Tuesday Therapy: Writing as Sudoku
I’m beginning to feel like the fates have aligned so that each week’s therapy session speaks directly to a writing problem I am currently facing. This hasn’t been prearranged — it’s entirely a fluke — but it’s a happy coincidence. I’ve just passed the 1/3 mark of The Familiar and was starting to wonder if I should be concerned that a lot of the book’s final third is yet unclear, plot-wise. And then I read Kaaron Warren‘s fantastic contribution to this series, and now I have my answer…
Kaaron has been publishing short stories for nearly 20 years — ‘All You Can Do is Breathe’, by the way, is on the ballot for this year’s Stoker Awards — and has recently published three novels with Angry Robot Books. What makes Kaaron’s writing so engaging (and such a joy to read) is that it is so twisted, strange, inventive, and utterly unique. She comes at stories from wonderful, unusual angles — as she has this week’s writing advice.
It struck me last night that writing a story is a bit like filling in a Sudoku puzzle.
You start with a grid, dotted with things you know. Maybe a spark of an idea, a setting, a snippet of conversation. The rest of the grid is blank. Daunting. Some spaces you see straight away how to fill, but others? They seem impossible.
Some of the blanks are easily filled; who’s telling the story? Why? And you can describe your scene, build your character.
Once you’ve done that, the spaces that seemed difficult become easier. The story starts to fall into place until you’re left with only one or two of those impossible-seeming spaces, with the answers now obvious, and you know how your story ends and how you’re going to get there.
Kaaron Warren has won or been nominated for the Stoker Awards, the Australian Shadows Awards, the Aurealis Awards and the Ditmar Awards for her incredible short story collections (Dead Sea Fruit, The Grinding House and The Glass Woman) and her wonderfully creepy novels (Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification). You can find her online here.
An Introduction to Australian Horror
In honour of Australia Day, I was asked to write an article about Australian horror for This Is Horror in the UK — and it’s now up! The article surveys some of the standout horror published in the past two years by Australian independent presses: so much to talk about, so much incredible talent!
Australia is a land of extremes. One minute the country is ravaged by drought and bushfires, the next it’s drowning in devastating floods. The continent is a combination of enormous red deserts meeting sprawling metropolises meeting ancient tropical rainforests meeting endless coastlines. Some of the largest — and tiniest — deadly predators on the planet are hidden out in the wilds, but are also unearthed in suburban backyards. Over it all, the harsh Australian sun beats down. Casting the longest, darkest shadows.
And right there — right where the glaring light gives way to shade — a population of Australian horror writers thrives. It’s a great position to be in. Looking at stories published by independent presses in the past two years, we find that Australian horror can plunge wholly into the black, even more tragic and disturbing by contrast to the brightness left behind; it can be light-hearted but nuanced, love and joy limned in darkness; or it can tread both worlds, supernatural and terrifying and endearing all at once…
Read the rest here — and enjoy!
Awesome Spec-fic, super-cheap!
Indiebooks Online is having a sale!
Now’s your chance to order Ticonderoga Publications titles you might’ve missed out on in paperback — such as Angela Slatter’s The Girl With No Hands & Other Stories, Kaaron Warren’s Dead Sea Fruit, Sean Williams’ Magic Dirt and a heap of other great titles — for a bargain price. (Please note: this sale is for the paperback editions only.)
Even more exciting: you can now pre-order the trade paperback edition of Bluegrass Symphony at a discounted price!! You can also pre-order Ticonderoga’s massive Vampire anthology, Dead Red Heart; as well as Justina Robson’s Heliotrope; and the next installment in the publishing house’s paranormal romance anthology series, More Scary Kisses.
Don’t let me dissuade you from pre-ordering the limited edition hardcovers for these new books. They are gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous signed collectors’ items — only 100 copies of each, so get in quick!
