Shouts From Down Under

Elusive subconscious intoxicating high. Fear. Dread. Risk.

“The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me.”JK Rowling

There are parts we like to write, and others that seem a bit tedious.

But one area of writing is my favourite: creating subconscious excitement, euphoria, dread, suspense, and all of the other invisible feelings or highly emotive parts of our story. These are the parts where I feel that less is more.

It's definitely a show, don't tell emphasis that increases the feeling as we read. I'm not sure why I love writing these parts, but I suspect it's because I have a lot of moments of rebellion. I don't like to conform. In writing I like to push the limits, to attempt the extreme.

Whether this is the case, I don't know, but I strive to do this. If nobody feels that way about my stuff, then I can only try to improve. But at the end of the day, I'm the one who has enjoyed this the most, like the player of the instrument or performer in the band enjoys the performance the most.

How is it done? How do we create this heart pumping stimulation? How do we bring people, readers, to dry lipped, white knuckled, sitting forward in their seats fear? What do you write to conjure up in readers imaginations those entities that are invisible in real life, let alone in mere letters on a page in some book?

Well, I like thinking about this subject. I enjoy studying and nutting out such a vital element to our stories. This is the duck's guts, so to speak, the crucial areas of why readers will come back, time and time again. Well, go ask a writer like Stephen King, or Dean Koontz. I'm sure that they'd agree.
Their books are chock full of this magic elixir. I'm convinced; the more we can hone this quality in our works, the better the rest of it will fall into place.

Planning, framework, plot, editing, characters, descriptions, dialogue and all that - it's important and vital in its place. But this essence of the invisible, this manipulation of our poor reader soon to become a victim, this is the crux of the whole reason we write.

Ok it's the crux of the reason I write. Maybe not the crux. But a fair old chunk of it.

I suppose it all depends on what you personally like in life. Your personal taste. The things that press your buttons, especially in the back of your mind where you try so valiantly to hold them.

As writers, as nasty, sneaking, prying, beady eyed, pinch faced, rat eyed writers, we can take full advantage of this hidden stash. It's like a large fuel tank. If we can tap into it without the reader's awareness, then who knows where their mind will propel their feelings?

This fuel, coupled with the engine of our creativity and imaginative wording, done properly, can drive them along in a most entertaining fashion. For them as well as us. We like to think our readers read our stuff and returned to read more, because there was something there, a real something they enjoyed.
Isn't that how it is?

What gets you pumping? What do you read that quietly and without fanfare or ado, builds up in your system the further you read, until you feel like you are there.



You are the one in the story, with all the conflict, problems, crises, chaos, battles, risk, danger, rule breaking, and yes, its the thing isn't it? HEROISM.

Heroines, Heroes and Heroin. Not a lot of difference. But one of them really IS the safer option. The writing version of heroin. Legal healthy high-ness. Unless people have high blood pressure or cardiovascular problems from reading our stuff.



We learned today in a course I attended, how to give "clients" their medication in the safest and best way. And rightly so.
But in stories, regardless of whether its a romantic risky moment where old mate gets on bended knee to propose, wondering if she'll say a tender "Why, yes, of course I'll marry you Benjamin!" or if she'll screach out a loud and totally destroying "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, you pitiful useless excuse for a man?!", whether its a scene of intense battles with thudding choppers in the jungles of Vietnam, with the VC mowing everyone down from the treeline, whether it's whatever, surely we don't have to worry about safety!

We can work people up to maximum worry. We can dream up stuff that has people checking behind them, closing the blinds, scoffing with false bravado and all the while enjoying the living whatsy out of the story WE created.

Less is more. Vagueness. Ambiguity. And writing while listening to music or thinking about our chapters as we do some sort of activity that stimulates those types of scenes, those fantastic conversations and exchanges in our novels.

It's a bit like right now. My mind is running a hundred miles an hour, because I have less than 2 minutes before this computer session cuts me off like a murderer. Yes, the ethernet cord won't come to my rescue. It's the government. It's a plot against writers everywhere. It's unacceptable. Its wrong punctuation. Wrong grammar. Wrong everything. Descending into

Panic. Wild eyes. Typing flat out. people looking at me as if im' mad. they dunno how it is trying to do this in a short time.

times up!

Sparky