw line she looked back at grandpa and he would beam as if the sun rose
and sat on my cousin standing on the free throw line. Then he’d say to me
without taking his eyes off the court, “That will be you. Just keep practicing.”
That will be you. Just
keep practicing.
But when the phone rang and it was the hospital those are
not the words I remembered. And when they asked for my mother and said it was
an emergency those were not the words that stuck with me. My hands trembled
violently as I turned my back to the living room where my sister turned the TV
volume up for a song she liked on MTV’s countdown. Time seemed to slow, my
weight seemed unbearable to the bowing of my bones against the partition. No
longer was my day about the number 40 and how much playing time would coach
actually give me, a freshman.
“My mother isn’t here. She left for the hospital a half hour
ago.”
Because my mother had gone into town to pick up my grandpa
from the hospital. He had surgery to remove cancer and they thought he was
going to be fine.
I’ll be at your game. I
won’t miss it.
He died before my mother got there.
As a little girl I couldn’t imagine life without grandpa. I
spent a lot of time at his house. And when you’re a child, you feel like staple
adult in your life are always going to be there. But you don’t realize that
life is not that way because you’re not old enough to understand loss and how
it affects you not only in the present but in the future too. These losses
shape you and mold you and teach you, but that lesson doesn’t lessen the loss
in the moment. He promised he’d be there and then he wasn’t. You float around
in this world fixated on a promise, focused solely on these words that hold no
meaning now that he was gone.
Still to this day I think about that; but it’s not so much
the promise of his words that taught me the biggest lesson, it was his confidence in those words spoken like a fact:
That will be you. Just keep practicing.
I skipped open gym all summer- the kiss of death for a ball
player. I broke my foot just a month after grandpa passed and missed all of
softball season. And when October rolled around and practices started, my
cousin didn’t try out for the basketball team- a devastating blow to the coach.
My foot wasn’t up to snuff and practice left me hobbling, limping, crying in
the locker room after two brutal hours of drills and running. But when I wanted
to give up I looked at the bleachers, the floor level at half court. The sun
always beamed in through the ceiling high windows in the gym and on the weekend
when we practiced early, the sun bounced off old hardwood and faded lacquer on
the bottom bleacher at half court. And I kept going. I put on number 40 and
shouldered responsibility as captain all season long. It was the worst season
coach had suffered in years. It was the worst season of my life. But if I’d
given up, if I’d quit what would that have proved? My cousin couldn’t bear to
be on the court knowing when she looked at half court there was no grandpa; at
least I’d been spared that memory.
And I think writing is like that. You strain and strive to create characters that are human with quirks and flaws and so real. All the little moments
that build up the background and backstory of your characters, it’s just
bundled up inside your character shaping them into who they turned out to be. Sparing
yourself the memories by pouring them out onto the page and tweaking a few
details to fit the purpose. Teaching lessons others have learned and we have
learned along the way. We, as writers, are constantly telling ourselves "someday that will be me" and we keep striving towards that goal and practicing on paper until our character is unique and flawed and full of memories so that they are shaped by their past.
Practice and a writer's appreciation to detail are what makes characters real. Adding in those memories give those experiences that leave us at a loss. And we as people are the same way. We are just the main characters of our own lives. Something that happens today shapes us for how we react in the future.
Practice and a writer's appreciation to detail are what makes characters real. Adding in those memories give those experiences that leave us at a loss. And we as people are the same way. We are just the main characters of our own lives. Something that happens today shapes us for how we react in the future.
How do you shape your
characters past and how does that influence how they act and behave in the
future? What is your favorite past influence to read in a character? For me
I think reading about character’s loss is easily identifiable to me as a
reader. I can relate to that influence the most. But without being too personal (or you can get personal if you want)
what do you relate to the most when you’re thinking up a background and past
for a character?
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Giveaway with Jill Shalvis!
Dear Readers,
I tend to write big,
rugged, tough heroes. Not necessarily the boardroom type … more
likely the kind to strap on a tool belt or a gun belt. I find these
alpha heroes lend themselves far better to a small town than the big
city. That’s where Lucky Harbor comes in. A small quirky town on
the Washington State coast, you can trust just about anyone there
with your life. Unfortunately, not a single one of them can keep a
secret.
So when Ali Winters’
life falls apart, everyone knows it. The only person she can turn to
for help is a stranger.
Detective Luke Hanover has
returned to his hometown for some peace and quiet. Instead he finds
his hands full with a bombshell brunette in a heap of trouble. Oddly
enough, as he helps Ali put the pieces of her world back together,
his own life suddenly seems fall into place as well…
“Don’t be nice to me
right now. I’ll lose it.”
With surprising gentleness,
he pushed the hair from her face, then clicked open her seatbelt.
It was all the invitation
she was going to get, and all the invitation she needed. Turning to
him, she burrowed in as steady, strong arms closed around her. He
stroked a hand down her back, and she pressed her face into the crook
of his neck, soaking in the warm comfort he offered.
It was the safest and most
secure she’d felt in far too long, and she wasn’t sure she was
going to be able to let go.
“Ali.”
Afraid he was going t pull
away before she was done soaking him in, she squirmed a little
closer.
“Please, not yet.”
A rough sound escaped him,
and he tightened his grip.
“It’s okay. I’ve got
you.”
IT HAD TO BE YOU is the
first in a new trilogy where three women, each running their own
business and sharing an eccentric old Victorian building, find
themselves on the bring of something big in a little town called
Lucky Harbor. Be sure to Catch ALWAYS ON MY MIND this September, and
then ONCE IN A LIFETIME in early 2014.
Interested
in hearing more? You can find that, along with a full booklist and
my daily blog at www.jillshalvis.com/blog.
Come by and say hi (and sign up for my newsletter, I’m getting
ready to do a big giveaway very soon!)
Also, leave a comment here
today and I’ll draw a few names to win their choice of my backlist.
Before I go, would love to know what you all are reading…?
Jill
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Bumps in the Road
“Requiem of the Night” Audiomachine
(Helios, 2012)
I took the first part of the month off.
I think after spilling all that emotion
into 30 days sent me into overload. I had a hard time processing and
separating and weeding through my hero and heroine’s life together.
I think love on a grand scale is difficult to comprehend. Love by
itself is complex just like the two who experience this overwhelming
emotion.
I floated in this abyss of inner
reflection for days. Time slowed to a snail’s pace when before it
was set on warp speed. Nothing seemed the same through these eyes.
Then I became aware of conversations around me, advertising emails,
dashboard reblogs- for days I saw nothing but reminders. I felt like
I was being given a message I wasn’t listening to at all. Then, I
realized this was it. To understand, to reflect- I embraced this new
lesson wholeheartedly.
Time is not infinite. Nor are the
depths of love.
Love itself is not the only thing that
brings two beings together. The complexity of relationships
transcends what we write on a page and becomes about what the reader
brings from their own experiences.
Love is a bit like time. We all have
it, except sometimes we forget the magic it brings to your life. We
might not even have it in the capacity we want it, yet it still
remains there. We get swept away by greed and envy, longing and
passion. We lose sight of this gift we’re given. We beg for more of
it, wish for it to go away. We get wrapped up in this feeling you
can’t imagine living without.
But love isn’t unconditional. Nothing
understands the depths of unconditional. Humans are so quickly swept
away by emotion that it clouds our judgment. Even when we think we’re
thinking rationally and without prejudice; we cannot be
unconditional. We have breaking points- that’s what makes us human.
There is always a but.
To my hero and heroine who are not
human, love is a luxury. Love is so rare in a world filled deception
and despair that few have ever truly found it; nor do they actively
search for it. They have a saying: “Love is a curse. For once you
find it; you’re destined to lose it.”
Once in love though they die for it.
Fight wars for it. Give up their souls to save it. They live without
the constraints of time. Think about living timelessly without
emotions. Then think about living timelessly having love and lost it.
Which would be worse? You’d go crazy looking for love and go crazy
from knowing it and having lost it. There is no true answer. You
could have everything you wanted but love. You could have love but
nothing else.
We’re always going to ask for
something we don’t have. Giving your characters humanization allows
our characters to interact with readers even when they’re not
human. No one can be perfect, and our characters cannot be either.
Love stories have bumps in the road (sometimes chasms, mountains,
oceans, worlds in the way) it’s the story of getting there that
makes the difference. I mean, if love was easy to obtain, we’d
think something was about to go wrong anyway. It’s what we are
willing to do to get this precious commodity and what we are willing
to do to keep it that gives us a story.
What is your favorite bump in the
road for a love story? What’s your breaking point- your but-
that makes the story no longer a love story but a tragedy?
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Ink Splattered Hands
Musical Influence: Last Chance (Remastered)- Brand X Music (Brand X Music Vol. 15, 2012)
Let me just tell you I'm glad April is
over.
Not only is it tax month (referred to
as hell) and the start of a new quarter (which means extra tax
figures for first quarter to be paid in) it is also AprWriMo. (I
cannot remember what GPS coined it a few years ago- I do believe it
was Awrapino. She said it sounded better.)
This year I didn't do AprWriMo (or
Awrapino) because The Office of Letters and Light sponsored the very
first Camp NaNo in April this year. This was fantastic news
because Camp NaNo allows the Camper to set their own word count to
challenge for the month. NO 50k balance for me. I took on 10k knowing
what kind of month I'd have in store for myself at work. There was a
certain scene in the beginning of the first book of Cin's that I
wanted to rewrite. Well, I wanted to rewrite the prologue and first
chapter and I thought 10k was a good round number.
I was wrong.
So April 1 rolls around and I'm all set
with my notes to start fleshing out these scenes I've seen in my
head. Only to be trolling around the Internet and realize it's
National Poetry Month. I love poetry. There is something magical
about holding a book in your hands; but for me, there is something
omnipotent about holding poetry. The way it rolls off the page. The
brief idea, the fledgling moment words come to life and transport you
into this world through as few of words as possible. Concise,
beautiful prose- oh how I love thee.
Thoroughly excited by National
Poetry Month, I set out on my crusade to get some poetry books and
READ poetry in the month of April. Then I found it... oh those
seconds in time that froze everything in my little world.
National Poetry Writing Month.
Dumbfounded...
All I could think was- for reals?!
I cannot believe I didn't know about
this magical challenge. Thirty poems in thirty days. That is no easy
task, sir. But in that moment there was no way I'd tell myself no. I
haven't written a poem in over a decade and a good one, ha- never.
But I told GPS and away we went! Both of us swearing to do the
NaPoWriMo challenge. Never you mind I'd already signed up to do Camp
NaNo, too.
C'est la vie.
When in Rome...
Yeah... about that-
GPS promised to do a Haiku a
day. And me, well, I got caught up in the moment. I promised to do
whatever struck my fancy but thirty in thirty days. I've always been a free former. But as I've
gotten older and started to understand the meaning behind different
forms of poetry, I fell in love with Tanka.
I know it must be this way
in the waking world,
but how cruel ---
even in my dreams
we hide from others' eyes
-Ono no Komachi, Ink Dark Moon
Tanka is an extended form to
Haiku. Where Haiku is five syllables to seven syllables
to five (5-7-5) and traditionally in some passing thought of nature.
Tanka is in 5-7-5-7-7 and the world/nature element is more
abstract. These five lines house two separate poems- the first three
lines comprising of the Haiku, then
take the third line to the fifth line to read a completely different
poem that somehow meshes with the top.
However, the traditional idea behind
Haiku hasn't really taken off here in English writings so we
tend to write our own version of Haiku. (Like GPS writing
about unicorns farting glitter, in my honor no less. Not that my
Haiku writing is much better)
Throughout the month, NaPoWriMo issued
a challenge a day to help spur you along if you were floundering.
Some were quite fun. Some were quite the challenge. And some I
couldn't be inspired to do at all. A part of GPS's challenge of the 30 in 30 was they had to be posted publicly. She put hers on the dreaded book of Face. I put mine on Tumblr where less people were likely to see.
Most of the challenges were different forms of poetry. Or different types of themes. I tried quite a few of them.
Most of the challenges were different forms of poetry. Or different types of themes. I tried quite a few of them.
I tried a Pantun- a Malay poem
form. Eight to twelve syllables, alternating rhyming lines (abab)-
and failed epically.
Wandering in meadows turned sheer
darkness
still, shadows move in fractured
light
never-ending nights spent dreamless
I am lost to you without sight
never-ending nights spent dreamless
I am lost to you without sight
©christie
taylor, 2013
______________________________________
And a Cinquain- a diamond
shaped poem (yet mine never looked that way) with a 2-4-6-8-2 syllable format.
______________________________________
Believed
I was safe
I trusted you
but you were not harmless
because I lost my heart to you
again
©christie
taylor, 2013
______________________________________
My take on a Tanka-
5-7-5-7-7 syllable format-
which isn't even as close to being as beautiful as a Tanka
can be:
I stood on the shore
river of souls bridged with tears
no words, just sorrow
love once lost now forgotten
prison called eternity
©christie
taylor, 2013
______________________________________
And a Haiku- 5-7-5
syllable format.
when I confessed love to you
in the morning light
©christie
taylor, 2013
______________________________________
And
free form... well, that's a whole 'nother story.
I used
the month to relearn how to be concise and how to put as much
description in a few words as I possibly could. I'd forgotten how
much I loved to write poetry. How much I loved when I saw it come
together on the page in front of me. The smell of ink blotting and
the burn of my fingers from gripping the pen tight. But poetry is
emotional and once poetry gets started, it is that thread that keeps
unraveling. Thirty days of emotion was almost too heavy of a burden.
I poured Cin and Uri into the page. I learned of their relationship
and how much longed to be with one another. The agony of being torn
apart. For Cin to be trapped away and Uri slow dying of a broken
heart. Of a child who's been missing and right in front of them all
along. April was an emotional month, but a good month for me.
How about yours?
For more information on National Poetry Writing
Month, please visit: napowrimo.net
For more information on Camp NaNo, please visit:
campnanowrimo.net
For more information on poetry, please visit:
poets.org
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Show Me the Way
Musical Influence: "House of Cards" Hurt (Blackmarket EP, 2006)
There have been many times in my life when emotion has taken over. When I no longer have control over what my mouth is saying and everything that I’d held inside for so long came front and centered. There is nothing like those moments, vulnerable and exposed to the one who’s either caused you pain or you’ve loved like no one before them. It’s in those moments that we realize who we are inside.
For some of us emotion is not easily said aloud but easier shown in small gestures that are often overlooked. It’s easy to say the words, “I love you” if you don’t really mean it. Words are often regaled as the emotion behind the person but without these gestures behind the meaning, it truly isn’t worth the last turnip on the turnip truck.
I’ve often thought about those gestures behind my characters. What makes them act the way they do? What makes you engage the character? Visualization of the scene, gestures that seem real and not overbearing. You really have to analyze every day life and those around you in order to get an understanding of this. To me this is one of the most important jobs of a writer. I want you to feel like you are in that scene. Like you can feel the motivation behind my character’s actions. If you can’t physically feel that emotion draped between the words, sentences, paragraphs, then I’m obviously not conveying it the right way.
I can think of a few writers that do this and do this well. I adore dark heroes. The darker the better. But that’s what makes their redemption so much sweeter in the end. The dark heroes know how to do the gestures behind their actions. For them, it’s the only way they can truly express their feelings without feeling overpowered by the moment.
It’s the small gestures that, to the reader, tell you everything you need to know about the relationship between two characters. There is no telling of these emotions, there is no need. As a reader, you sense that connection between the hero and heroine. Without that connection, I wouldn’t be a reader of their fiction. Plain and simple. I don’t need to be told of the emotion. Seriously, any schmuck can say the words “I love you” and grin like an idiot and that still doesn’t mean, to me, that they actually care or genuinely love. They are saying the words. There can be all the basis in the world behind them, and they still might not mean anything without the gesture of love behind it.
What do I mean
by gesture, you might ask? To me, the gesture of love and emotion is
showing me you mean it. By not just saying it, you truly feel it.
Nothing will separate us. Not obsessive
or overbearing; but that one true deep emotion that happens once in a
million years. Pamela Clare just has this wonderful way of writing
the emotional gestures behind the action. My favorite example of
Pamela Clare’s gestures is *spoiler for Hard Evidence* when
Julian steps into the line of fire and takes several bullets in the
back for Tessa. Yes, he’s a FBI agent, but it’s the moments
afterwards. The way Julian reacts. The tenderness between them when
Tessa cries for him that truly shows you the gestures behind the
motivation and emotion. It’s complex. It’s raw. And it’s truly
awe-inspiring.
Julian is a different breed of dark hero. A man who truly doesn’t know his worth because he was never taught. There was no trust in his heart. No love in his life. My heart pitter-patters at the thought of Julian, dark sunglasses, 5 o’clock shadow, lean hips swaggering towards me. You can just tell that Julian is all action, no talk.
Not to mention Janet Evanovich’s character Ranger (R. Carlos Manoso). All of the words that come out of Ranger’s mouth contradict his actions. The way he unabashedly tells the truth no matter how painful it is to hear it. He tells it straight. He makes no apologies. He’s hard and unforgiving. And it takes a special sort of love to understand him. If you hear the words come out of Ranger’s mouth you can take it to heart. He thinks about what he says before he speaks. Every word is weighed carefully. Don’t say things you don’t mean. But there is a sneakiness about Ranger as well. Qualifiers. Contradictions. Keeping at arm’s length.
Looks that tell a different story. Actions that show exactly what he feels.
Take
for an example: In Twelve Sharp *spoilers for Twelve Sharp*
the book is about Ranger’s daughter with whom he has little contact
with. When asked about it, he speaks of her clinically, without
emotion, detached. But his actions tell a different story. He exudes
his every resource to find her. Spends countless hours awake,
searching, hunting, tracking down leads. He enlists Stephanie to help
him. And when he sees his little girl’s smiling face on the TV and
a picture of him, listed as armed and dangerous, you see his mask
slip and the emotion becomes very raw and painful. And even then,
Stephanie knows that his daughter is just not another expense in his
budget, but a real emotion he keep close to his heart and never shows
to anyone.
So, in your opinion, who is the master of these sorts of gestures? What sort of characters suck you in and never let you go? Has there ever been a scene that just stuck out for you and stayed with you long after you sat the book down?
There have been many times in my life when emotion has taken over. When I no longer have control over what my mouth is saying and everything that I’d held inside for so long came front and centered. There is nothing like those moments, vulnerable and exposed to the one who’s either caused you pain or you’ve loved like no one before them. It’s in those moments that we realize who we are inside.
For some of us emotion is not easily said aloud but easier shown in small gestures that are often overlooked. It’s easy to say the words, “I love you” if you don’t really mean it. Words are often regaled as the emotion behind the person but without these gestures behind the meaning, it truly isn’t worth the last turnip on the turnip truck.
I’ve often thought about those gestures behind my characters. What makes them act the way they do? What makes you engage the character? Visualization of the scene, gestures that seem real and not overbearing. You really have to analyze every day life and those around you in order to get an understanding of this. To me this is one of the most important jobs of a writer. I want you to feel like you are in that scene. Like you can feel the motivation behind my character’s actions. If you can’t physically feel that emotion draped between the words, sentences, paragraphs, then I’m obviously not conveying it the right way.
I can think of a few writers that do this and do this well. I adore dark heroes. The darker the better. But that’s what makes their redemption so much sweeter in the end. The dark heroes know how to do the gestures behind their actions. For them, it’s the only way they can truly express their feelings without feeling overpowered by the moment.
It’s the small gestures that, to the reader, tell you everything you need to know about the relationship between two characters. There is no telling of these emotions, there is no need. As a reader, you sense that connection between the hero and heroine. Without that connection, I wouldn’t be a reader of their fiction. Plain and simple. I don’t need to be told of the emotion. Seriously, any schmuck can say the words “I love you” and grin like an idiot and that still doesn’t mean, to me, that they actually care or genuinely love. They are saying the words. There can be all the basis in the world behind them, and they still might not mean anything without the gesture of love behind it.
Julian is a different breed of dark hero. A man who truly doesn’t know his worth because he was never taught. There was no trust in his heart. No love in his life. My heart pitter-patters at the thought of Julian, dark sunglasses, 5 o’clock shadow, lean hips swaggering towards me. You can just tell that Julian is all action, no talk.
Not to mention Janet Evanovich’s character Ranger (R. Carlos Manoso). All of the words that come out of Ranger’s mouth contradict his actions. The way he unabashedly tells the truth no matter how painful it is to hear it. He tells it straight. He makes no apologies. He’s hard and unforgiving. And it takes a special sort of love to understand him. If you hear the words come out of Ranger’s mouth you can take it to heart. He thinks about what he says before he speaks. Every word is weighed carefully. Don’t say things you don’t mean. But there is a sneakiness about Ranger as well. Qualifiers. Contradictions. Keeping at arm’s length.
Looks that tell a different story. Actions that show exactly what he feels.
So, in your opinion, who is the master of these sorts of gestures? What sort of characters suck you in and never let you go? Has there ever been a scene that just stuck out for you and stayed with you long after you sat the book down?
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