by Lynne | Jun 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
MEMORABLE VILLAINS
Protagonists are characters you mostly like or you wouldn’t keep reading (or watching.) What about antagonists? A killer who tortures their victim, cuts them up into little pieces while they’re still alive and buries them in their family’s backyard, is pretty rotten. But for those of us who read crime fiction and watch “Criminal Minds,” it seems these killers’ MO’s are becoming predictable and rather ho hum. They’re almost “too” bad.
So what constitutes a memorable bad guy? Stephen King might say he (or she) is one who plays on your fears, particularly your childhood fears. The dark. The bogeyman. Someone hiding under your bed. Ratchet that up a notch. Your peers bullying you. Your mother abandoning you. Your father abusing you.
“Memorable” bad guys, however, are not all one hundred percent evil. They often and should have, a few redeeming, even seductive, qualities, or a sympathetic side that readers can identify with. If they were simply hateful, ugly, sinful, vicious, you would tire of them quickly. Look at a few villains that are a syncopation of vile and virtuous. One that immediately comes to mind is Hannibal Lecter. In both books and movies, Lecter is a blend of savagery and sophistication. He’s charming, brilliant, and has a certain panache that draws you to him. Yet, he is clearly despicable. And, although he scares the Bejeezus out of Starling, he never hurts her.
Dexter, the Showtime series about a serial killer, has given villains a bad name. We all like Dexter and root for him to get the “other” bad guy. Dexter gives voice . . . and action . . . to our own feelings of impotence, of wanting revenge. How does he compare, however, with John Lithgow as Arthur Mitchell, “The Trinity Killer” in a past season? Mitchell, too, was likeable, personable, sociable. And mean with a capital M. Vile and virtuous. Well, vile and less vile.
If you’ve been hooked on Downton Abbey as I have, two characters stand out as villains. Thomas, the footman/valet, and Mrs. O’Brian, the ladies’ maid. I despised Thomas through the first two seasons, despite his good looks and service as a nurse for the wounded returned from The Great War. Yet, for a brief moment, I felt sympathy for him when he burst into tears after learning one of the ladies of the house, Sybil, died. I actually liked him. Now, Mrs. O’Brian, on the other hand, is going to have to work harder for me to like her. She, so far, is rather one-dimensional and has few or no redeeming qualities. If you detect any, please let me know.
A perfect example of a pleasant, good-natured scoundrel is Tom Ripley in the Patricia Highsmith mystery series. Tom’s a handsome, affable, yet frosty killer with zero conscience. He disarms the protagonists with his charm until. . . bam. . . it’s too late. I still kind of like him. Similarly, the character, Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey’s role) in The Usual Suspects. Kint is a man physically disabled and emotionally fragile . . . or so we think. The author has created a fabulous artifice.
Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow gives us a stereotypical bad guy, Disney-style (aren’t all pirates bad?) How can you help but love the guy? Then again, he’s Johnny Depp. Need I say more?
Think about the antagonists in the next book you read or movie you watch. Do you love them? So you hate them? Or do you love to hate them?
by Lynne | Jun 16, 2014 | Uncategorized
The Blog Tour
Thanks to Indy Quillen of Mediafastlanes for inviting me to participate in this new writing experience. Indy is responsible for my superfine website as well as my current knowledge of social media including FaceBook, Linked-In, Twitter and Pinterest. “Pre-” Indy I was truly a novice in this arena.
WHAT AM I CURRENTLY WORKING ON
I am currently in the middle of final-editing my fourth book, PURE LIES, about the Salem Witch trials. I am happy to report that this unpublished work has made it through the first two rounds of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Awards. The first two rounds included a 300-word pitch and the first three chapters of the manuscript. The third round is the entire manuscript, and yes, you read correctly, I sent it in before it was completely edited. Shame on me. But, honestly, I had no hope of winning. Still, to get this far is encouraging. Plus, if I don’t make it through the third round, I can say: “Well, it wasn’t edited.” Ha.
HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS OF ITS GENRE?
My books are not formulaic. I take a period in history that I find fascinating. I create a mystery surrounding real people and events. Then I solve it today with modern technology – usually digital photography. Other books go back and forth from past to present, but I think my blending of history and technology make them unique.
HOW DOES MY WRITING PROCESS WORK?
I have no formula. There are other responsibilities in my life that I must make time for, so I don’t write at a particular time each day. Sometimes I write in the morning, sometimes at night. In fact, I might even skip a day. Yikes. And, as all writers know, there are those times when I’m writing, I’m not writing. My mind is wandering, I get up to get coffee or the mail; I switch from writing my book to social media and socialize; I return to my outline, do a new outline, re-do a character sketch, check my history or forensic facts. Often, I take a walk, play the piano or go to yoga to re-energize.
Then there are those days when my fingers race across the keyboard and page after page magically appears. Those days are truly rewarding.
And, finally, I rewrite and I rewrite and I rewrite.
Et voilà! Three books that have received great reviews and publicity.
UP NEXT: My friend, author Lynn Hooghiemstra will be posting during the week of June 23. Her blogs are very insightful, the last of which deals with the battle between Hachette and Amazon, a topic urgent to all writers today. http://elynnh.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-high-ground.html
Her novella, “Tales from the Fountain Pen,” is a delightful story that I urge you to read.
I’m also tagging Alex Roque, “writer by night.” She’s working on several interesting writing projects. One is an urban fantasy romance series with the first book titled “Wings of the Fallen.” And with Alex’s interest in Greek mythology, she’s working on a novel called “The Olympian” about the journey of an ancient Olympian. For more, check her website at http://alexroque.org
by Lynne | Jun 1, 2014 | Uncategorized
Emotional Upheavals Can Translate to Great Writing
I’ve had a rather tumultuous week since I returned from Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. I started out high on beauty and serenity, natural landscapes and wildlife. I was calm, tranquil, close to meditative.
Then my sweet dog of thirteen and a half years passed away. It was downhill from there.
You know that feeling of being gut-punched, but you weren’t? Of having your throat close up but you’re not sick? Of crying during a comedy? Of laughing during a tragic drama? High one minute, low the next? Forgetting why you walked into a room? Not feeling particularly hungry one minute, but ravenous the next? In the words of C.S. Lewis:
“Grief … gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn’t seem worth starting anything. I can’t settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.”
This is grief. Grief . . . at the loss of a loved one, human or animal, or even the loss of a job, a car, a house. Not pleasant. Still, for writers, it can give us that added insight into the emotional underlay of our characters. Grief, or other intense emotions, like anger, can provide that extra dimension to boost ordinary characters into incisive, sharp, exquisite personalities. It’s hard to write what you can’t feel, or what you haven’t ever felt.
Actors practice getting into character by living or reliving these emotions and translating them into behaviors. Screaming, crying, yanking their hair out, pounding the table, running away or simply sleeping. So many ways to act out grief.
Writers must translate those same emotions into the written word. I encourage you to take these emotions and render them to words, then to sentences and scenes. How have your own experiences of these sensations, like grief, helped you bring your characters to life?
So what constitutes a memorable bad guy? Stephen King might say he (or she) is one who plays on your fears, particularly your childhood fears. The dark. The bogeyman. Someone hiding under your bed. Ratchet that up a notch. Your peers bullying you. Your mother abandoning you. Your father abusing you.
