Injecting Minutia

Minutia. What makes a story truly come alive are the little things, the small details that make characters stand out and places memorable.

Creating an overarching plot or a complex background for your characters in a story, and for that matter the characters themselves tends to come fairly easy. I'm sure most writers whether pro or hobbyists would agree. Most of us able to jot down a handful of ideas that we'd like to come back to at some point or other to turn into a story.

What often lets our stories get left in the deepest darkest corners of our laptops or scribbles on a pad is that they fail to capture our interest. Often even the most interesting plots get sidelined in favour of ideas we end up writing about.

I believe that ideas we tend to carry forward are the ones we spent more time thinking of little quirks that capture our attention like they do that of a reader.

Here's the problem, thinking of minor details often comes easiest in a process I call Injecting minutia. Once you have written the basic shell of a story it's time to go back on the hugely entertaining job of editing. A truly long and tiring journey it is, but that is the time to develop and sneak in some gems or nuggets of information to keep people reading. Little rewards that for having read another chapter you now found out about X which links to Y which you read about earlier.

It was only the other day while thinking of a story and basically joining the dots. So one character's ex wife lives in a town visited by another character. Has a lover. Wait a minute. What if he was her new lover?

It seems only elementary but seriously I find this the easiest way for getting some juicy bits in the story. Maybe there's an easier way. I'd love to know because it would help to get a better grasp of what stories were worth bothering with at all. Or perhaps all stories could be good, given the time and energy to put in the little details.

Food for thought

Two brothers have an argument about politics. They leave realising that neither really cares about the opinions of the other.

The Death of Subtlety

Having put Iron man 2 on for my dad the other day I couldn't help but catch the start. There's Robert Downey Jr on stage surrounded by beautiful women wearing very little and mimicking his moves in a sexy way.

Ok...so he's successful. Did they intend to shove it down our throats?

Or what about Game of Thrones and Spartacus. Two of the most watched series of our generation and most likely due to being so over the top in violence, gore and sex.

For someone who's favourite horror movie is The Shining I cant understand the appeal of movies like Saw. The subtle and brilliant way madness is shown creeping into a man's life is amazing to behold. Then you could just watch a movie about someone getting their head cut off.

Are writers just trying to top the latest trends and becoming desperate to shock? Or are we becoming desensitized to moderate stimuli?

There truly is some beauty in the subtle art of using language to allude to a point, rather than ripping it open and saying, "here it is! You didn't miss it did you? This is the point you know!"

I understand that artists try to pander to all levels, hell, even Shakespeare through in the odd pun at the hands of several dim witted jesters to appease the baser members of the audience.

I suppose I just wish there was something I could watch and come away feeling enriched rather than I just wasted 50 mins of my life and have to clean up the melting brain from my ears. I know, subtle right.

Well I suppose I could just do something more enriching and write. In fact what more is a screen than an assault on the senses?

~Fraser

New Tyranid Codex

Games Workshop finally release the much anticipated 6th ed Tyranids. I know they've been getting ripped apart by the critics already but I don't think it's all bad. In fact, I have some sneaky ideas already.

~Fraser

1000+

A very big thank you for all the people who have viewed my blog so far. Appreciate the support and look forward to showing you what I'm capable of with my writing!

~Fraser

"Failure is not an option"

For a lot of people and in a lot of instances this is a motto to stand by. I must admit that I find myself uttering those words from time to time. What do we turn to when we realise that not only is failure an option but an inevitability. Nobody succeeds all the time.

This isn't some fatalist speech I'm just shocked on a  daily basis when people don't make the most out of every chance they get. Especially when it's as easy as asking a question.

I had my first experience of hiring artists to work on my upcoming book and it was actually quite a challenging process to choose who to commission to work on the piece.

In fact it came down to some very minor reasons which eventually tipped the balance. Whatever the reasons do you know how many artists out of all of the ones I approached asked why I didn't pick them?

Zero.

None of them. It's crazy in my mind. It's like going for a job interview; getting turned down and not asking why you weren't picked. What's going to stop you from making that same mistake the next time?

I know art is a subjective decision at the end of the day as to which you like more. Some of the artists however I dismissed as their portfolio's didn't show the kind of art I was looking for. I dare say that most of these artists have a much larger portfolio that wasn't on their blogs or websites and could quite easily have turned round and said, "Hold fire on that decision, I might just have a piece that shows what you're looking for"

Now I might be fairly new to the whole working with freelancers and artists for that matter, but from my experience of life and job hunting, it's the proactive people that get ahead.

~Fraser

Food for thought

"Every day you wait your ideas are being used by better known authors than yourself" ~ The words of my good friend and author George Solomou days before he realised his breakthrough idea for Dr What was used 30 years ago

The Frozen Codex - update

Cracking ahead trying to arrange the artwork for the book and the final round of proof reading.

Once artwork is established and the finishing touches are completed the book will be available for purchase on Amazon.co.uk

Release estimated in the next couple of months!

~Fraser

New year - New look

With the coming of 2014 I thought I'd give blogging a serious go.

My books a couple of months from finalising and my hobbies are full swing. Going to create some new pages and have got rid of some of the old to clean it up a bit.

My novel The Frozen Codex is on the horizon. Getting the art sorted now then steam rolling  ahead. You'll be seeing it //cough// and buying it //cough// before the end of the year!

~Fraser