I Have A Big Bang Theory . . .

I've been VERY slack when it comes to blogging - and writing as a whole for that matter - since it turned 2012. I've been letting my allocated slots, or mainly my Tuesday slot, slip by without a batter of an eyelid. Why is this? Why have I suddenly gone from feeling excitement about my next post to 'meh!!!'?

One theory is that I sit here and read all your wonderful blogs, each recounting steps on a written journey that we're all taking, and I realise that you're all bloody good writers. I initially started this blog to post the random pieces of flash fiction we often write at our Writers' Group. It then evolved into a journal about writing, about my struggles along the way and posts I thought would help and encourage new writers who were struggling. However, as the saying goes:

Don't Teach Your Grandma To Suck Eggs

You all know the do's and don'ts of writing, you're all aware of what it takes to create, to edit, or love and destroy, of the months spent hunting for an agent and of the disappointment felt each time you get a rejection slip. We learn all this through time and experience, something we've all shared. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm running out of topics that I feel won't make me look stupid! In other words, my blog is going through a little low self-esteem at the moment.

I'm sure it'll pass.

I have, however, been busy creating a new blog for our Starfish PC. This will be a joint venture where we'll have, say, a subject a month and we'll each a post about it. There are no posts at the moment as this is still a growing thing, but I'm sure it won't take long. Check it out here. I'm pretty proud of it.

I'd also like to thank Kelley for her two wonderful blog awards that she's given me. Kelley, I would have thanked you in the comments but blogger seems to crash on me when I go to reply (is anyone else having that problem?). Still, this will give me reason to blog next Tuesday :)

And on a happier note, I'd like to share with you my all-time favourite scene from The Big Bang Theory. I suddenly find myself at the mercy of this sitcom which is strange for me, and this scene makes me laugh everytime I watch it - and not just because I got stuck in a ball pit when I was a kid, drowned under the balls and had to be rescued (something I've never been allowed to forget...). It brings a smile to face everytime and I just had to share.

Bazinger...!!!

Killing Off Characters . . .

We've recently lost a family member . . . as well as a highly valued blog follower . . . and yesterday we attended his funeral and gave him a good send off (why is it, when you concentrate really hard on not crying, you end up blubbering all over the place twice as bad? Good job my sister came equipped with a pack of tissues).

I didn't realise how big the family had grown. He left a grand total of 18 grandchildren. Some of these stood up at the funeral and read their own pieces in honour of his memory. That was the hardest part to listen to and watch when you're trying not to cry, but it was nice.

This got me thinking about death in writing. It's true what they say. You have to really hate the characters you write about. It's the hardest thing to recover from when you lose someone close to you, so why do we willingly put our characters through such pain? Why do we create someone for our protagonist to love and then cruelly rip them away - and sometimes, depending on the genre, in the most gruesome fashion?

I've created many characters who've had their lives shattered by the death of a loved one. I'd hate to meet them in person. God knows what fate they'd bestow upon me. But no matter how hard the subject is in real life, people still like reading about it in fiction.

It's called life. People can relate to it, and you can easily connect with readers using powerful, evocative emotions. By reading about a fictional death can make them realise how lucky they are to have the people they love in their lives - and make them remember those who have gone with a smile.

But I write fantasy and horror. I doubt whether some of my deaths will bring a smile to their face . . . lol . . . And I am, despite writing a piece at the moment, planning and conjuring the idea for my next manuscript which involves an assassin and, needless to say, lots of death. So I must be one wicked person . . .

The Written Connection With Readers . . .

You all know when you're watching a good film, when your eyes are glued, your mind is switched off and you're in that film. You see that character's dilemma and you're routing for them, you're on the edge of your seat, and you feel like screaming at them to not go up stairs! (And they always do and they always get murdered). Or with other genres, when you end up crying and feeling that character's loss.

Either way you become connected with that character; you feel their emotions and you experience them. (I confess when I watched 'PS: I love you' with Gerrard Butler, I was blubbering from the word go till it ended - and then the next day at work I could still feel myself welling up.)

Emotion is a very powerful thing, and it's easy to portray that in films by their chosen scores and soundtracks. Music in films, although not often noted when watching, plays a huge part. Have you ever tried watching a horror film with the sound turned off? Yeah, it rates a zero on the Scare-ometre. Music builds tension, humour, romance - or just the setting in general. It's a powerful, evocative tool.

So how can you add that sort of emotional feeling in writing when you have no scores to enhance it?

It's not always easy, but it's essential. For a reader, as you're all probably aware, to become as engrossed in a book as you get in a good film, you need to connect with the character; you need to see their dilemma, to feel their trauma and their emotion. You need to connect with that emotion; you need to recognise it and feel it in order to be transported from the couch you're sitting on to the world within the book.

Reading the right words can work just as well as any score, but it's finding the right words to use. For this, many writers call upon past experiences, to drudge up emotions and experiences that they can use and write about in hopes of creating something that the reader can connect with. This is great - Write What You Know, so they say. But what if you're protagonist is running down a street, pursued by a assassin with a blade that has their name on it? They need to hide! They need to shake their pursuer off but they don't know how. Their mind is a frantic mess and they need to think, but they can't concentrate. If the writer, like me, has lived a placid, almost uneventful life, how are you going to know what emotions to drudge up? We can only guess.

Or Cheat.

As some of you may know, I listen to a lot of music when I write. I have a huge eclectic collection from Heavy Metal to Classic. Each helps me to enhance an emotion when I need it, from quick, up-beat tunes for dramatic, heart pounding moments, to those softer tones for the quiet, solemn times. For me, it works. It allows me to switch on different emotions when I need them, and I find this helps in writing. I also hope that what I churn out connects with the reader in such a way that they don't want to return to the couch they're sitting on. Only time will tell.

And film scores are fantastic for this. Each piece has been composed for a specific scene, to enhance specific emotions, and to back up what I'm talking about watch this clip (click on the picture). It's the very last scene from 'The Da Vinci Code' (yes, I actually liked this film) It's not a very dramatic scene, in fact, turn the sound down and it's as boring as they come, but with the score . . . it transforms it into an extremely powerful and emotional scene.



Hans Zimmer is a great composer. He's done the Scores for hundreds of big films, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean, Last of the Mohicans, Batman Begins, to name just a few, and I've recently tuned into his talent as way of honing mine.

Hope this rant helps in any way.