Vagabondage et Marveille

Miracle Twins and Forbidden Romance

Fri, 6 Jul 2012 09:32:01 -0500

TPV: I've always wished I had a twin (then there’s be twice as much of me for everyone). There are a few in my family. After reading Gemini Rising by Linda Nightingale, however, I had second thoughts on the whole "another copy of me" idea.

*

Not having siblings, I’m not sure why I decided to write about identical twins. Well, it wasn’t so much a case of deciding as the characters insisted I tell their story. I knew that my twins were impossible because they were identical male/female twins (with the differences you expect between men and women!). Alain and Alina shook me out of bed early on a Sunday morning. I sat down at my computer to write, but instead picked up a purple pen and a legal pad, totally out of character for me. After a few chapters, I abandoned the story, thinking it didn’t have a chance of being published.

Years later, I decided to finish Gemini Rising for me. I was burned out with writing and wanted to do something fun. Tony-Paul encouraged me to submit to Double Dragon Publishing, and in a remarkably short time, the publisher emailed me that he’d like to contract Gemini Rising. I was ecstatic!

Tony-Paul also helped me write a tag line: Forbidden love…one man, one woman—one heart, one mind—only together are they complete. I’d be interested in your opinion.

Blurb:

From birth, Alain and Alina Alastair are a scientific miracle--identical male-female twins--a biological impossibility. Destined to tread the farther, forbidden paths, they discover love, lust, and danger lurking in their future. When their parents whisk their miracle children home to an isolated island, their lives reach a turning point.
            Alain craves escape from the seclusion.
            Alina yearns to express her love with a man who treasures her.
            The secrets at Alastair Keep threaten to undermine the very foundations of the world in which these impossible twins live.

Excerpt:

Rory rushed him, grabbing his shirt, his fist drawn back to strike. The horses snorted, hooves scrambling on cobbles. Aiden Alastair strode into the barn hall, assessing the situation at a glance.

“By all that’s holy,” Aiden shouted, “have you both taken leave of your senses?”

Rory freed Alain with a little shove. “I’m rearranging your son’s pretty face. You’ve said Alain is too pretty for his own good.”

The old, familiar humiliation and pain twisted in Alain, but he squared his shoulders, and with blood on his mouth, faced his father.

Rory’s lips curled in a mocking smile. “I was just trying to help you out, Lord Alastair.” He gave the title hateful emphasis.

Alastair crossed his arms, glaring at his son-in-law. “You’re my daughter’s husband and as such this is your home, but I won’t tolerate fighting beneath my roof.”

Rory hung his head, looked down, said nothing. His rigid posture sagged.

Father’s eyes found Alain. His expression altered from angry to hurt.

“I would have expected more of you. Did you start this?”

Of course, his father had jumped to the conclusion that Alain was to blame. He was always ready to believe the worst about him. He could tune them out, suppress his feelings and stoically endure. But not this time. Damage, like love and hate, came in degrees. All his life Alain had suffered at this man’s clumsy hand. He arched an eyebrow.

Rory’s gaze lifted to Alain’s face. He gasped, “Don’t.”

“You’ve always been disappointed in me, Father.” The chill in his voice bled into his limbs. “But frankly, I don’t give a damn. Never have. Never will.”

Splotches of anger dotted Father’s face. “How dare you say that to me? You’re a damned fine excuse for a son. If I could, I’d pass the title to Rory.”

The painful attack knocked the wind out of Alain. To be told he meant less to his father than another man hurt. He hadn’t believed Father had the power to break his heart. He collapsed on the wooden bench beside the bridles and stared at the old oriental carpet he used for polishing Spirit’s hooves. Suddenly, he hated the wealth surrounding him.

“Aiden.” Mother strode down the aisle, seized her husband’s arm and shook him. “I overheard. How could you be so cruel?”

“It’s all right, Mother.” Alain climbed to his feet. “It’s no surprise.”

“No, it isn’t all right.” Mother glared into Father’s eyes. “You were angry. You didn’t mean what you said. Tell him, Aiden.”

Alain unsaddled Prospero, led him into his stall and slid the leather halter off his beautiful head. Father remained silent as he repeated the performance with Spirit. The pain hit him like a lightning strike. His solar plexus blazed into an aching knot. Clutching the apex of his ribs, he staggered against the door.

Light from the world outside framed Nye. The old man gazed at Alain as if he was the only person in the hallway. “Alina.”

At the sound of her name, the pain twisted tighter and hotter. Agony folded Alain double. Mother took a step toward him. He waved her away.

“Hurry,” Nye said, standing aside as Rory shouldered past.

*

TPV: Gemini Rising has been a long time getting here but now, it's waiting to be read, in paperback and ebook. You can find it at: Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Gemini-Rising-ebook/dp/B0088E2MJ2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1339238588&sr=8-3
                                    Double Dragon: http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-978-4
http://www.lulu.com/shop/linda-nightingale/gemini-rising/paperback/product-20228508.html

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COMMENTAIRES

When Angel is Talking

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:12:48 -0500

I can’t sleep when Angel is talking…

TVP: Everyone probably considers his family odd sometimes. But after reading Danita Minnis’ blog for today, I’d say Angel’s is more than a little… Here she is to tell us more…

*

At any given time I’ve got several people in my head telling me what they want and just how they want it. Woes me if I don’t write it down – I don’t sleep at night.

Angel’s parents wait somewhat impatiently to explain her unique ancestry in their story, and her uncle is on the verge of becoming immortal. He and I are still debating that outcome. Of all the people in my head Angel is the worst offender.

At 3:00 a.m., when inspiration is both a blessing and a curse, you don’t want to quibble over who gets the Stradivarius, or who gets Angel. But I can’t sleep when Angel is talking. Her British accent is clipped in emphasis each time I close my eyes. Leave her hanging over a cliff while I get 40 winks (well, -2 winks, to be exact)? Not on her watch. Angel is no angel.

Like any young woman, she hasn’t yet discovered all her talents as she rounds the corner in my head…and bumps into Falcon.

Angel’s lips quirk into an amused moue and she leads him away out of sight.
Poor Falcon. He should have known better than to think this assignment was going to be easy.

Well, looks like I’m going to get some sleep tonight, after all.

If you asked me which is easier, writing songs or writing novels, I would say it was the former. Melodies and rhymes are second nature. What my characters want is another thing entirely. With my debut novel, Falcon’s Angel, I learned to listen to my spunky heroine and sinfully confident hero. They’re funny and in danger, and that’s just the way they want it. Lesson learned: don’t try to save them.
When I’m not writing, I exercise my lungs at my son’s soccer matches and our favorite theme park, because everyone knows it’s easier on the stomach to scream your way down a roller coaster.

FALCON’S ANGEL, BLURB:

She’s a classical violinist and daughter of a dynasty with one passion; her Stradivarius.
Falcon wants the Stradivarius in her possession, and goes undercover to track down a thief. But he is not the only killer in search of the violin.

Il Dragone, a devil-worshiping cult, wants revenge for a past only they can remember.
Angelina wants to go unrecognized when she leaves her family’s Yorkshire estate to play in a symphony in Italy. But the Stradivarius, a gift from her deceased instructor, opens a door to hatred that is centuries old.

Falcon’s Angel is a paranormal romance of love that ended in tragedy in eighteenth century England. That love is tested in a fight of good versus evil some two hundred years later. This time around Falcon and Angel have an opportunity to learn something that can put a stop to the cycle of murder and mayhem.

EXCERPT:
Naples, Italy
Falcon stood in the shadowed courtyard of the Naples Conservatory.
She left the building right on schedule. She had arrived early and stopped by the panetteria to pick up breakfast. She preferred the sweet rolls. When she left the music school, it was near dark.
Her schedule of classes wasn’t that bad. It was the time she spent practicing alone in whatever unoccupied classroom she could find that kept her there all day. She was dedicated, and very beautiful.
She had bumped into him in the hall two days ago on her way to class, “Scusi, Signore.” He did not know which was more shocking; the sound of her rich contralto or those huge liquid gold eyes, a striking contrast to the midnight waterfall rippling down her back.
He had purposely stepped in her path that day to confront her about the Stradivarius she carried. When he got a better look at her, he smiled “Perdonami,” and let her pass. Her lithe form glided down the hall.
If this goddess is a thief, she won’t have to take anything from me. I’ll give her whatever she wants, and more.
Although he allowed her to see him just that once, he had been watching her ever since. He did not know her name yet, but he called her Angel. Her unusual eyes made her seem like a fairy. Her fluid grace only enhanced the impression of an ethereal wood sprite.
The warm breeze lifting her summer print skirt silenced those thoughts.
Damned if he was not holding his breath waiting for the end of those legs before the gentle curve of her hips.
She crossed the darkening piazza and her full breasts danced under the white camisole top, making his mouth water. She was on her way home now.
She was staying at the Casa di Città on Piazza Avellino and now so was he. The apartment, a few avenues away from the Conservatory, was in the cultural Greco-Roman district, where the buildings themselves looked like archaeological finds.
Falcon emerged from the cluster of fig trees in the courtyard. He stopped when a man exited a side door off the Conservatory. The man started walking behind Angel.
Turning toward the fountain in the courtyard, he gave the man a head start. He fell in step behind the man, who carried no books, no instrument. Is he a teacher, or a lover? No, not a lover. The man didn’t even call out to the girl. He did not know her.
Falcon strolled along, looking into shop windows he passed. The man ignored a streetlight, but Falcon stopped, making sure no one followed him. With an idle shift from side to side, he waited for a car to cross the intersection.
Across the street, a teenager sat on the steps of a closed shop. He’d been there for the last few days. The car stopped at the curb in front of the teenager.
Someone should pick him up.
He would not jeopardize his cover for drug trafficking. He would leave that to the local polizia.
The light changed and Falcon crossed the street, satisfied that the man following Angel was alone.
They were walking through the ancient Roman marketplace, which was deserted now. When the girl got closer to the church built on the site of an old temple, the man began to close the distance between them.
Falcon shook his head as she reached the church corner. She never noticed the man who was just a few feet behind her now. When the man pushed her into the gloom around the church corner, they were lost from his sight. The girl screamed.
Sprinting, he rounded the corner. About ten feet away, the man was trying to wrestle the violin case from her against the wall.
Falcon pulled out his gun and aimed. “Let her go.”
The man turned toward him, and the girl pulled at his ear. The man bent, holding his stomach. He made an inarticulate sound before running away along the side of the building into the darkness.
Falcon darted past the girl and followed the man into the shadows.
What the hell?
Something flitted overhead, darker than the darkness in which he now stood alone. He pointed the Glock upward even as a figure walked up the side of the building. It looked like a black cloud but more solid than it should be.
Before he could get off a shot, the darkness disappeared over the side of the roof.
Staring at the dead end in front of him, Falcon put his gun away. No doors or windows on either side.
Where is the guy? Must be a hidden door somewhere, he’d check it out later.
Falcon turned back toward the girl. Beyond her, across the street, the man he had been chasing got into a car.
“No way,” he murmured as the car sped off. No way could the man have gotten past him in the alley.
The girl had both arms wrapped around the violin case in front of her. She was leaning against the church wall, crying.
A street lamp flickered on above them, belatedly bathing the passage in revealing light. She did not seem to realize that he was there.
“Did he hurt you, Signorina?”
She looked up. He lifted his gaze from her heaving chest.
“Grazie,” she whispered, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She shook her head. “I am fine.”
“You should not be walking alone at night.” The harsh reprimand in his voice surprised him. She was very young. Her tears wrought such vulnerability that he softened his tone when he came to stand in front of her. “Do you know that man?”
“No, I have never seen him before. But ... he knew me.”
“What did he say to you?”
She looked down at the violin.
He stared at her until she looked up. Ah, she had just found her story. It was in her eyes, and it was not the truth. The fear in her eyes told him that story would never change.
“He didn’t say anything, but the way he looked at me...”
Her chest heaved again. He almost smiled; she was having a hard time with this lie.
She stared at him. “You are from the Conservatory. I saw you the other day.”
“Antonio Russo, Tony to my friends.” She did not hesitate to shake his hand, and he did smile then. She might be lying to him but at least she did not see him as a threat. She continued to stare at him. She must want more. “I’m taking classes at the Conservatory,” he added. “I play piano.”
“Oh yes, I’ve seen you in Signor Gattano’s class.”
He had signed up for the class because it was right next door to hers. So, she had noticed him, too. He smiled wider.
“Signorina, I could call you Bella, but that would not satisfy my curiosity.”
She lowered her eyelashes over cheeks flushed the color of the terracotta tiles on his mother’s sunlit patio in Tuscany. She tanned well for one so light. He almost lifted his hand to touch her cheek. There would be little satisfaction in knowing her name now that her skin was singing a siren’s song to him.
“My name is Angelina Natale.”
“Ah. You are an angel, after all. I have not seen you around here for very long. Did you just fall from heaven?”
He watched her full lips while the sound of earthy laughter, though shaky, amped up the adrenaline coursing through his veins. A vision of her lying naked beneath him, her golden eyes glazed in passion, teased him.
“I am from England. I’m here for the symphony.” Her Italian was excellent.
“Angelina Natale, I would be honored if you would let me escort you home.”
She put the violin case under one arm. “I would like that.”
There was blood on her closed fist.
“Are you hurt?” He moved closer.
She moved her hand behind the folds of her skirt and backed into the wall.
He waited, leaning his hand against the wall above her head, inhaling her perfume. A beguiling combination of ... amber, apples and musk. The scent suited her, organic, delicious. He wanted to lift her skirt right now and take her against this wall, those long legs wrapped around him.
Angelina examined the buttons on his shirt that were in such close proximity. Stepping away from him would be cowardly, and he would guess she was made of sterner stuff. When she looked up it was with the defiance he expected from a cornered tigress.
He held her gaze, reaching behind to bring her fist out from the folds of her skirt.
The bloody gold in the center of her palm was a heavy medium-sized loop engraved with a stylized dragon. She had pulled it from the man’s ear and he had not made a sound.
“A memento?” He whispered in English close to her lips.
“I don’t want it. You can have it,” she answered in her native tongue. Now, that was the truth. Her British accent was tinged with a weary sadness. He wanted to pick her up against his chest and carry her home.
She had courage. Even while his mind worked to figure out what her role was in the mystery of the Stradivarius, he admired that.
He couldn’t leave her alone now. Not on a street where men escaped him when cornered in an alley and black clouds slid up church walls.
“Are you hungry?” Their lips were inches apart and he wanted to kiss her, but that would have to come later.
“I forgot about lunch. I had caffe at four. I’m starving,” the beautiful tigress admitted.

*

TPV: Find out more about Danita and Falcon’s Angel at:
http://danitaminnis.com/Home_Page.php
http://romancethebookblog.danitaminnis.com/?ci=22763
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Danita-Minnis-Romance-Author/433534206657385

Talk to Me, Mes Amies!

Unfortunately, we’re having server problems, so please, just drop your comment in an email to: tpvissage@neb.rr.com

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TPV,
Thank you so much for having me today! I am so pleased to share Angel with your readers:)

Danita

Always a pleasure to welcome talented people, Danita.

TPV

Halo of the Damned

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:16:55 -0500

TPV: Dina Rae is a new author who is here to stay. As a former teacher, she brings an academic element to her work. Her research on the Yezidi religion and love of art inspired her story telling for Halo of the Damned.
Dina lives with her husband, two daughters, and two dogs outside of Chicago. She is an avid reader, tennis player, movie buff, and self-proclaimed expert on conspiracy theories. Her favorite authors are Dan Brown, Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, Lincoln Childs, Robert Preston, Brad Thor, Stephen King, and Anne Rice. It’s no surprise that her favorite movies are Devil’s Advocate, Angel Heart, Shutter Island, I Am Legend, and The Shining.

*

In my recent novel, Halo of the Damned, I used research about the ancient Yezidi religion (spellings vary). The Yezidis originated from northern Iraq. The religion spread throughout the Kurdish community, eventually making its way into Europe.

Yezidis worship angels, especially Malak Tawas (spellings vary). The peacock symbolizes this angel who many believe to be Satan. Malak’s story in the Koran matches the same stories in the Bible and Old Testament about a rebellious angel who wages war with a third of all of God’s angels against God and the remainder of angels in Heaven. Once defeated, God sends all of them to Hell.
Yezidis believe God created Malak first, before all other angels, in His image, therefore he is also God. They also believe the world was first created as a pearl. Their holy books are Black Book and Book of Revelation. Their afterlife ideas are vague, but lean towards reincarnation. I found the religion fascinating and used it as part of the plot.

BLURB:
A chain of advertising agencies, a new breed of humans, and a fallen angel to worship…

Andel Talistokov is known for his slick advertising agencies across the globe. He is a fallen angel that uses advertising as a weapon for Satan's work. His growing power emboldens him to break several of Hell’s Commandments. Furious with his arrogance, Satan commands him to return to Hell after finding his own replacement.

Joanna Easterhouse, a recovering drug addict, steps out of prison shortly after her mother's fatal accident. She and her sister, Kim, unravel their mother's secretive past. Intrigued, they learn their bloodline is part of a celestial legacy. Both worlds collide.

EXCERPT
As Andel waited for his servant and slave, Marcus, to come and
clean up his sinister mess, he noticed blood all over his Armani
suit. He licked the sides of his face, still savoring the taste. The
Turkish rug that lay under his daughter’s corpse was also ruined.
Unlike the suit, the rug was irreplaceable. He remembered when
an Iman had given it to him hundreds of years ago. It was priceless,
and now he had to part with it.

He looked at the decapitated, beautiful head one last time and
remembered what a true bitch she turned out to be.

His intercom buzzed. “Come into my office,” he hissed, as he
remotely let Marcus inside.

“You called, Master?” he obediently asked, as he stepped into
his office, looking at the floor. He zeroed in on the remnants of
the cadaver. Pieces of flesh, bone, and organs were chewed up
and stringy. This was not the first time he had cleaned up Andel’s
mess.

“May I ask what she did that brought your wrath upon her?”

“I’m downsizing,” Andel smirked.

*

TPV: You can find out more about Dina at: www.dinarae.co
www.dinaraeswritestuff.blogspot.com
Twitter: @haloofthedamned

Buy Links: LINKS:
http://eternalpress.biz/book.php?isbn=9781615726042
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/halo-of-the-damned-dina-rae/1108816716
http://www.amazon.com/Halo-Damned-Dina-Rae/dp/1615726055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330111964&sr=8-1

Talk to Me, Mes Amies!

Unfortunately, we’re having server problems, so please, just drop your comment in an email to: tpvissage@neb.rr.com

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Love this cover!!

Kim Smith

I read the blurb and excerpt because I also write about angels, BUT I found myself lost inside the world you created in a few paragraphs. TBR!

Linda Nightingale

Cool cover don't want this guy visiting...

Alex Lukeman

It really is a cool cover!

Sandy Wolters

The Undying Love of Dread

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:09:05 -0500

TPV: Guest blogger Andrew Valentine lives and writes in New York. He has a masters degree in psychology from the New School, is a founding member of the Paranormal Romance Guild, and is a marketing director in a firm in Manhattan, where his writing is more effective at producing revenue than pulse pounding thrills.

With each new entry in today’s growing list of vampire-oriented cultural offerings, it seems the undead are awfully lively. From mega-blockbuster films (like Twilight: Breaking Dawn pt. 2, the re-boot of Dark Shadows and the unexpected vampire foe like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) to countless new books, to urban vampire parties where “real” human vampires don Goth clothes and prosthetic fangs, drink each other’s blood and grind to the strains of songs by bands like Theatres Des Vampires, it looks like the future of the children of the night has never been brighter.

One of the obvious reasons they’re so popular now is because modern culture has turned them into sex symbols.

But their history isn’t so pretty.

When I began writing my 2009 novel Bitter Things I learned that vampires have been with us for as long as Man has walked the earth. Quite literally. The very first vampire is arguably Lilith, Adam’s first wife (of Adam-and-Eve fame). According to one Jewish tradition, set down in the medieval text, Alphabet of Ben Sirah, before God created Eve, He created Lilith from the same dust as Adam. This made Lilith think of herself equal to Adam and she would not allow him to rule over her. God sent angels to subdue the uppity woman, but she escaped. When God created Eve from Adam’s rib, Lilith vowed vengeance against any children they would have, by killing them and drinking their blood.

On the other side of the globe, the Hindu tradition reveres the goddess Kali—who inspired the villainess in my sequel to Bitter Things, the forthcoming Bitter Consequence. Often depicted as a dark woman with four-arms, holding several knives and a man’s severed head, the goddess is usually naked but for a garland of human skulls over her breasts. Sharp fangs hang down either side of her protruding tongue, with blood smeared on her lips. The most famous story about Kali comes from the Sanskrit text, the Devi Mahatmyam:

A demon, Raktabija, was terrorizing the country side, so Kali’s fellow goddesses fought him. But they inadvertently made the situation worse by wounding him, for with every drop of his blood spilled, Raktabija would duplicate himself. So much of his blood was spilled that the battlefield was overcome with his clones. Desperate, the goddesses summoned Kali to join them in their battle.

Red-eyed and roaring, she ripped into Raktabija, sucking the blood from his body, drinking it until he was empty. Thus she slew him and his duplicates.
Intoxicated on the blood of her victims, she danced on the corpses of the slain. Kali’s husband was unconscious and lying amongst them and she danced on him as well.
The destroyer goddess Kali is most often depicted grinding a man under her triumphant heels. It was said that the gore-splattered rites of Kali devotion were so shocking, few could possibly comprehend them. Kali serves as an emblem of the most horrible things imaginable, and by knowing Her, devotees would defeat the horror of their own mortality.

Three-hundred years ago, worshippers sacrificed a boy every day at the Kali temple in Calcutta. Today, many Kali temples substitute pumpkins for sacrifice. But there are still clandestine rituals where the brutal observance carried on. Recently a mother in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh who hacked her toddler son to pieces after a temple priest – or tantric – said Kali would provide limitless worldly treasures for the offering. In 2010 a man from a suburb of Bombay who decapitated his neighbor's eight-year-old daughter to bolster his business and enhance his marriage because the tantric priest swore a human sacrifice would cure all his miseries.

In my research on the history of vampires, I’ve learned that every culture around the world has its own vampire myth, each with its own take on supernatural entities, blood consumption and/or cannibalism. Just a few more examples: Modern Mexico offers the tale of chupacabra, which attack goats and drain their blood—hundreds of witnesses claim to have see this creature first-hand. In Ghana, in West Africa, you should avoid the forests of if you don’t want horrific death by their vampiric creature, the asasabonsam, a monster that dangles its pole-length legs from trees, snatching up people below with its hook-like feet, then hoisting them into the treetops to drain their blood. In an interesting twist, the Korowai tribe of Papua New Guinea tell stories of khakhua, demons who possess men (and men only); the only way to defeat them is to kill the khakhua in his sleep and cannibalize his organs. In this legend, it’s the humans who have to behave like vampires.

But what might have most influenced our current, Western notions of vampires is the story of the hapless peasant, Arnold Paole, who died from a hayride fall in 1726. He was buried in Medvegia, his small Serbian village, but after his interment was blamed for the spate of human and animal deaths that struck the town. There was an official investigation in 1731. Authorities had exhumed Paole’s body and found the inside of his coffin scored by his fingernails. Fresh blood was upon his lips. An Austrian military doctor wrote the police report called Visum et Reprtum; it declared Paole a revenant who rose from his grave to Feed. Word spread across Europe, causing the drawing rooms of high society to thrum with disgust and delight. Thus, the obscure legend of the vampire became well known in most circles in Europe.

Blood-thirsty traditions fill the pages of our history books, even without referencing the famous Vald Tepes III (aka Vald the Impaler) on whom Bram Stoker based Dracula, or Countess Elizabeth Bathory, sometimes called the “woman-Dracula” who used to bathe in the blood of the virginal girls she slaughtered.

As sexy as vampires are today, they have an ugly past—and while they may continue to fill our lives with lust, their history will continue to fill us with dread.

TPV: Bitter Things is Andrew’s first novel.
Visit Andrew online at www.BitterThingsTheBook.com or check out the book, Bitter Things, on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Things-Andrew-Valentine/dp/0881001457/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339171348&sr=1-1

Talk to Me, Mes Amies!

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A great post by Andrew, really good, and a reminder of what vampires are REALLY like...

Alex Lukeman

Tony, we Clansters don't have any problems with the Dark, we do not fear it, we are more terrifying than the Dark.

Tony Howard

The Dark Side

Fri, 8 Jun 2012 08:51:49 -0500

TPV: There should be a ghostly voice announcing this, perhaps with a ghoulish laugh and some eerie music: The dark side…
Instead, I’ll just let Alex Lukeman do it.

Tony-Paul has kindly invited me to post a guest blog here, for which I thank him. Since Tony writes about vampires and such, it seemed appropriate to say a bit about writing and the dark side. I don't think it's possible to write well without some understanding of the dark side. The greater the understanding, the better the result. I'm not talking about the various genres that focus on the dark but about the truth of the human condition.

Warning: Opinion Alert

Whether you write about a children's kindergarten party or Dracula, you can't get away from the dark side of human nature.

As a writer you ignore it at your peril. Unless you are taking pen in hand (minor cliché alert) to produce a technical manual or a mathematical equation, you are probably telling a story with the hope someone might like to read it. Stories require tension. Tension comes from the contrast of dark and light.

There is a section in the Bhagavad-Gita, the great Hindu epic of Krishna and Arjuna, where Arjuna begs Krishna (God) to show him his entirety. Up to this point, Krishna hasn't done that. He's been showing the good stuff, the guy with the blue face and the flowers who plays a flute and represents all that is holy and "good" spiritually, instructing Arjuna in the ways of the path to God.

Krishna tells Arjuna he can't handle it. Arjuna, a mighty warrior who fears nothing, continues his plea. Finally Krishna decides his student needs a bit of ego realignment and reveals his totality, for just an instant. Now Arjuna, reduced to terror, understands: God is everything. Good and evil. Dark and light. All of it. And so is Arjuna and all humankind. It is a profound spiritual instruction.

We could discuss this passage for years. My point isn't about spirituality or religion, though that could be relevant. My point is that being human means we contain everything inside us. The conflict between dark and light is the substance of what drives us. It should be the substance of our writing as well, if we want our characters to be more than cardboard puppets in a poorly lit shadow play. I think the ability to reveal the conflict in our work is possibly the greatest challenge we face as writers.

Think about your own life journey. Tell me, has it been all light? (I believe that qualifies as a rhetorical question). How do you know that? Because the contrast between dark and light has shown you the difference. You know what the light side is because you also know the dark. You have an experience of it.

What is it that captures our attention in a really good story? Aside from a good plot, setting, skills with words, etc., etc., it is the struggle the characters face to overcome their inner demons until there is some kind of final resolution. Resolution does not always mean redemption or triumph, but the great novels lead us into an understanding of the human spirit. Through the writer's eye we are led to an inner epiphany, a realization, a leap into connection with the rest of humanity and our human reality.

Star Wars (the first three movies, not the others) is a fine example of the ridiculous presenting a profound lesson about the sublime. Darth Vader is redeemed through love. It is love that ultimately triumphs over evil. If we did not contain Darth Vader within us, we would never be able to relate to him as a character. It would be like trying to relate to a cactus (no offense intended to the Cactus Lover's Society).

Genuinely frightening writing mirrors back to us our own unconscious and thereby leads us into the dark. A vampire who smiles can be a hell of a lot more scary than one who is clearly the embodiment of evil.

Writing out of the unconscious is a mark of all writers. Incorporating some aspect of the dark side is the mark of all good writers. It can be a disturbing journey to seek out the Demon Lover within. But if you weren't willing to take a few risks you wouldn't be writing in the first place, would you?

TPV: Pen in hand, tongue in cheek, life by the throat, and shoulder to the wheel…try writing in that position! But it can—and has—been done. And when you’re finished, and bloody but unbowed, you just may have a pretty good story on your hands.

Check out Alex’s latest:
http://www.amazon.com/White-Jade-The-PROJECT-ebook/dp/B007FIR01M

The Lance (Book Two) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087458M6

The Seventh Pillar (Book Three)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007EFBI9G

Merci, Alex!

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COMMENTAIRES

Excellent post. I’m a writer too and tend to stray to the darker side of human nature. This blog will come in handy in my future ventures in that direction. Thanks Alex.

Linda Nightingale