Too much information? by Priscilla Brown

She's lover shopping, but her new boss could never be the goods on her wish list.

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The brief response in regard to our daily lives, although of course individual, is possibly yes, too much information, what with the 24-hour news cycle, immediate internet including social media, and daily newspapers.

In fiction, how much information is enough? Characters have a life before they meet their fellow characters on the page; they have experiences, values, attitudes, beliefs to bring to their part in the plot. As author, the challenge is to establish these elements as adequate and appropriate for the characters' current life situations, without long explanations and descriptions,without unloading chunks of too much information. We need to show how these factors are relevant to what our characters do and to what they say, so the reader can understand where they are coming from.

I write contemporary romance, and before I start a draft, I have ideas in my head about the main characters. I imagine their pre-story life, their history which helps to delineate the persons they are when the story opens. I always know far more of this "backstory" than goes into the final narrative, and have to discipline myself to avoid this information dump. Years ago, in my first attempt at full-length romantic fiction, I thought I had to include everything in my head, which resulted in a huge scrapheap of "stuff". The lead female character had had a colourful love life in various countries with a string of different partners, nothing of which had anything to do with the job for which she applied and achieved although she had few qualifications for it. So unappealing, and a ludicrous characterisation. Whatever was I thinking?

The story in hard copy lurked in a drawer for years. When I re-read it, I was appalled. All this entirely superfluous information not only did not move the story on but slowed it down. With about a third of the original plot skeleton remaining, several major re-writes resulted in a name change and appropriate professional and personal backstory for this woman, for the lead male character a more credible personal history, and the deletion of redundant secondary characters. There was more to go: at one stage I wrote a 300-word prologue,which I ditched on the advice of a critique partner, and incorporated the necessary information (some was irrelevant) via dialogue in the first chapter.

I learnt a lot (still learning!). The final word count shrank by half, and eventually this story became Class Act. 

Enjoy your reading. Priscilla.

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https://priscillabrownauthor.com

Featured Author – J.C. Kavanagh

 

Hello All! My name is J.C. Kavanagh and I'm an author with the internationally renowned publishing company, BWL Publishing Inc. If you’re a fan of action/adventure/suspense/drama combined with a dash of paranormal, you’ve probably heard of my award-winning Twisted Climb series. It’s easy to view and purchase these books by visiting https://bookswelove.net/kavanagh-j-c/ . Check it out!

Though my books are written for the Young Adult genre, they’re also enjoyed by young-at-heart adults who can relate to the confused mindset that teens often experience. Add a twisted dream world to the plot and you’ve got yourself a book you won’t be able to put down. 

The first book in the series, The Twisted Climb, came about in a peculiar way. You see, I have a condition known as 'Restless Leg' syndrome. This means that closing my eyes and attempting to sleep brings on a whole lot of leg kicking and twitching. Falling to sleep feels like I'm slowly climbing a mountain, one tired step at a time. So one night back in 2015, while involuntarily twitching and picturing the ‘mountain’ in the playground of my mind, I decided to invent a few characters to accompany me. Thus, sleep climbers Jayden, Connor and Max were 'born.' I kept myself invisible to these characters and concocted a story-line that, yes, I admit, kept me awake many a night but in the most enjoyable way. So my three characters meet in the strange, moonlit dream world that I've concocted and in this dream world, the only way to 'fall' asleep is to climb. But the climbing is not so simple. The mountain is full of night-time animals and things that could exist only in a dream world. Jayden is a sassy, overly confident girl with bullying tendencies while Connor is a calm, intuitive young man. Max is a young teenager trying to be a man in a boy's body. But as my dream evolved, I realized something was missing. Someone was missing. My story needed an antagonist – and so Richard Hatemore was 'born.' Richard is an evil, sickly-looking boy who seems to run the dream world and whose goal is to prevent the teens from climbing to the mountain top and 'falling' to sleep. Concocting their adventures and developing their personalities became my mission each morning. Nine months later, the manuscript for The Twisted Climb was complete and published. Alleluia! And more excitement, The Twisted Climb was voted Best Young Adult book 2016 in a readers’ poll.

I began writing the sequel, The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends, the following year. Darkness Descends continues the harrowing dream world journeys of Jayden, Connor, Max and Richard and delves more deeply into their 'real world' lives. Darkness Descends followed in the footsteps of The Twisted Climb and was voted Best Young Adult book 2018 and short-listed for Best Young Adult book by Canada's The Word Guild.

Thanks for reading about how The Twisted Climb series came to be. I hope you enjoy reading these books as much as I did writing them! Below are two excerpts... welcome to the playground in my mind... 

The Twisted Climb

Chapter 1, Green Eyes

Jayden Nanjee looked up. The full moon shone like a ghostly yellow torch against the midnight black of the night sky. The pale, low-lying clouds seemed to hug the earth as the moon peeked in and out of their embrace. They reminded Jayden of the lumpy potatoes her mother served when she felt like making dinner. She raised one hand and stared at the light brown skin that contrasted so starkly against the vivid pink of her pyjamas.

“I think I’m dreaming,” she said out loud.

Suddenly, a wolf howled. Then another. There was a forlorn quality to their cries, triggering goosebumps on Jayden’s arms and the hairs prickled along the back of her neck. 

“I have to climb, but climb where?”

A multitude of carefully pruned apple trees surrounded her. The bony limbs cast mysterious shadows in the moonlight and their heavily laden branches seemed to moan under the weight of its fruit. Above the trees, a mountainside loomed, covered in shadows. The gloom was broken only by the dim glow of street lights rimming a long, twisting road. 

Her bare feet made no sound on the lush grass as she broke into a run and within minutes, a cornfield came into view, jutting past the edge of the orchard. She reduced her pace and turned around. Something behind her was advancing stealthily. Jayden’s eyes watered with the strain of searching the orchard, where the trees wavered and danced in the moon shadows. 

She stiffened and then stifled a scream. Racing toward her, with ears laid back and fangs bared, was an angry pack of wolves. Mind racing, she reviewed her options. Should I run out of the orchard, past the cornfield and toward the street lights on the mountainside? There might be help in one of the homes along the way. Jayden glanced upward. Or should I climb one of the trees and mount some kind of defense?

“I’ll never make it to those street lights,” she muttered. The wolves were advancing way too fast. “And I can’t hide in these bright pink pj’s.”

Jumping and grabbing the lowest branch, Jayden pulled herself upward, swinging one leg around it. Then, arms and legs hugging the limb and her butt hanging down, Jayden looked back. The wolves were so close, the glare of the moon reflected in their eyes and gobs of frothy drool dripped from their jaws. Panic spread its tantalizing fingers around her body as the lead wolf raced ahead of the pack, snarling and snapping its sharp, yellow fangs. Before terror fully consumed her, Jayden pulled her butt up and twisted her body to the top of the branch, just as the wolf attacked.

“Aaagh!”

* * *

Darkness Descends 

Chapter 8, The Nightmare Within the Nightmare

“HEY!”

The shout came from the forest and suddenly they could see a girl running toward them, a dark-haired girl wearing neon orange pyjamas. 

“I don’t believe this.” It was Connor’s turn to look incredulous. “Is that who I think it is?” 

Max scampered upright. “I think it’s Jayden.” He watched as she sprinted closer. “Yup, it’s her!”

Max held up his hands in a stop motion. “Stop!” he shouted. “Don’t come any closer!” 

Jayden slowed and approached them cautiously. “Well, isn’t this a small dream world?” she drawled, crossing one arm over the other. “I guess you guys got the ‘cross over’ invitation, too?”

“Don’t come any closer!” Max repeated. “The shield has been activated.”

“The shield?” queried Jayden. “Like the one outside the Valley of Tired?” 

Connor nodded. “Yeah, but Max didn’t turn this one on.” He replicated her stance, folding his arms across his chest. “Why are you on the wrong side of the shield? Didn’t you jump into the light?”

Jayden shook her head. “I, uh, wasn’t sure about that guy in the light so I jumped left, toward the banging sound.”

“You mean the thuds and the chants?” asked Max. He rolled his eyes. “Well, that was dumb.”

“Oh really, oh-wise-one,” countered Jayden with a sneer. “And why is that?”

“Because the thuds and the chants are probably coming from Dick – Richard Hatemore. Remember him?”

Jayden dropped to her knees. “That’s why it was familiar… oh no!” she cried out, realizing what she had done. “This is Dick’s side. The wrong side.” 

Connor moved closer to the shield. It shimmered with energy, softening the contours of Jayden’s striking features. Her black hair shone in the moonlight and her green eyes displayed a level of fear Connor had not seen before.

“We’ll find the source of the shield and turn it off,” he said softly. “It can’t be too far.” His concerned smile provoked an unusual response from Jayden: she smiled back. 

Max cleared his throat. “No time for kisses, folks,” he admonished. “Let’s decide which way to travel – east or west?” 

Before anyone could respond, a wolf howled. Any hair that hadn’t prickled from the activated shield was now at full attention. Jayden looked over her shoulder and yelped with fright. Loping out of the woods some 500 metres behind her, was a pack of wolves. Their bodies moved as one, heading directly toward Jayden.

“Aaagh!” screamed Jayden. “What can I do?”

Connor looked at the stone in his hand. It was useless against the force of the shield.

“I know!” Max shouted. “Dig!”

The Narcissistic Villain

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Villains can be a tricky proposition--in fiction as well as in our day to day world.  We all hope we don't become entangled with malevolent people--ones who wish us harm--in real life. "Mad and Bad & Dangerous to know," was said of Byron, who was definitely NOT the kind of man you wanted to enchant your daughter. However, in a story, a villain provides driving force to a plot, and gives the hero and heroine an antagonist with whom to spar.  Inside a book, we are safe; there is no actual blood spilled.

By the way, the gentleman on the spooky cover above is not the villain, although he is a shape-shifter. The villain in Zauberkraft: Black is "a man of wealth and taste" who also happens to be a vampire. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and vampires, certainly, have eternity in which to brood and plot.

Villains can be fun to write--my cohort were brought up on movie theater cowboy serials, thus today, in our most entertainment ready mode, we still enjoy a good melodrama. Here, the white hats win and the black hats are carted off to justice. And what could be more melodramatic than a movie like "The Heiress"? Though this picture was made before I emerged from my mother, it's one of those movies I vividly remember seeing for the first time. I remember long cold Skaneateles winter-frigid afternoons, wrapped in woolens and watching a small Zenith TV. The somber black and white flickering on the screen matched the mood of the frozen world outside.

For anyone who isn't familiar, here's the plot. A naive, lonely heiress falls prey to a narcissistic con man, whose plan is to marry her, drive her mad, and then have her committed so he can assume control of her fortune. At first, he is the caring, genteel lover of whom she's dreamed. He does every little romantic thing for her so that, without knowing anything about him, she accepts his proposal. In modern psychological parlance this is called "love bombardment."  It's the full charm offensive with which the narcissist sweeps his target off her feet.

Next, the husband seduces the parlor maid and enlists her aid in his plot. Then the two of them begin to undermine his wife's trust in her sanity. Every night, he turns down the gaslight in the hall just a little bit, all the while staunchly insisting that his wife's "just imagining" it. The setting, in 19th Century America, where women were easily dispatched to asylums by husbands who had tired of them, smooths the villain's way.

Now, more than half a century later, "gaslighting" is a term with which most are familiar. Now, however, instead of referring to the actions of a single smooth sadist in an old film, it's commonly used by therapists to describe one of the ways in which a narcissist first undermines and then controls his relationship partner. In the real world, the narcissist is a dangerous creature, and lately it seems they are everywhere.

Back to the more innocuous world of fiction, where a narcissistic personality type makes a great villain. The narcissist, it turns out, has a sort of universal playbook. Reliably unreliable, considering only their own advantage, they love nothing and no one. In their world, empathy, or its cousin, sympathy, are incomprehensible, concepts "for suckers." They swallow up the people around them like a black hole. Absolute power, a constant stream of praise from sycophants combined with blind obedience to their whims is a narcissist's dream of heaven.

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Some of the other traits that characterize a narcissist are grandiosity, an excessive need for admiration, disregard for the feelings of others, inability to accept criticism, and an air of entitlement and superiority. They target vulnerable, empathetic people who have something they want; they are masters of manipulation. When they don't get what they want, they become epic bullies, hounding their targets into submission.

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Without really knowing what exactly I was doing or sticking a label on and then writing a character to fit the diagnosis, I have used this type of antagonist in several of my books. In some of these stories, the character is somewhere along the spectrum toward utter self-centeredness.

After all, the true full blown malignant narcissist (at least, as a fictional character) is one who seems constantly in danger of "over the top." There is, after all, a wide spectrum of human behavior and one of the first duties of a writer is to convince the reader that the story is--on some level--believable. So many of my villains are somewhere in the dark gray end of the zone, not irredeemably black.  Still, there are some terrors in these books of mine. 

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~~Juliet Waldron
Website of Juliet Waldron