The Perfect Twist – with Jack Heath at the ACT Writer’s Centre
On Saturday 17th February I attended an all-day course with Jack Heath, local Canberra author, at the ACT Writer’s Centre. Jack has published over 22 books for kids, teens and adults. The course was called The Perfect Twist and focused on plot.
Jack talked about how plot, setting and character need to be woven together equally to evoke emotion and maintain the reader’s interest for the entire story, and leave them wanting more. Jack likened this to a tripod – each must balance the others out or your tripod won’t stand.
He talked about how an engrossing story should have the following elements:
The characters has goals;
The reasons for those goals are revealed;
But ever-worsening obstacles appear,
The character comes up with increasingly risky strategies to deal with the obstacles; and
Eventually they are successful.
He discussed how it is also important to include suspense and surprise, escalation, contrast and balance. As these help the reader from becoming numb.
During the day we did two short writing exercises. For the first one we were given three cards with random words on them to create a story from. For the second we were told to escalate a problem then resolve it, and given the first sentence we had to start with. We had seven minutes each time to write a story from these prompts.
This was a really fun way to get your brain into gear and get the words and story ideas flowing. It has given me some good ideas for future when I may be stuck with a story or in need of an idea or character. By using randomly generated words and scenes it opened up a whole lot of new ideas that I usually would not have thought to write about and explore.
We then talked about how there are no longer any truly original ideas any more – but if you take a separate idea for the plot, the setting and the character from already existing ideas and mix them together then you will have an original combination that has not been written before. An example that Jack gave of how to do this was to think of three books you enjoyed and the take the character description from the first, the plot idea from the second and he setting from the third.
While Jack was working on his latest adult novel Hangman he came up with the following tips for making readers forgive unlikable/anti-hero characters. His character Timothy Blake in Hangman is just as terrible as the inmates on death row he is dealing with but Jack was determined to learn how to write a terrible character that people could still relate to and enjoy reading about.
Tips for Writing Unforgiveable Characters:
1. Guilt – if the character feels at least some guilt about what they have done the audience are much more forgiving.
2. Suffering – make the character suffer for their bad choices (both their past choices and also their future choices.)
3. Recognisable – people are more likely to forgive someone they recognise or identify with – give them something they can relate to.
4. Skilled – people are also more forgiving of an unlikeable or morally grey character if they prove themselves useful.
5. Selfless act – have your character do at least one selfless act.
This was the most interesting part of the course for me, as I had been so compelled by Hangman when I read it. I was so impressed that Jack was able to write about such a horrifying/gruesome main character and make it so enjoyable. To pull off such a twisted/sick protagonist and make the reader experience his two sides and still see some good in him takes real skill. Not for the faint hearted but a gripping, thrilling read that I could not put down. This book keeps playing on my mind, because when I was reading it I found myself connecting with the main character Timothy Blake and feeling sorry for him. I also found him a really intriguing character that draws you in. I would then find myself shuddering in horror a few pages later when his “addiction” would take over. Intense but thrilling book that I’ll be recommending. (Although with the caveat: don’t eat while reading it…!)
pixelskylines
gamechangershow
ellievsbear
