Emblem Divide – Free serialised book for charity

After reading a post by @am_harte today I felt compelled to comment. Here is what I replied:

Character deaths are an extremely important part of writing and personally something which I believe is extremely difficult to get right. It mustn’t seem lamented or over produced, but must feel entirely natural, even if the ending is a total shock.

Though I love my characters immensely, during the writing of Emblem Divide, I was more scared of finishing the book than ending a single characters life. A death can give a character a whole new meaning, a whole new purpose in life. It’s not just about the next step in the story, it’s also about providing motivation and substance for the rest of the tale to continue.

During the preview readings for Emblem Divide, it was exceedingly satisfying when several members of the panel shouted at me for killing a character. It gave me the feeling that I had affected them in the way I intended, that I had not only shocked them, but left them feeling empty and angry.

I thought I would find the women in the book more difficult to write for, that I would feel isolated from them and unable to truly connect with the characters. In fact the opposite turned out to be true and I found myself able to write for them effectively and honestly. They seemed to command a life of their own much earlier on in the book than the male characters. Though the males seemed to have more drive initially, the females never had to be interrogated in my mind for a decision on a particular choice.

It may seem weird to many, but writing for these characters, I could almost feel their thought patterns in my mind. When asking questions, I would often hear an answer pop up in my head in a different voice to my own, and it took me a while to realise that this was my minds way of deciding how the characters were going to act. Scenes with multiple characters required a lot more attention. I took the time to describe how each character was feeling and so it was very important to me not to miss an important reaction to an event. Maybe it would be a piece of dialog, or maybe the way a character acted, but in my mind I was almost always polling the other characters in the vicinity saying, “Well what do _you_ think about that.”

Over all I would writing for the characters one of the most liberating experiences I’ve ever been privy to. It was a chance to encounter some emotions in a much deeper way than reading a book or watching a film for example. These characters were one with me, borne out of my imagination, my own life encounters. As mentioned before though, it could be frustrating. It wasn’t often the case of deciding solely myself how these characters would act, some of them required me to listen to their input too and a very small minority dictated their actions to me in a very distinct and real way.

It’s really hard to talk about individual characters, as I don’t want to either taint them or give any false impressions about them before people read the book. I could go into big long in depth discussions about certain characters, their feelings, thoughts, motivations, but I really don’t want to take anything away from the book, before anyone reading this has a chance to experience it for themselves.

Suffice to say I have tried in all instances to make the characters as well rounded and three dimensional as possible. In truth, though there are elements of people I know in some of the characters, none of them are really ‘based’ on anyone. This wasn’t really a conscious decision, but now that I reflect on it, it seems to make a lot of sense. My life is fairly ordinary. I’m just a regular guy. I don’t meet anybody with extreme personalities on a regular basis, and so to base my characters solely on people I knew would have made the book uninteresting and boring. Not that my life is such, heavens no!

Instead the characters are completely fictional. As mentioned before, there are elements of some of the characters that are gleamed from people I know. There are also a few tongue in cheek references which made Lisa laugh when she was reading it. I have projected a few of my traits onto Zane and Oken in turn, but I wouldn’t say that either of them is really an accurate reflection of me, they’ve just stolen bits along the way.

I guess in writing Emblem Divide I’ve been able to live through the characters. There is one particular scene which, though it has significant relevance to the story, was also originally conceived because it was an experience I’d never get to have. To this end, I lived the experience vicariously through the writing of that chapter. It was a lot of fun, and gave me an opportunity to really play around with some of the extras in the book.

One of the most fascinating things about writing a book is just how attached you get to the characters. I never thought I would feel so close to some objects of my imagination. There was a definite feeling of ambivilence when nearing the end. A part of me so dearly wanted to finish what I had started, and another wanted to keep the characters alive for ever. Not that I’m implying they all die, but it was just the feeling that there would be no more adventures to be had with them. Several of them were really fun to write for. I was great writing some of the nasty characters, and fun as the scenes were often quite action packed, but similarly it was also fun to write for the nice characters, to have everything good happen to them, to make them happy.

I was fascinating to watch the characters grow in both my mind and on paper. I had so many ideas about where I could take things and often would find myself speaking out parts whilst I walked to work, to help get the dialogue right. I wanted to really try to make the characters alive, really try make them three dimensional.

By far the most amazing incident though was when I was so deep into writing that a character actually disobeyed what I wanted to happen. It sounds really odd and strange. I knew what I wanted to write, but the words just woulnd’t type. Several people I’ve told have looked at me at this point and thought I was crazy, and in some ways I can completely understand. It’s so hard to explain. It was like there was something intercepting the thought patterns, something intercepting the commands that went to my fingers telling them to type. I was aware of it, but unable to challenge it at all.

As I have described to many people, whilst writing it’s almost as if I’m watching a film. I don’t actually have a lot of control over it and sometimes it goes a little too fast for me to catch up. When my character took control I was left just watching from the sidelines, hoping it would all work out ok. In the end, after fighting with them twice, I had to give up and let them have their own way. It actually worked out for the better, leading to what was actually one of the most fun scenes to write.

Finishing up the last few pages I was struck with a feeling of relief and despair simultaneously. I was so pleased to have finished on time, but also a little apprehensive as to how I would cope, not thinking about the characters 24×7. Whilst writing I literally ate, slept, drank, relaxed with the characters in my head. The story was continually unfolding and solidifying in my mind. Every spare waking second was spent either writing, proofing or thinking about…..Emblem Divide