Today's #TuesdayTip is another writing exercise/writers' block buster.
They say that there are always two sides to a story. If you really want to describe a scene in a book - or just fancy a fun activity - it can help if you understand what happened from all sides. Then you can pick and choose which narrative to present to the reader.

For today's activity, we are going to write an interview with a secondary character.
First choose a scene that you know well. It could be written or from a drama. You are now going to interview a witness who saw the scene, but wasn't directly involved.

For example, imagine the end of Star Wars Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back. In this scene, Darth Vader has pushed Luke Skywalker out onto a catwalk. He is trying to persuade Luke to join him on the dark side. Whilst doing so, he cuts of Luke's hand with a lightsaber. He also makes one of the most memorable declarations in movie history. "Luke, I am your father."
We are supposed to see the scene through the eyes of one of the two main protagonists, Luke or perhaps Vader. Instead, what about a third party? A storm trooper standing just out of shot, watching transfixed. What do you think they would say if they were interviewed afterwards? Could they feel so intimidated by Vader that they decide to keep it short and sweet? Maybe they have sympathy for Luke? Would they keep that stunning revelation to themselves? What if, instead of a formal interview, they were being grilled by a fellow storm trooper back at the barracks? What emotions would they be feeling?

Sticking with the Star Wars theme, there are many who believe that the original trilogy is less about the life of the Skywalker family, rather a recounting of the adventures of a certain plucky little astromech droid. Why not tell a scene from R2D2's point of view?

How did you find the exercise? Did your story go in an unexpected direction? Did your character have a different interpretation to that of viewers of the film? As always feel free to comment here or on social media.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.


Until next time,
Paul.

We live in an age where we are surrounded by stories. Not just in books, or films, radio or TV, but in the media and the news as well. Browse the BBC News Website for example and you will find a plethora of stories reported as news articles.
Today's Block Buster/writing exercise involves taking a news story and writing a fictional piece based upon it.
The activity is quite straightforward - access your favourite news website (or open a newspaper) and hunt for a short story. The shorter the better. For an extra challenge, try and choose a topic you are unfamiliar with.
Read through the story and make a note of some of the key facts, then tell a fictional account of the event. Perhaps you could decide to be a witness to what has taken place? Or maybe a key character within the story? Don't worry about factual accuracy, it's fictional and for your own enjoyment.

​How did you find the exercise? Did your story go in an unexpected direction? How liberal were you with the interpretation of the facts? As always feel free to comment here or on social media.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.


Until next time,
Paul.

This week's #TuesdayTip is inspired, in part, by the epic conclusion of the BBC drama, Happy Valley. First off, rest easy that there won't be any spoilers!
It occurred to me as I watched the series that one of the key strengths is the characterisation, in particular the way in which even the worst characters have qualities that make the readers empathise with them.
I've written before about how protagonists (the 'hero') and antagonists (the 'baddie') can often be two sides of the same coin, and how the same character can switch between the two (Tip#113). Today, I want to focus on the antagonist and discuss why the most memorable 'bad guys' have positive traits interwoven between the evil.
It's very easy to write a pantomime villain - a character that is all bad. They have no redeeming qualities, and the audience loves to hiss and boo as they make their entrance. But I find that one-sided approach to be ultimately unsatisfying.
Human beings are complex creatures. We accept that no person is wholly good. We all have flaws, some big, some small. Dig deep enough into your personal heroes and you'll find aspects of their personality or things that they have done that you disagree with. Similarly, the tabloid newspapers are experts at presenting killers and rapists as monsters with no redeemable qualities. But look beneath the surface (sometimes very deep, admittedly), and you will always find something that is good or likeable about that person. It doesn't excuse their actions, but it is there.
Furthermore, it is this contrast that often makes them more scary. How often have you heard shocked neighbours describing the quiet man at number 42 who turned out to be a serial killer as 'an ordinary family man'? Aside from the uneasiness from realising that evil-doers often hide in plain sight, the juxtaposition of a person who outwardly appears affectionate towards friends and families with an individual that is capable of great cruelty, magnifies the horror we feel at what they do. That contrast amplifies the impact of their crimes.
In Happy Valley, the writer Sally Wainwright, and actor James Norton, crafted a memorable antagonist that kept millions of viewers hooked for three seasons, spread over almost a decade. Tommy Lee Royce was capable of tremendous cruelty and violence. Yet in the final episodes he evolved from a wicked bogey monster to a complex, damaged individual. Many viewers were left discomfited by the fact that whilst none of his actions could be justified, they could be understood on some level. They found themselves feeling a degree of sympathy towards him, that means he will linger in their consciousness long after the series has ended.
Humanising The Bad Guy.
As writers, we want our characters to not only leap off the page through cleverly-crafted descriptions and memorable actions, but we also want our readers to experience emotion as they read about them. In the case of our antagonists, we want the over-riding feeling to be negative. But if we truly want them to feel authentic and to make them memorable, we need to tap into that inner contradiction that human beings are both good and evil. In other words, we need to humanise them.
Now first of all, humanising is not the same as condoning. Empathising with a character is not the same as forgiving them. Hitler was no less evil because he was a vegetarian who loved his dogs.
So how can we humanise our antagonists to make them more rounded, memorable and effective villains?
To do so, you need to give them traits that we can empathise with, or motives and desires that we can understand (and perhaps even agree with, even if we would never countenance how they set about to achieve them).
The first tranche of Marvel comic book movies built towards an epic showdown between the Avengers and Thanos, a god-like creature who, with a snap of his fingers killed 50% of all living beings. Evil incarnate.
Yet look at his motives: to simplify greatly, he believed that the universe was being destroyed by over-population. His drastic solution was to halve the number of lifeforms. Few would agree with his methods, but his goal, the protection of the universe, was on one level laudable. Fundamentally, he believed he was making a sacrifice for the greater good. Add to that his love for his adopted daughters and you have a character that is a lot more memorable than at first glance.
Back on Earth, I was faced with a conundrum when writing The Common Enemy, the fourth full-length novel in my DCI Warren Jones series. The victim in this book was the leader of a far-right extremist party. Tommy Meegan was racist, homophobic and violent, as were his friends. However, I needed the reader to empathise with the victim, otherwise they wouldn't care if Warren brought his killer to justice or not. They didn't have to like him, or agree with him, but they did need to see him as a human being.
You can do this for your own characters in a number of ways.

• Most powerfully, show that they are loved. Despite their failings, give them family and friends who enjoy spending time with them and miss them when they are absent.
• Show why they are loved. An easy way to do this is small acts of kindness or loyalty. Does your murderous, psychopathic serial killer do a bit of shopping for their elderly neighbour? Do they ring their grandmother or visit a dying relative every day without fail?
• Show that they can love. Maybe they have a family that they would do anything for? Or a beloved pet.
• Give them traits that make them likeable under the right circumstances. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, they are unlikeable. But do they have a sense of humour? Or everyday interests and hobbies and opinions that you or I may share? Hannibal Lecter is a charming, erudite and cultured individual. If it wasn't for his murderous impulses, I dare say he'd be enjoyable company at a dinner party.
• Give them flaws that the reader can empathise or sympathise with, because the reader shares them or knows others who do.
• Give them a motivation that we can understand (or perhaps even agree with to a certain extent). Do they kill for revenge (they or a loved one have been hurt)? Are they so obsessed with always being in control because they had a childhood where they felt powerless? Do they commit acts of violence because that is the only way they were taught how to solve a problem? Do they just want to share their inner pain with others, so they aren't alone?

How can you humanise your antagonist? Can you think of any good examples in fiction or real-life?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
All the best,
Paul

Today's #TuesdayTip will be looking at the advantages of telling your story out of sequence. In other words, mixing up the beginning, middle and end.
If you are a keen reader or viewer of TV drama, you are already familiar with what's known in the industry as in media res. This Latin phrase translates as "into the middle of things" and describes stories that open in the middle of the action, before going back in time to see what happened in the run-up to that scene.

Unless you have figured out a way to thwart the laws of physics, time in the real-world follows a linear trajectory.
As you were probably taught in school, a story has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Beginning --> Middle --> End.


But this isn't the only way to tell the story to someone else.
You can actually start in the middle of a story, then go back and fill in the details, before drawing to a conclusion.
Middle --> Beginning --> More Middle --> End.


Or you can even start at the End, then go back and tell the entire story.
End --> Beginning --> Middle --> End (+ aftermath).


So why would you do this?
The purpose of any story is to keep the reader engaged. Readers are a discerning breed, with no shortage of alternative ways to spend their time (and money). It is essential to hook a reader in the first few pages, or they will abandon the story (and perhaps not even buy it to read further).
By starting a book in the middle of the action, you leave the reader wanting to know more. You leave them with questions. Who are these characters? How did they find themselves in this situation? How will they resolve it?


Let's imagine a hypothetical scenario.
A character Jane lives in safe, middleclass suburbia. She is happily married. Over the course of several months, her relationship breaks down and one day she is murdered. An investigation takes place, and eventually the culprit is uncovered.
You can tell this story in a couple of ways.
First: You can tell it in strict chronological order. We tell the reader who Jane is and chronicle her happy life, then document its sad decline, leading to a murder about half-way through, then describe the investigation and conclusion.


That's fine and there are countless excellent examples of compelling stories told in this way. But what if Jane is very happy at first, and everything seems perfect? If you aren't careful, that can be rather dull. Readers of crime fiction usually want something more substantial to get their teeth into and they are impatient. What appears to be the story of a woman's happy married life may dissuade them from reading more than a few pages before giving up and reading something different. The cover and blurb has probably told them that Jane will be dead before the end of the book, but if it looks as though they have to wade through 100 pages to get there, they'll abandon ship. You have failed to hook your readers.


The second way is to start with a murder, and then go back and describe what led up to it.
If you keep the details of the murder sparse, your readers will hopefully be left with questions that they want answered.
Who is the victim?
Why has this happened to them?
Who did this to them?
The only way to find out the answers to those questions is to continue reading.
The reader will also be more engaged. They have some knowledge of the murder that is coming, so they will naturally start looking for clues. Is there foreshadowing of the tragic events that will unfold? What about apparent contradictions? We know from page one that Jane was murdered by a man. So what is the significance of the blazing rows with her female best friend? As the story unfolds, the suspect list grows. Obviously the killer is her husband, as we see their marriage breaking down. But hang on, is he really the murdering type? And who is the person that Jane is texting late at night? Are they involved?
Exactly where in this whole, sorry tale, you start narrating the story depends on what sort of story you want to tell. You don't have to start with the actual murder to hook your readers. What about an earlier incident? Your reader probably figures that Jane is not long for this world, so why not tease them by showing them something that shows her in danger, but don't actually kill her? Maybe we don't know if Jane is the character that is killed? Or, you could start almost at the end. Show someone being arrested, then tell the story of how we got to that point? If they are vehemently protesting their innocence, perhaps the reader could play along and try and decide if the police have the right person?

What are your thoughts on starting in the middle? Have you got any really good examples?
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
All the best,
Paul