Creative Therapy

Creative Therapy

I learnt something new today. I found out about something called ‘Creative Therapy’. Now I don’t know much about it, only that it is used by people who suffer from various forms of depression and anxiety and I really like the idea.

You are supposed to find a creative outlet, such as music, art or even writing, and then escape into your own world. Apparently doing something creative gets the imaginative juices flowing and we end up in a world if our own. The idea is that, although when mulling around one’s own mind we tend to be a pessimistic lot, being creative is a positive thing. We are making something, and no matter how hard we try, it is very difficult to be negative when doing something as positive as that. Plus when we finish a project and have 'created' something, we have a wonderful feeling of fulfilment. That’s the theory anyway. There are hundreds of ways to be creative, and I imagine it can be hard to try and think of one which is right for you, especially if suffering from severe depression. But I say give it a go. I have my creative past-time, and that’s obviously writing.

 There’s another type of therapy, writing. Not just the ‘being creative’ part that we discussed, but the keeping of a diary. Some people do it publically in a blog like me, but others prefer to keep their details secret. But getting your daily thoughts and emotions down on paper is supposed to help you get your head in order. Maybe I should try it? I do have a blog, obviously, but not a diary type one, not one where I can get my daily thoughts and emotions down. It’s always worth a try. I suppose you don’t even have to write a diary. If you are more artistically inclined, you could draw or paint a picture that displays how you feel that particular day and keep a picture diary. Or instead of writing about the events of the day, if you can play an instrument, write down the song or melody you played that demonstrates how you feel. If you are learning an instrument, then write down your progress and how learning makes you feel. I only touched on the three main types of creative activity but there are many others. Cake decorating, scrap booking and woodwork to name a few.

Have any of you lot discovered creative therapy? Did it work for you? What kind of creative outlets do you have? I know I’ve gone a bit off topic from my usual literary focus, but I really wanted to discuss this issue, as I feel many could benefit from it.

Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

Public Profanities

Public Profanities

I’ve touched on the use of language, but how about bad language? I don’t mean badly spoken English, I mean profanities, words that are not used often in polite company, but are sometimes used to give emphasis to an idea or emotion. Until recently, it was considered bad form, and even controversial to put too many swear words into a book, or TV show.

In this day and age though, it is quite normal to have this kind of language prevalent in literature, depending on the audience, of course. You can’t have Roger Red Hat going to see Billy Blue Hat and telling him, “Get your fxxxing hands off Jennifer Yellow Hat, She’s my fxxxing bxxxh!” can you? Some teenage novels have started to use this coarse diction as a way to appeal to their audience. But again most of the time it’s only to emphasise an idea or emotion. If that’s what the teenage novels are doing, then what are the adult novels doing? Is it just gratuitous or is there a point to that much of the vulgar tongue? I admit I have used swear words in my novels on more than one occasion, but that’s usually to embolden a bad temper, or to emphasise a crass character. But are we too comfortable with it now? Is it something we should embrace and allow to grow as an acceptable part of our language, or do we try to stem the tide as it were? As a child, I was smacked for using the mildest of swear words, (and without getting into a debate about how to discipline children) but now I hear kids at ridiculously young ages using words I hadn’t heard of when I was their age. Is this due to adults like us relaxing our attitude towards this language and allowing it to flourish? Or is it because they now have access to much more of it than we did?

What do you think? Were you punished for swearing? Do you swear a lot? Is it now acceptable to use it in day to day conversation? Or is there too much, and we now need to do something about it? Let me know what you think. Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

Authors or Artists

Authors or Artists

First of all let me apologise for my absence yesterday. I was baking a cake for my Mother’s birthday and didn’t get a chance to update my blog. While reading the recipe, it stated “Baking is a science, not an art,” and that got me thinking.

Many people would say that writing is their creative outlet, but does that make it a piece of art? Or do the exact ingredients of plot, characters and everything else required, make it a science? Just because baking a cake is a science, doesn’t mean it tastes bad, on the contrary, because of the science of baking, it tastes very good. Does this translate to the literary world? Can we obey all the rules of literature when writing fiction and call it art? Or do we refer to it as a science even if it is a creative endeavour? Different sciences (of the traditional sense) are always trying to create things, a clone in biology, to chemical reactions in chemistry and answers in physics to name but a few. There are some people who look upon the sciences as an art. They see art where the rest of us would see numbers and equations. To use the old cliché ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ I guess I mean that some of us may view some books as works of literary art, where as others may see the same books as a combination of verbs, nouns, synonyms and clichés cleverly mashed together to create an enjoyable read.

What are your thoughts? What is art to you? Can science be art? Can art be scientific? Let me know in the comments. Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

Agitating Adjectives

 

Agitating Adjectives

The sun is shining and the air is clear, or is it a dark stormy night? I know they’re clichés but they paint the picture and give the scene atmosphere. The weather is important for all authors as a useful tool to present the right ambience of the book. Setting the mood is difficult without the weather.

As you probably already know, I am setting my current novel inside a high security wing, in prison, where there is no weather. There is however a spooky feel to the institution, cold and drafty corridors etc... So again, describing the feel of the scene is important, but how much detail do you give the atmosphere? I’ve read some books where the author has taken pages upon pages of adjectives and verbs mixed together to ensure we understand what situation the characters are in. Other authors like to give a little description, not much, so as to let our imagination do the rest of the work. It’s not a bad thing either way, it just depends on your style of writing and your target audience. Different people respond in a variety of ways to the descriptions they read. To some, they will read a little, but anymore than that and they’ll put the book down. Others will read the little they are provided with and then complain that they haven’t been given enough to feed their imagination. Also, how much does your story rely on the atmosphere? A ghost story usually relies heavily on adjectives, (You can’t see ghosts, duh) where as a historical battle would rest solely on the action present at the time.

Different genres, writing styles, narration and even audience can determine how many and what type of adjectives and verbs are written into a novel. What are your thoughts on the subject? How much is too much? When is your imagination not fed enough when reading?

Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

Sporadic Sleuth

Sporadic Sleuth

I realized today that I am about a quarter of the way through the book I’m writing, and I’ve only just introduced a very important character. Does it matter if a main character is not referred to very often? This character is pivotal to the story so cannot be removed, although he is only in a few chapters throughout the book, it wouldn’t be very much of a tale without him.

Do you know of many stories where a main character, who is necessary to the plotline, is not often seen, and even more rarely referred to? I know it may seem strange but there is a point. This character has a strong personality which is felt throughout the book long after his initial appearance. This strong personality is what keeps him part of the story, but not so involved that he is at every scene. It is necessary that during this murder mystery, our sleuth (who is the character mentioned) is kept in the dark. The narrator is telling the reader everything they need to know, but withholding it from the sleuth so the reader can see the story develop before the detective character gives it all away. The investigator is a mysterious individual who’s brilliant mind works on a level far above my own, and so the reader must be given the chance to try and work out the mystery before the sleuth discloses all at the big reveal at the end.

As such, we are left wondering throughout the novel who’s side the detective is on and what his agenda is. I find this adds tension and intrigues the reader.

But what are your thoughts on this matter? Do you prefer to know everything about a character straight away? Do you prefer to see main characters on a regular basis or does the rarity add intrigue? Let me know your thoughts.

Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

Interfering Investigators

Interfering Investigators

As I have mentioned before, I am trying my hand at writing a murder mystery. One of the challenges I have come across is what kind of sleuth. How do you create a character that you hope will make it into more than one of your novels? Do you start with a back story? Appearance? Their personality? And how do they solve these unsolvable crimes? What is their method of deduction? And what exactly connects them to these crimes?

Poirot is a private investigator and is asked by others to take on a case, where as Marple is a doddering old biddy who usually knows someone involved in the affair. Then you have Jack Frost from touch of frost who is a police detective, and Tommy and Tuppence who are a young couple, also private investigators. There are even some novels where the heir to King Henry VIII, Henry Fitzroy, is a vampire who helps a police officer to solve crimes that have a supernatural flare to them.

The literary world is awash with different kinds of Sleuths and creating a unique individual with the necessary traits to solving crime is not easy. Yet we still try. It also depends on the target audience, a children’s mystery would be better suited to having a child sleuth, etc...

So what are your thoughts on the matter? What kind of sleuth do you prefer? Who is your favourite? Do you even like murder mysteries? Let me know in the comments below.

Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

Novel Narrating

Novel Narrating

When writing your story, how do you narrate it? Do you write in the third person, talking like a voice-over pushing the tale forward? Or do you write in the first person, as one of your characters?

I have spoken to many people on the subject and although it all boils down to preference, it also depends on how the story is being told. I find authors rarely stick to one type of narrative, and they tend to experiment with one way or another. Even in a certain series of books. For example, Agatha Christie changed her narrative all the time. Her series of Poirot novels rarely had the same style of narration let alone the same narrator and the language reflected that. It never became stale or repetitive.

When writing in the third person, one’s own voice is usually used so to not distract the reader from the story, but the first person’s voice must be carefully considered, as must their background. The language used by someone from Wales, for example, would be very different than from Scotland. Very different phrases are used, different points of reference that accumulate from experiences from different regions. And then you go into the history of the character.

If writing in the first person, many things if not all things must be considered about the narrator’s own persona. Their own little back story must be worked out so that when the audience reads the voice of the individual, it is believable. Not only that, but when trying to type in the accent, do you actually try and reference the accent with the dialogue, or do you simply mention that there is an accent there? Maybe you use a mixture of both? Either way I would love to know what your thoughts are on the subject.

Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x