:: Imagining The War Inside

Depending on what you write, pain and violence will probably come up in your stories from time to time. While we are exposed to plenty of shooting, bludgeoning, and stabbing in movies and on TV, writing about such things is, in my opinion, a much more subtle process than putting them on a screen. I think it's not too different, in principle, from writing about sex: unless you deal in erotica (and probably even then), it shouldn't be part of your story unless it's crucial to the plot and the interaction of your characters. And it has to be done right, or it will be one or more of the following:

• grotesque
• ridiculous
• simply gross

For my novel Frostworks, I had to familiarize myself with a kind of violence that is very different from what usually occurs in fiction: violence directed by a person against their own body. As with everything you haven't actually experienced yourself, research was key (my somewhat uneasy talent for vividly imagining all sorts of awful things helped a lot, too). Moreover, in a culture where self-mutilation—commonly referred to as cutting, although this is not the only manifestation of the disorder—is still grossly misunderstood by many people, the subject had to be presented sensitively but also without sentimentality.

Getting into the head of Louise de Benoît, one of the protagonists of Frostworks, was pretty unsettling. It required much more than imagining what it would "feel" like to cut one's own skin open. In terms of what the benefits of such behavior could possibly be, that's actually not as hard to understand as you may think. Anyone who's ever bitten their nails, picked at a scab, or ripped into their cuticles until they ended up with a hangnail knows the deal, in principle: it's about calming yourself, about feeling in control. Amplify that need for calm a thousandfold, along with the damage required to achieve it, and you've got a pretty good idea why a person might take a blade to their own skin.

The difficult bit, emotionally speaking, was my research into the causes for such extreme self-damage. I can't go into details here, but suffice it to say that cutters and other self-mutilators suffer from a severe version of PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. The trauma can be of varying nature but typically involves familial abuse, often incestuous rape, and other heartbreaking situations. Why self-mutilation is a frequent coping mechanism vis-à-vis such experiences is a complicated issue. But after reading several books about the topic, I began to gain an understanding of the terrible logic behind this destructive form of behavior.

You may wonder why I sought out such a very specific topic, being myself free from all but the most trivial self-damaging behaviors (see above). The reason is that the latter is actually untrue. I believe that we all suffer more than we think, and certainly more than we should, from pain that we're unable to let go, and that we engage in plenty of self-damaging behaviors that appear to us as ways of coping with an immutable past. In the process, we harm ourselves, our relationships with others, and diminish our ability to enjoy life and reach our full potential for happiness. Physical self-mutilation, in my perception, is only an extreme manifestation of an inability to overcome negative experiences that made and, sadly, continue to make us who we are.

I also insist on believing that we could all get and be better. That's what drove me to write Frostworks, with the specific protagonists and their specific grief. It's really about hope as much as it is about suffering.

:: Queries to Summary to Description? Not so fast!

These past few days, I was faced with a task as enjoyable as it was difficult: composing a description for the back cover of my novel, Frostworks. Enjoyable, because it's just fun to take a complete work of fiction (that you have written, ahem!) and write the kind of fascinating plot teaser that—hopefully—will make browsers want to know more.

And what could be easier, since I had already done all that! After all, summing up the plot of a novel in a query letter is no different from those summaries you always see on the back of books. Right?

Wrong!

I tried to use the summary from my Frostworks query. After all, it was a good one and had at least tickled the interest of several agents. But somehow, as a back cover description, it didn't work. While the query summary was a crisp and concise representation of Frostwork's hooks, it didn't have the same oomph you want on that book cover. Also, it gave some plot points away! Now, for an agent, that's not only okay but required (a cliffhanger like "You'll never guess what happens next..." is a great way to ensure that your query lands in the circular file) but obviously, the last thing prospective readers want is a spoiler.

Back to the drawing board.

It wasn't as hard as the original summary, but still difficult. Some aspects of characterization and plot absolutely had to make it into the query, but could and had to be discarded for the back cover. Then of course I had several versions of a number of things, and picking the right one made my brain hurt (they all appeared equally brilliant or, one minute later, equally clumsy). Then I remembered good old script writing 101. Oh, yes, that works for summaries of novels, too. The Call to Action! When in doubt, I picked the version of a given paragraph that implied another one of those, even if it didn't sound as polished as a more cerebral version. After all, as someone once said, stories are about people doing stuff.

And last of all, sometimes you just have to let go. I'm sure once I see the description on the back of my book, I'll still find things that could be tweaked. But while the possibilities may be endless, the time you can spend tinkering is not. And so I'll close quoting Morrissey, who offers this wonderful piece of advice in one of his songs: "Just do your best, and don't worry."

P.S.: Only, do make sure it absolutely, positively is your best. If not, you'll have to go on worrying.

:: Busy Be!

Spent the weekend preparing my first novel for distribution on Amazon and Kindle. I even designed the cover, with which I can say I'm very happy. More very soon.

:: Short and sweet is okay, too

I haven't been blogging in weeks—okay, let's face it, months. Not that there's much of an audience yet, but it's good to keep up the habit. Fortunately, I've identified my problem: I used to feel that unless I have several paragraphs of stuff to say, what's the point? Of course, blogging several paragraphs of stuff takes time, and a voluminous idea, so I kept putting it off. You know how these things go. But the shorter thoughts are worth expressing, too, I'm told. In fact, shorter, more frequent posts are clearly preferable to, well... none at all.

I did not, much to my embarrassment, come up with this stunning realization all by myself; it took a very insightful article on setting up a web site and blog in my favorite writing magazine to knock sense into me. Glad it happened. More soon, I promise.

:: The plate is full...

... and so is my head. Between submitting my first completed novel, Frostworks, finishing what is shaping up to be the third and final act of my second, for now titled Charge It To The Dust, and laying the groundwork for a new project, I found little time to blog. Maybe that's because I feel that it's not worth writing a post unless it's long. But better often and concise than too seldom! Of course busy is good. But actually, I have more to blog about than ever. So, promise to myself: more posts, more often.