I'm not doing so well trying to shift "The Alice '65" into a book. I got the first two pages worked up...and hit a dead end. Doing this in third person is boring to me. I'm telling the story instead of living it. I know professionals swear first person storytelling is the laziest form there is...but I like it. And the idea of telling everything that happens to Adam as if it's happening to me...is just appealing.
There's a moment where he almost drowns, which almost happened to me, once...but in the script it feels a bit distant. More like a comic device than a truly frightening experience.
I guess my style is first person when writing books; that's how all of mine were done. What's interesting is, the feedback I've gotten on "How To Rape A Straight Guy" is very positive because I make the reader identify with an ex-con who's close to psychotic and planning to commit an evil act. I make them care about him. And they're usually disappointed with "Porno Manifesto" because I don't do it, again.
You see...in PM, Alec is a guy who's out for revenge, a perfectly understandable reaction to him being beaten and finding out the cops are covering up for the group of spoiled rich kids who bashed him. Him turning them on each other and brutalizing them, himself, is seen vaguely as justifiable...and in an odd way, lessens the power of identifying with him.
Whereas Curt, in HTRASG, is scary. He's angry. He's straight. He admits to having beaten his wife, once. He's almost proud of the fact that he's ruined the life of his younger, vulnerable cell mate. He reveals moments of psychotic anger and a lack of empathy that is frightening. And yet...a discussion got going on GoodReads about him and how strongly people felt about him. Partly because he has moments of painful self-awareness and was forced to understand what the world is all about at the age of 6.
Thinking about it, I made Daniel in "The Lyons' Den" rather crazy...and not just because he talked to his fictional characters. He has serious emotional issues. And needs. That don't go completely away even though he grows as a person in the course of the book. But never is he scary or unsympathetic, and no one's reading it. Sales are flat. Maybe I should've made him a serial killer.
So...A65 is going to be told by Adam. Hm...maybe he can threaten Orisi with a fingernail file. No, readers'd like that. Orisi's such a poo-poo-head.
There's a moment where he almost drowns, which almost happened to me, once...but in the script it feels a bit distant. More like a comic device than a truly frightening experience.
I guess my style is first person when writing books; that's how all of mine were done. What's interesting is, the feedback I've gotten on "How To Rape A Straight Guy" is very positive because I make the reader identify with an ex-con who's close to psychotic and planning to commit an evil act. I make them care about him. And they're usually disappointed with "Porno Manifesto" because I don't do it, again.
You see...in PM, Alec is a guy who's out for revenge, a perfectly understandable reaction to him being beaten and finding out the cops are covering up for the group of spoiled rich kids who bashed him. Him turning them on each other and brutalizing them, himself, is seen vaguely as justifiable...and in an odd way, lessens the power of identifying with him.
Whereas Curt, in HTRASG, is scary. He's angry. He's straight. He admits to having beaten his wife, once. He's almost proud of the fact that he's ruined the life of his younger, vulnerable cell mate. He reveals moments of psychotic anger and a lack of empathy that is frightening. And yet...a discussion got going on GoodReads about him and how strongly people felt about him. Partly because he has moments of painful self-awareness and was forced to understand what the world is all about at the age of 6.
Thinking about it, I made Daniel in "The Lyons' Den" rather crazy...and not just because he talked to his fictional characters. He has serious emotional issues. And needs. That don't go completely away even though he grows as a person in the course of the book. But never is he scary or unsympathetic, and no one's reading it. Sales are flat. Maybe I should've made him a serial killer.
So...A65 is going to be told by Adam. Hm...maybe he can threaten Orisi with a fingernail file. No, readers'd like that. Orisi's such a poo-poo-head.
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