The immediate future looks a bit hectic, as I realised last night staring at the ceiling and cataloguing what I've got to do - and what might get in the way. Things could get quite tricky quite fast.
On the PhD side of things, I need to get my third chapter fully drafted by the end of the month. I have a supervisor meeting on the 30th and by then I want a complete draft so I can make necessary corrections and enhancements over the summer. So I'm looking at perhaps another 6,000 words of analysis. And, really, I have to get that done this week because I'm not going to get much of a chance next week.
Also of importance this week is some secondary reading, which I have to neatly combine with some documentary viewing. I say 'have to' and mean it: our hard disk recorder's close to capacity and my father's going that funny colour which means that if I don't watch some stuff he's going to evict me. I've got a heap of documentaries on there but also some recent drama and too many classic films to count. So it's looking like I'm spending the days this week trying valiantly to create some space on the recorder and the evenings going loopy in my office trying to put words on the page.
Next week, things get a little more complicated. The Wakefield Drama Festival starts on Sunday 26th (preview post here). For seven consecutive nights I'll be at the theatre and, although I'm looking forward to it, I'm dreading the time it will sap. Added to which, I've got the Postgraduate Colloquium all day Tuesday, my supervisor meeting on Thursday and I'm babysitting for a few hours on Friday. The latter two I'm fairly okay with but it's the first that's causing me anxiety.
The organisation of the colloquium has been fairly fun, like trying to keep control of a bike that at first won't let you pedal then doesn't want you to apply the brakes. If I'd stuck to the organising I'd probably have been fine but I'm conscious that I need to give a few papers this year to stick to my goals for 2013. So I've written a paper called 'Edmund Yates: Rumour and the Forgotten Author' which I'm fairly happy with. The only part I'm not happy with is presenting it. My public-speaking fear has kept me awake a few nights recently. There are reasons I'm not cut out for this line of work and I suspect next Tuesday will demonstrate that. If it does, I think a new career plan is in order.
During the drama festival I'm not going to get much PhD work done (which is why this week is so important in that respect). I don't know what I'll do during the two days I'm actually at home that week but it might involve sleeping and, on Monday, plotting to run away.
So what are the variables? Well, apart from my paralysing fear, there's the small matter of my grandmother who has decided that my father doesn't understand her so she needs to talk to me and me alone. That's fine for a few days over the weekend but, given what I've got to do this week, it could soon become a little irritating. I'll try to hold my temper because I really don't want to upset her more but having the same conversations fifteen times a day could drive me round the twist. Also, last week we had five power cuts (including three nights where it was off overnight, leading to some fun times with the dog-that's-scared-of-the-dark). They claim the problem has been fixed but more outages could lead to some epic frustration. As with the grandmother situation, this isn't within my control but it doesn't stop the anxiety. I'm beginning to learn, very little stops the anxiety.
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Monday, 20 May 2013
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Madame de la Rougierre
I'm only a quarter of the way into Uncle Silas, the 1864 suspenseful and sensational work by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I originally bought this as side-reading for my thesis but I've had so much primary and secondary reading to crack on with that I haven't had the chance to read it before now. I shunted it over to my TBR pile and picked it up yesterday.
So far I'm astounding by the creepiness. I blogged last year about Wilkie Collins's ability to perturb modern readers and I reviewed his particular success in The Haunted Hotel around the same time. However, Le Fanu's atmospheric and claustrophobic novel is so far surpassing that success. I'm petrified and we haven't even been introduced to the title character yet!
Madame de la Rougierre is the protagonist's governess. The reason she was initially engaged and her past are both mysterious at this point but what isn't mysterious is the impact she is supposed to have on the reader: we're not simply to think of her as unpleasant - she is evil and manipulative. Le Fanu adds more anxiety to the protagonist with almost every scene involving her and the governess. The suspense and mystery doesn't let up for a moment. It's disturbing enough reading this in the electric glow of a modern bedroom; I can't comprehend how unsettling it would've been being read by candlelight when it was first serialised in the Dublin University Magazine. It's interesting from a writer's perspective to watch how Le Fanu builds up the tension. From the first moment we meet Madame de la Rougierre we know the protagonist should be careful:
On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure - a very tall woman in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily low, and rather fantastically. I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling and cackling shrilly - I could not distinctly hear what through the window - and gesticulating oddly with her hands and arms. (Chapter Four)
That's a taster of the language used to describe Madame de la Rougierre throughout the portion of the novel I've read so far. It's creepy stuff and it only builds as time goes on. The combination of facial descriptions, adjectives used about her and her French accent all work to create a sensation of foreboding. This is Katina Paxinou portraying the character in the 1947 film adaptation which I'm now quite desperate to see:
I think I'd kill to be able to invoke the kind of feeling that Le Fanu does in Uncle Silas. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the character's evil personality impacts the rest of the novel. What I am not anticipating, however, is peaceful slumber, neither while I'm reading the book nor when I'm finished with it.
So far I'm astounding by the creepiness. I blogged last year about Wilkie Collins's ability to perturb modern readers and I reviewed his particular success in The Haunted Hotel around the same time. However, Le Fanu's atmospheric and claustrophobic novel is so far surpassing that success. I'm petrified and we haven't even been introduced to the title character yet!
Madame de la Rougierre is the protagonist's governess. The reason she was initially engaged and her past are both mysterious at this point but what isn't mysterious is the impact she is supposed to have on the reader: we're not simply to think of her as unpleasant - she is evil and manipulative. Le Fanu adds more anxiety to the protagonist with almost every scene involving her and the governess. The suspense and mystery doesn't let up for a moment. It's disturbing enough reading this in the electric glow of a modern bedroom; I can't comprehend how unsettling it would've been being read by candlelight when it was first serialised in the Dublin University Magazine. It's interesting from a writer's perspective to watch how Le Fanu builds up the tension. From the first moment we meet Madame de la Rougierre we know the protagonist should be careful:
On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure - a very tall woman in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily low, and rather fantastically. I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling and cackling shrilly - I could not distinctly hear what through the window - and gesticulating oddly with her hands and arms. (Chapter Four)
That's a taster of the language used to describe Madame de la Rougierre throughout the portion of the novel I've read so far. It's creepy stuff and it only builds as time goes on. The combination of facial descriptions, adjectives used about her and her French accent all work to create a sensation of foreboding. This is Katina Paxinou portraying the character in the 1947 film adaptation which I'm now quite desperate to see:
Doesn't she look alarming?
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Characters and Phobias
As I'm supposed to be going for my first proper blood test in the morning I've been dwelling on the idea of needles. I hate needles. One of my most embarrassing memories is my mother taking me to have my meningitis jab at the local doctor's, only for me to start screaming uncontrollably when the nurse came anywhere near me. I made a complete fool of myself and even emotional blackmail from the nurse didn't help. I was well aware, even at that age, that I was stopping someone else getting the medicine, but I still couldn't force my body to stay still. Needless to say, tomorrow is not going to be pleasant and, truth be told, I don't know if I'll be able to go through with it.
All this dwelling on my own fears brought me round, as most things do, to my characters. One of my current protagonists has been through a huge trauma and as a consequence avoids crowds. As her emotional state stems directly from a major plot event elsewhere in the book, it isn't too difficult for me to remember it exists. The inconsistency should she suddenly feel at home in a packed shopping centre would be striking and any readers I hope to have would instantly lose faith in me. I'm not saying it has to be a feature of every trip into the outside world for her, but it needs to crop up whenever the unexpected does. For the most part she can regulate her response as long as she knows what's coming.
One book I dip in and out of as my work dictates is the fantastic Writer's Guide to Character Traits. I'm fairly sure I've mentioned it before on the blog because it's a really helpful book to refer to when you're unsure of how a given character may react. The section on phobias is brief but does give several traits as starting points for exploration of character. As with most descriptions in the guide, it's a platform to jump from. If you know your characters well enough then you can fill in the rest of their symptoms for them.
There are a couple of things I'd cautious about though. When looking at a blank character sheet you might get the urge to fill it up by tossing in a debilitating fear or two. Beware: these are things that will affect your characters. If you include it, if you mention it, be sure to follow it up. The second point relates to the first: although not everything about your character has to be fuel to your plot, phobias are one of those things that cause an obstruction in some way or other. If your character's phobia is barely pertinent then perhaps it can be discarded.
And, just for the record, if you want fireworks, make someone with a needle phobia go for a blood test. The results are hilarious, in a dark kind of way.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Fear Itself
One of the most clichéd emotions in fiction that I've come across is fear. We're all familiar with the sweating palms, the darting eyes and the stomach sensations which compromise a fearful moment in a story. Those are all tangible effects of fear but they've become so predictable that I feel jolted out of the book whenever I read one - or, more frequently several - of the above.
As a writer I'm well aware that I resort to these clichés in early drafts. All too easy to get something on the paper and worry about it later. Then, as I reread and scrutinise, I invariably want to bypass over these moments. After all, it's too difficult to describe personal fear in a fresh manner... isn't it?
Possibly. But that doesn't mean we writers should stop trying.
The physical effects of fear probably are run of the mill in all of us. I start to shiver insanely, no matter the weather, the moment that something frightens me. I get the same reaction whether it's a spider crossing the room or something much more terrible. However, it's the mental accompaniment that differs.
How long that first sleep lasted, she never knew. She could only remember, in the after-time, that she woke instantly.
Every faculty and perception in her passed the boundary line between insensibility and consciousness, so to speak, at a leap. Without knowing why, she sat up suddenly in the bed, listening for she knew not what. Her head was in a whirl; her heart beat furiously, without any assignable cause. But one trivial event had happened during the interval while she had been asleep. The night-light had gone out; and the room, as a matter of course was in total darkness.
The above is an extract from one of my favourite novellas, The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins. Now, although Collins goes on to describe the terror as being akin to 'the clasp of an icy hand' the prelude to the fear is the most interesting bit. Collins builds the tension by withholding the revelation of fear itself. There is the vague suspicion that something is about to happen but until our protagonist, Agnes, discovers she is not alone a few paragraphs later we don't know what the non-assignable cause is.
If a character is truly afraid of something there must be a reason for it. The best way to demonstrate this sometimes can be to link briefly to a past event. Virginia Woolf, that master of stream-of-consciousness, was so entwined with the minds of her characters that an actual physical reaction, such as Collins' icy hand idea, would feel out of place in one her novels. Instead, Clarissa Dalloway spins her past into a web and manages to create a sense of fear around it.
Somehow it was her disaster - her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced to stand here in her evening dress. She had schemed; she had pilfered. She was never wholly admirable. She had wanted success, Lady Bexborough and the rest of it. And once she had walked on the terrace at Bourton.
Clarissa's fears echo vividly here, even if there is no physical description of them. Fear is mainly a mental component. It has physical side-effects, yes, but it's no lie to suggest that fear is all in the mind.
To that end, then, something we as writers need to accomplish is a way of portraying fear without seeming to portray fear and still get our point across.
Easy...
As a writer I'm well aware that I resort to these clichés in early drafts. All too easy to get something on the paper and worry about it later. Then, as I reread and scrutinise, I invariably want to bypass over these moments. After all, it's too difficult to describe personal fear in a fresh manner... isn't it?
Possibly. But that doesn't mean we writers should stop trying.
The physical effects of fear probably are run of the mill in all of us. I start to shiver insanely, no matter the weather, the moment that something frightens me. I get the same reaction whether it's a spider crossing the room or something much more terrible. However, it's the mental accompaniment that differs.
How long that first sleep lasted, she never knew. She could only remember, in the after-time, that she woke instantly.
Every faculty and perception in her passed the boundary line between insensibility and consciousness, so to speak, at a leap. Without knowing why, she sat up suddenly in the bed, listening for she knew not what. Her head was in a whirl; her heart beat furiously, without any assignable cause. But one trivial event had happened during the interval while she had been asleep. The night-light had gone out; and the room, as a matter of course was in total darkness.
The above is an extract from one of my favourite novellas, The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins. Now, although Collins goes on to describe the terror as being akin to 'the clasp of an icy hand' the prelude to the fear is the most interesting bit. Collins builds the tension by withholding the revelation of fear itself. There is the vague suspicion that something is about to happen but until our protagonist, Agnes, discovers she is not alone a few paragraphs later we don't know what the non-assignable cause is.
If a character is truly afraid of something there must be a reason for it. The best way to demonstrate this sometimes can be to link briefly to a past event. Virginia Woolf, that master of stream-of-consciousness, was so entwined with the minds of her characters that an actual physical reaction, such as Collins' icy hand idea, would feel out of place in one her novels. Instead, Clarissa Dalloway spins her past into a web and manages to create a sense of fear around it.
Somehow it was her disaster - her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced to stand here in her evening dress. She had schemed; she had pilfered. She was never wholly admirable. She had wanted success, Lady Bexborough and the rest of it. And once she had walked on the terrace at Bourton.
Clarissa's fears echo vividly here, even if there is no physical description of them. Fear is mainly a mental component. It has physical side-effects, yes, but it's no lie to suggest that fear is all in the mind.
To that end, then, something we as writers need to accomplish is a way of portraying fear without seeming to portray fear and still get our point across.
Easy...
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