Emotional Attachments and Your Characters: Doing it the George R. R. Martin Way

A few weeks ago I wrote about Taking Happily Ever After Away From Your Characters. When I wrote it, I was really thinking in terms of romance writing and character relationships. However, there are lots of other ways to manipulate your readers using emotional attachments.

I was recently reminded of this very lesson when I watched the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones.

I guess winter is no longer coming. If you're a fan of the show, then you know what I'm talking about!

I actually have not read any of the books in the Game of Thrones series. I know, I know! Shame on me, but Mr. Martin is heavily involved in the writing of the HBO series so I feel like I'm getting a pretty accurate representation of what is happening in his books. Of course, if I'd read the book then I wouldn't have been so outraged, so pissed, so disappointed by the Red Wedding episode.

But that's the beauty of Mr. Martin. He totally pulled me into the Game of Thrones world, made me root for particular characters, and then took them away without any warning. He evoked powerful reactions in me that had me thinking about what was going to happen next and the fact that no character is safe in his writing world.

It reminded me a bit of Shakespeare. Most of Shakespeare's main characters had a habit of dying by the end of the story, and I think Mr. Martin is definitely taking a few cues from the bard.

While I was upset at the loss of these characters that I'd come to love, I couldn't help but admire the author. Getting people to care about fictional lives is no easy feat! That takes careful writing and development skills. He manages to hook us by showing through thought, deed, and words that his characters are flesh and blood--they can die even if we don't like it.

And isn't that the way real life is? Unfair, messy, and emotional?

So what can an aspiring author (or any author, for that matter) learn from this? That killing off your main characters is vital to the success of your work? No. In fact, it's something that could potentially back fire on you! However, building attachments is important. Getting your reader to care enough about what might happen to a particular character is vital.

How can a writer do that?

Good dialogue.

Show us, don't tell us.

Make them human by showing us how they handle adversity.

Have them fail and then redeem themselves.

Get them to fall in love for all the wrong reasons and then make those reasons the right ones.

Let the story follow it's path, and if that path should lead to the main character's death, then so be it. (I just hope you're not writing a romance. Main character deaths in romance are big NO-NOs!)

As I settle back and wait for the next season of Game of Thrones, I can't help but wonder what Mr. Martin has in store for me. I suppose I could just go grab the book and read ahead, but that would spoil the surprise at this point. In the meantime, I'll just have to content myself with creating emotional attachments in my own work!

Tips for managing writer’s block

You’ve just got to the middle of your novel, you’ve been working on it relentlessly, you’re excited and proud of what you have so far; and suddenly, nothing.

Unblocking tool

The truth is, there is no easy way to manage writer’s block. It’s a nasty experience for a writer, and techniques that work for some to move past it might not work for others. To start with, here are three ways to make yourself feel better about the entire experience: 

1. Don’t be hard on yourself. This is the worst thing you can do. You’ll just feel bad and you might even lose your motivation to write altogether. Thoughts like ‘well, it wasn’t that good anyway, I might as well just give up’ are not allowed. Remember how excited you were about it, and how well it was going. Once you move past the block those feelings will come back.
2. The phrase ‘you can’t rush art’ might sound like a pretentious cliché that only people in black turtle-necks and berets would use, but it’s true. Unless you have an official deadline set in stone by a publishing company, don’t set deadlines for yourself. You’ll find yourself forcing ideas and they either won’t come at all, or the ones that do will not be up to standard. Let your ideas come naturally. By saying ‘I must have this chapter done by 5pm by tomorrow and not a minute later’ you put unnecessary pressure on yourself; you won’t feel creative anymore and you won’t produce the best standard of work. Be patient.
3. Minimise the block in your mind. Feeling stuck might make you feel a bit rubbish but don’t let it appear to you as any bigger than it is. It is merely a minor hurdle in the creative process that you can and will move past.

Don't quit

Feeling better? Now here are five practical ways to combat the block and move on:

1. Forget about what you’re writing. Step away from it and do something else. If you’re working on another project, go and do that for a while. This will give you a sense of achievement and, if you’re lucky, the break might get your ideas flowing again. Cleaning is a very good task for this. It doesn’t require any brainpower, leaving your head free for idle thoughts which may lead to new ideas. Which brings me to my next point…
2. Clear your workspace. If your desk, sofa, snug etc is cluttered then how do you expect to write? If you have old cups of coffee lying around which appear to be growing penicillin get rid of them, fast. Organise yourself. Tidy away those books and pens. You’ll feel more relaxed within a clear working space.
3. Go for a walk. Be mindful. Take in your surroundings. Concentrate on what you see; it might inspire you, or free up your mind for new ideas.
4. Read a dictionary. Seriously.
5. Talk to a friend who is a writer and spend an hour or so discussing your project with them. Bounce some ideas around. Even if nothing you can use comes out of it, you may find you see your writing in a whole new light. You’ll at least have things to reflect on and think about, which may get you moving again. And an outside input helps any creative process.

Blocks are something all writers experience, but even the nastiest of them can be overcome. Keep positive.

 

Stephanie-Louise Farrell is an up-and-coming author who is currently working on a new novel to go alongside her anthology of short stories entitled 'Haunted' (published by Any Subject Books). Aside from her writing she loves animals and lives in London.

The Banshee's Revenge by Victoria Richards--a review

 This is a repeat post, but since we are diving into summer, I wanted to bring attention to one of my favorite authors. Her books make for great beach reads!-- Mary Ann

 

I love trilogies, especially when the last book is the one that ties everything up and is action packed. I've read the first two books in the Banshee series by Victoria Richards and was thrilled to finally get my hands on the latest one: The Banshee's Revenge.

Here is the publisher's blurb:

 

Toby Williams is a wizard with a problem. He is very much in love with half banshee, Jacqueline Huston. Though she exists in the realm of the living, as a banshee she is also able to see death- and help those who have died to cross over to the other side. But something inside her has snapped. Anger and revenge is all she feels now. Jacqueline is hell-bent on revenge to the Brotherhood of Merlyn wizard’s for their past atrocities and their current attempts to kill her love, Toby; especially their ancient and powerful leader, Gwydion. One by one she tracks them down and destroys them. Jacqueline’s power grows with each wizard she reaps while Death’s voice taunts her from within. By pursuing a path of revenge Jacqueline isn't doing her job as a banshee, leaving those who have died unable to cross over and throwing off the balance of nature- with dire consequences.

Toby is at a loss how to save her, and the world. His answer comes in the form of Morrigan, a powerful Celtic goddess. Morrigan has a plan to help Toby save Jacqueline and regain her humanity, but at great risk.

Even the best laid plans can go astray, especially when evil Gwydion enlists the help from a god of the underworld.

Will Jacqueline be saved? Does she have any chance at regaining her humanity? Can Toby and Morrigan overcome a powerful wizard and a god of the underworld? Find out now in the exciting conclusion of The Banshee's Embrace Trilogy.

I have to say that this book answered a lot of questions I'd been wondering about--particularly who the heck are Jacqueline's parents! While I don't want to give that spoiler away, I will say that it made total sense and explained a great deal about why she is so strong. In this book, I felt that Jacqueline really came into her own and showed herself to be a strong woman who wants to believe that good is still inside her.

Toby remains our champion romance hero with just the right amount of humility, sex appeal, and strong warrior rolled into one.  Loved that he was willing to do whatever it takes to save Jacqueline.

We also meet a few new characters like Morrigan (Celtic goddess with a wicked sense of humor), and Arwan (a god of the Underworld) who really is too sexy for his own good. Both were excellent additions to the plot and made me laugh out loud at their antics.

Overall, this story was fast paced, humorous, and had just enough sex to sizzle the page, but not distract you from the overall plot. I have loved this series from beginning to end and highly recommend that you read all three books in The Banshee's Embrace trilogy.

 

THE BANSHEE'S REVENGE AMAZON LINK

 To learn more about the fabulous Victoria Richards click on the links below!

http://victoria-richards.com

http://twitter.com/victoria_rich1

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Victoria-Richards/378425542218622

 

My Love/Hate Relationship With Writing by Maria Lacey

 

 

 

Our first guest blogger of summer is the delightful Maria Lacey! Here she talks about the unique relationships all writers seem to have with their work. Thanks for joining us today, Maria!-- Mary Ann

 

 

I'm a writer, and I hate writing.  

 

 

Now give me a chance to explain myself. I love when I'm done writing, when it finally seems like I have no need to edit and the product is finally finished and looks good. What I don't love is the process it takes to get to that point, but I don't hate it either. The process is just a giant pain that I have to endure in order to fully enjoy the act of writing. 

 

The way I see it, every writer kind of hates writing. There's always some part of the process that you don't like, whether it be brainstorming for ideas or editing a draft (personally I find it hard to even start writing).  

 

It's hard work. Writing is not always enjoyable, but I have found that writing through the painful bits is the best way to get rid of the not-so-fun parts of writing.  

 

It sucks when you are stuck in your writing - it's not turning out the way it should, or you don't even have anything to show for your two hour brainstorming session. But that's kind of the beauty of writing. It's all about the process, and I swear writing is just like giving birth to a baby (even though I have no experience with giving birth and I'm sure that is much, much more painful that what writers do). It hurts to push that thing out, but once it is out, you love what you've made.  

 

That's why I keep writing, even if parts of the process really frustrate me. As much as I complain and whine about the hardship of being a writer, it is so satisfying to finally finish something, step away from it, and think, This is good.    

 

To all my fellow writers, keep writing, even if it is painful and stressful, because in the end you can create something from absolutely nothing. Getting whatever is in your head down on paper is not an easy process, but it is worth it. So take the easy parts with the hard parts, and remember that even if the process is frustrating, it can also be very rewarding.     

 

 

 

 About the author:

Maria Lacey has a BA in English from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is a freelance writer who currently resides in Las Vegas with her family. You can learn more about her at www.mlaceywriting.com.

 

5 Publishing Formats

Mention e-books and everyone automatically thinks of Amazon's Kindle but that's not the whole story if you want to make it as a top publishing company – you need to be aware of the others and their markets.

Here are five of the main formats and how they are used:

Mobi

Variety is the spice of life, they say

Mobi or mobipocket as it is more correctly called, was developed around an HTML framework by a French company to be used largely by PDA's (Personal Digital Assistant). Later on their programmers expanded the application’s coverage to include the first ebooks. Amazon took over the software 8 years ago and then combined it with their own Kindle readers, giving it the household name status that it currently enjoys.

With freely available software for the PC, Mac, Blackberry, Android or Apple, there are few people who do not possess the wherewithal to read a Mobipocket ebook.

File extensions: .azw, .mobi and .prc (no significant differences)

ePub

Utilizing an XHTML platform, ePub was intended to be the industry standard for electronic books allowing, as it does, a greater range of formatting possibilities than the rather limited mobi file extension. Without Amazon's choice of mobi, ePub might well have become more popular however it’s still used by the Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, the Apple range of iReaders, Linux computers and Android-based tablets.

Turning one's back on the ePub market is ill-advised and the top publishing company will be well aware of this.
File extension: .epub

PDF

PDF or Portable Document Format might seem a surprising inclusion on this list but it's got a very definite marketplace. The format was introduced by Acrobat to allow universal reading of material without the need to buy an expensive software package such as Microsoft Office. Its beauty is this universality but PDF is not without its drawbacks such as page scalability issues and also the time investment in creating a working table of contents.

As any top publishing company will tell you, there are plenty of 'quick-fix' conversion programs which will convert a standard document file to PDF but it takes care and painstaking attention to detail to create a table of contents - something which will be expected of you by your readers.

PDF is popular with companies like Gardners who distribute, inter alia, to the major supermarket chains.

File extension: .pdf

PDB

Using PML (Palm Markup Language) instead of HTML, PDB works as a text-type file with formatting tags which is then reassembled into an e-book using an application such as Studio or Dropbook. It's favored primarily by Blackberry, Palm, PocketPC, iPhone/iTouch and Android and Symbian devices.

It's usage by Barnes & Noble's eReader makes it worth considering as an outsider.

File extension: .pdb

LIT

LIT was developed by Microsoft using a compressed HTML system nearly 10 years ago. Nowadays, with a rapidly dwindling market, it's hard to find a top publishing company who will want to devote resources towards creating books in this format. That said, there are still some customers who use it.

File extension: .lit

Any Subject Books offers a full range of services to the self-publisher including formatting and editing. See the website for more details and current rates.

Summer and All Things Writing

I'm running late this week with my blog post. I can't help it! Summer is finally hear and it keeps doing a naughty little dance that distracts me from writing!

Ah well....such is the nature of summer. I think I'll just let it do its dance and reap the benefits of finally having time to catch up on projects, read lots of great books, and write some long overdue reviews. In fact, that's what you can expect this summer from All Things Writing.

In addition to our usual crew of writers who know just about everything (sorta), we will be joined by several guest bloggers. Look for some fun new posts in the upcoming weeks!

I also intend to review several books on my back list including our own John Brewer's book The Silla Project. I've just dived in to  a great book by Deborah Harkness that her publisher sent to me called Shadow of Night. This is definitely one to be reading in the dog days of summer.

All Things Writing will also holding a short story contest this summer. The theme is mayhem and amusement parks. More details will be posted regarding this in July, but get your imagination revved up on this one folks!

Well, back to the pool for now.

The sound of music

No, I'm not referring to Ms Andrews' sublime petticoat-twirling routine through flowery Austrian meadows in the film of that name (which is why the title’s not in capitals), I'm actually addressing the ways in which rhythm is relevant to the writer. From perusing submissions and also from reading the work of numerous first-time authors, it's become obvious to me just how much this skill is rapidly disappearing.

But what do I mean?

I want you to consider key scenes from a variety of classic films you've seen over the years. Once you've got them in your mind, try to remember the music that was being played (Youtube or Vimeo will probably fill in the blanks). Listen carefully to it - what message is the music sending?

Don't think this is trivial or irrelevant because it isn't. It's on public record how many tens of millions film companies spend on a movie’s production. With all that cash at stake, it’s not surprising that not-so-small fortunes have been invested in learning the psychology of what type of music makes a scene - such as tonal range, harmony and rhythm.

Here are just a few of the adjectives which can be used to describe a soundtrack:

• Soaring
• Whimsical
• Frenetic
• Low-key
• Lively
• Staccato

How and when these tempos and styles are applied makes a huge difference to the audience's perception of the film. Mix them up and you change the very nature of the atmosphere.

Now apply those same adjectives to sentence length and structure. What does a paragraph like this tell you? What message am I sending? It's important. It's urgent. Act now. Do something! Short and snappy sentences indicate urgency, speed, action under pressure etc. They should be used sparingly in tense situations.

Long, sprawling sentences, on the other hand, are great for descriptive pieces, setting the scene or describing some important detail. Take delight in their length and stretch your vocabulary accordingly to create a kaleidoscopic Technicolor image.

Sentences which are all of a similar length and construction e.g. 'subject-verb-object' or 'subject-verb' for intransitive verbs also (through their simplicity) indicate action - often of a sinister nature when there's not even anything sinister going on. "The ball bounces. The child catches it. She smiles." What's coming next? There are no clues but the reader is being prepared for something out-of-the-ordinary and quite possibly terrifying.

Think of the same sentence but now turned into just one, "The mottle-colored ball bounced gracefully into the air where then, descending in a perfect arc, the young girl's arm reached up, and anticipating the ball's motion, effortlessly closed her tiny fist around it. Clutching the ball to her chest, she beamed and giggled with the sheer pleasure of the moment." The first long sentences suggest a single fluid motion rather than the earlier staccato description while the second sentence confirms to the reader that their assumption that this is a happy occasion is correct.

That said, short sentences can be more memorable. The same film companies use them as hooks “An offer he can’t refuse”, “In space no-one can hear you scream”, “Shaken but not stirred, please”. Likewise your powerhouse statements should be short and punchy. Make them hit home. Don’t overegg the pudding, though. See what I mean?

In general, sentences should be of varying length and construction but the general trend needs to reflect the storyline in just the same way as the book's cover needs to be representative of its contents.

Great authors use rhythm to reinforce their stories. If you are to join their ranks, you need to master the art of hearing the music in your writing so that everything pulls in the same direction, maximizing the impact of your story and boosting the reader experience level.

You don't have to be like the Von Trapps but your ear does need to be attuned to your writing.

That just leaves me to say "So long, farewell."

As well as being an author and commercial writer, Clive West runs a company called Any Subject Books, a provider of a wide range of services to self-publishers. If you're a ghost-writer, cover designer, editor, interviewer, video producer or feel you offer any other publishing-related skills, check out their jobs page.