Something we’re aware of this time of the year is that many of you people are off on you holidays or even taking in the sun instead of the computer screen and only occasionally looking in on us, let alone my editorials.

Hello everyone

Well, unless you’re a vampire where you might risk being burnt to a crisp assuming that you adhere to the film or TV interpretation of what daylight does to you on a blood only diet, let alone use computers other than for talking long distance.



Happens to a lot of websites. Not vampires only, just fewer people this time of year. Sunshine or computer. Holiday or computer. Maybe just too much sunlight and it’s a hormone thing. Then again, we only drop a couple million hits compared to many so we must be doing the right thing. Computer or computer? Depends on how much you need to be on-line and we’re glad you’re stopping by.

Anyone left at home or working earnestly on their computers might well be up-coming writers who forego simple pleasures of life and prefer to type and learn their storycraft. Then again, you might just be as non-conformist as me and just doing your own thing and writing because that’s what we’re compelled to do. Anyway, let’s do something different for a change. Mind you, doing something different does mean a change. So, it’s just me being normal then.

As I’m still working on the second chapter of ‘Storycraft’, between everything else, mostly because of the discovery that there are more than six standard plots and I’m now got around seventy and counting, I’m having to frequently step back and ponder because it’s so easy to overlook the obvious, especially when they’re so much in front of you. If you want to have puzzles, see if you can them figure them out and remember, no duplicates so you really have to bring the plots down to being very basic. If they’re complicated then it means you’re playing with a sub-plot might originally have been a basic plot itself. Confused? Now you know why the second chapter has been so late.

So let’s take another aspect of storycraft for those of you interested as to what can make your writing shine. In the reviews I’ve written, I’ve occasionally mentioned emotional content which is the bit where the author should be adding heart to the characters that brings them to life. When it falls flat or seems incomplete then it makes the story not work so well. So it’s an important aspect of the story both in type of emotion and intensity.

Bringing an emotional content to your characters isn’t done purely for them. After all, at the end of the day, they are just words on paper and what you imagine them to be. The important aspect is in making the emotional connection from you, the author, to the characters and then to the readers. The fact that it can be recognised in various nationalities translations also indicates that the emotional mindset shares similarities across the world. Love. Hate. Envy. Fear. Happy. Sad. All constants. The strongest emotions.

It is the very foundation that is the same kind of thing across the genres. It is the bit they recognise that brings characters to life. In Science Fiction and its grey sisters, fantasy and horror, even more so because unless you can recognise something of yourself in the story then you aren’t going to bring your characters to life for others to appreciate. You might get something like it but its only lip service unless you breathe it into the characters. You, as the writer, have to bring your heart to the characters.

This month in the SFC Forum, I ran my shortest story. Let’s run it again here and show that even the smallest story can still have emotional impact purely by getting to your emotions.

I’m To Be Your Executioner

a quick story by: GF Willmetts

Great news. I’m to be your executioner. I can fit you in any time in the next sixty years unless you want to do some queue-jumping.

End

(c) GF Willmetts 2010
all rights reserved

I don’t normally dissect my work but this is a demonstration after all, just between the two of us.

The first sentence, ‘Great news’, is to get your attention so you’re in an alert state that something is happening and the words themselves add a touch of excited expectation.

‘I’m to be your executioner.’ Uh-oh! You’re in trouble. Have a Shampoo moment if you remember the band. Don’t you find that runs a chill down your back? Me not the band. Am I really gone to knock you off? Do you see me with an executioner’s mask on and an axe in my hand? If not, what kind of imagery is evoked from those five words other than a touch of fear? I’m not giving you much lee-way to think anything else even if you think you can defend yourself, especially as I haven’t said how. Those of you sipping a drink should now be looking at it cautiously. If I dressed it up in descriptive detail, you would have a different setting and think it’s not going to happen to you. By being direct, there can be only one person it’s addressed to. Are you feeling that ice-cold chill running down your spine yet?

‘I can fit you in any time in the next sixty years unless you want to do some queue-jumping.’ This is probably the longest sentence and originally, it was going to end on ‘years’ except I saw the humour twist and made the revision.

The emotional content therefore comes in two pieces. The first is a sense of relief that I’m not going to kill you straightaway which should relax you. The second is not to be too happy just yet and covers anyone who might want to jump ahead of you. If you think about that, this would push you further back in the queue if you spot it and let the less stable go first. Although because of the humorous slant you should be feeling relief that you have some lee-way. Sixty years is a life-time after all.

Taken as a whole, it makes the emotional message and you might read it again. Hey, it’s a short story, to see if you picked up everything and repeat the emotional impact before the intellectual aspect sinks in. The definitive proof that emotions can run before intellect. You are caught in the moment which is why normally you wouldn’t see the dissection because it digs deep into what emotions I’m evoking.

It also demonstrates something else. When you read the story, who was in command of you? Hopefully, you were paying attention to me because I hooked you. Authoritative writing will catch anyone that way. This is why instructions tend to be direct and to the point. Dress up a plot too much and it’s easy to dilute what you have to say and any intensity in the writing is lost. I’m probably too good at it. You feel intimidated to argue with me when I’m quite happy to chat and listen.

Back to the story. Now think again after the distraction. Did your heart race a little? Did you believe my audacity? Do you think I’m capable of such a massive action against everyone individually? Are you afraid, bearing in mind my declared omnipresence? What kind of monster do you think I am? Come to think of it, how powerful do you think I am? As this is an SF site, anything is possible. Just not how, let alone why. That aspect of the story isn’t important at this time. [This paragraph also demonstrates a short burst of pace. It’s an old journalist trick of short direct sentences to put a message over.]

The real trick is in emotional impact and the intensity it is used at. It is the ability of the writer to grab the reader anyway you can and manipulate their emotions. Magicians do a lot of their tricks by misdirection. Good writers do it by holding your attention sufficiently so you keep reading. I’ve just proven it works with three sentences.

With the story, I’m targeting the most primeval instinct: self-preservation. Unconsciously or consciously, your head will be telling you, I can’t do that but in the fantastic, you accept it’s possible and you don’t want to be killed and relived it won’t be just yet. You might even be happier to know you’re further back in the queue. The relief comes from it not being just yet. It’s simple but effective. It’s manipulative emotional content. The sequel will no doubt illustrate that I’m coming to get you. Boo!

Doing this in longer stories means you have to play with more complex emotions and how they interplay between characters. A lot of the time, once you’ve caught the reader’s imagination, a lot of the time, you can coast along with the emotional state and only need to tweak it at critical times. Film directors do it a lot. Remember the floating head in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jaws’? Even when you know it’s going to happen, you still jump. It always beats your expectation and hits a raw emotional nerve. The emotional impact of the situation. It probably explains the horror film where people expect to jump with the occasional fright.

As a writer, if you can understand how this works then it adds to your toolbox. It’s an essential part of horror storywriting because it hits on that nerve repeatedly. Having some humorous relief as distraction first of all can lull the senses before the fright. With other genres, you need to do more than just make people jump.

With other genres, including our own Science Fiction, it is possible to intensify the emotion but at the same time still use the standard fare for humans and aliens alike. Whether or not aliens will have similar emotional make-up when we have a real first encounter is debatable. I’m hoping by then that we will have learnt the different shades of emotional content enough to realise they will probably be nothing like us.

Fiction has to be manipulative or how else would you care for the characters? Understanding your own emotions makes it easier to imbue them into any story you write so it becomes a sharing experience. You can’t write cold-heartedly or assume a simple understanding. I’ve described it as putting your heart into your writing. A lot of writers do so and often find it difficult to kill some characters simply because they imbue them so much of themselves onto the page that it would be like killing part of themselves. Would you kill your own friends? The fate of the characters is at the disposal of the god-like author but outside of ‘The Illuminatus Trilogy’, they aren’t to know this. It is a reality of the mind that is shared from writer to reader. It is a demonstration of emotional content and the skill of the writer to make you care. It is the dividing line between the level of skill between different writers. Please remember, I cannot be bribed to have you put further down my list.

As a writer, you can’t just hack a story out. You need to bring it alive. A lot of story polishing is actually to look for little tweaks to raise the emotional content. It’s sort of like pointing and raising the concerns in the right area. If you have a character in trouble and is aware of it, the emotional content that needs to be projected is fear. Nonchalance doesn’t quite ring true as a realistic response. If the character isn’t aware, then you build the emotional content towards the coming jump. If you can understand that, then you’re half-way to how it works.

To make it work, though, is to take the character’s perspective and let your senses react to the situation you put your character in. In essence, you become the character. A lot of this comes from personal experience and an understanding of how your own brain works. You don’t consciously take in everything all the time. You can get tunnel vision on some things. It’s often said that a stumbling block for neo-writers is not having the experience to fall back on to use in a story. Have you truly been frightened? Have you been in love? Have you experienced extreme hatred? For an SF response, what about xenophobia? Are you repulsed by ugly aliens or by good-looking aliens doing nasty things? You can turn expectation on its head by playing with emotional content. Knowing what it feels like embellishes how you project your words on paper.Is it any wonder that some writers look like emotional wrecks? If you want to be generous, put some money in the next charity box you pass. It will be noted in my ledger.

If you’ve understood all I’ve said in this editorial, think how you can use your own emotional content in your own stories to make that connection to your possible readership. If you don’t believe my story above, just remember, I’m thinking of a sequel. Be very afraid.

If you’re not planning to be a writer then treat this editorial as an understanding of how words can be used to manipulate you. It might be a telling sign as to the quality of the story any author is giving you.

Thank you, take care, good night and after the bits below, class dismissed.

Geoff Willmetts
editor: SFCrowsnest.co.uk

PS There should be a poll on this in the new Forum. Join up and express your thoughts. Isn’t there always? Equally, you could just be a guest and look around.

Speaking of the Forum, if you want up-to-date info of book signings and such, have a peak. You don’t have to sign up to have a look as to when these things are happening and I’ve yet to hear of a flash crowd turning up for such things.

Observation: Ooh! I’m scared! Remember when you used to watch SF TV series or films when the unsuspecting character sees something terrifying and freezes agape. So how come when we see what they saw, we don’t suffer the same affliction? Nothing like being there, is there?

A Zen thought:Why isn’t the word ‘palindrome’ a word capable of being spelt the same way front and back?

Don’t forget, I’m always on the lookout for reviewers, articles and stories and after some recent changes, let’s see if the full details about that appears below. If they don’t then look in the new Forum or on the link line at the top of the main page. For potential book reviewers in the UK, it’s a good way to keep up your reading habit and show you can write.

Another real Zen thought but this time for potential writers: If you can express an opinion independently of others and aren’t likely to bend to the masses then you might show potential as a writer.