Twelve year old Oscar has no friends, he lives with his mother in the community of Blackeberg outside of Stockholm and his days are filled with getting picked on by his classmates and hiding it from his mother. Until one day he meets Eli, a little girl, the same age as him, who has just moved into the same apartment block with her dad. Eli and Oskar strike up a timid friendship that soon deepens and brings quiet hope into Oskar's existence.
But everything is not as it should be in Blackeberg. A teenage boy is found murdered, drained of blood, and the community is wrought up tight as it waits for the horrific crime to be solved. And Oskar begins to notice things about his new friend; how she never is about during the day, and only comes out to play after dark.
Let the Right One In is a story of heartache, sorrow, hatred, love and friendship, but even more than all those things, it's a story, I feel, about being trapped in your own circumstances and being unable to find your way out of them. It beautifully portrays what happens with our actions once the rings on the surface of our everyday begins to spread and affect those around us. I would recommend you go out and buy this book immediately. John Ajvide Lindquist has managed to write a horror novel that both frightens and touches you to the core.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
People
When trying to wrap my mind around a new character it's always - naturally - good to have own experiences to go on. It's not always possible, for example: I've never actually encountered a vampire, or stood in the presence of a wolf in a lone forest, or been to France, so what to do then? Well, imagination goes a long way, but as a foundation for it I need something tangible or what I write won't sound true, and the truth is necessary to manage the trick of making the reader believe in it, even if the situation is stemming only from my own mind.
So, for that first example, I draw from what I know of vampires - the old clichés, the new ways that have already been created to view them, and then I pick and choose what I am to use.
The one thing that I don't mess with when it comes to vampires and their folklore is the allergic-to-daylight bit. They cannot exist in daylight, and that's that. As for all the rest, I take what I know of how they've been portrayed throughout history and literature and I weave my vampire character around these facts, even if I leave most of them out of him or her. Once I know my vampire, I can begin to imagine what I might feel if I ever encountered him or her, and presto - I'm ready to write my story, because the humans that are meant to be in it will ring true since I can now empathise with them.
Empathy is one of the big commodities for a writer, I believe; the ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. You can't personally be every single character - you have to go out of yourself and be inspired by people you know or have met and base characters on them - but for you to infuse them with actual life you will have to write them with delicate fingertips and truly understand them. Psychology is a good thing to know a bit about for this. :)
It's difficult to make every character separate from each other and yet interact in a casual and un-forced way, but once you've written fifty pages or so, you will begin to learn their habits, and you will begin to know what it is you want them to do, what their story is. They reveal it to you as you go along, and even though you can guide them sometimes, those first pages are almost always theirs and not yours. It's very cool.
Of course, research is inevitable when writing about places you've never seen or times in history that you haven't lived through. My latest project that needed a lot of research I believe I will actually research lightly as I write it, get the gist of what it is I'm trying and wishing to say - it begins in the 1100's and spans 800 years into the present day - and once the book is actually finished, and I have figured out where the characters are going and why, then I will begin researching it more heavily, breathing more life and authenticity into the pages dealing with surrounding and behaviour. Of course, some of the ground work for what the era encompassed, both in human thinking and doing, must be found out beforehand. Partly because it will keep the characters in character for that time, but mostly because the storyline needs to see my main character grow and learn from her experiences, and how can I empathize with her if I have no idea what she would be seeing, remembering and learning from?
So, for that first example, I draw from what I know of vampires - the old clichés, the new ways that have already been created to view them, and then I pick and choose what I am to use.
The one thing that I don't mess with when it comes to vampires and their folklore is the allergic-to-daylight bit. They cannot exist in daylight, and that's that. As for all the rest, I take what I know of how they've been portrayed throughout history and literature and I weave my vampire character around these facts, even if I leave most of them out of him or her. Once I know my vampire, I can begin to imagine what I might feel if I ever encountered him or her, and presto - I'm ready to write my story, because the humans that are meant to be in it will ring true since I can now empathise with them.
Empathy is one of the big commodities for a writer, I believe; the ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. You can't personally be every single character - you have to go out of yourself and be inspired by people you know or have met and base characters on them - but for you to infuse them with actual life you will have to write them with delicate fingertips and truly understand them. Psychology is a good thing to know a bit about for this. :)
It's difficult to make every character separate from each other and yet interact in a casual and un-forced way, but once you've written fifty pages or so, you will begin to learn their habits, and you will begin to know what it is you want them to do, what their story is. They reveal it to you as you go along, and even though you can guide them sometimes, those first pages are almost always theirs and not yours. It's very cool.
Of course, research is inevitable when writing about places you've never seen or times in history that you haven't lived through. My latest project that needed a lot of research I believe I will actually research lightly as I write it, get the gist of what it is I'm trying and wishing to say - it begins in the 1100's and spans 800 years into the present day - and once the book is actually finished, and I have figured out where the characters are going and why, then I will begin researching it more heavily, breathing more life and authenticity into the pages dealing with surrounding and behaviour. Of course, some of the ground work for what the era encompassed, both in human thinking and doing, must be found out beforehand. Partly because it will keep the characters in character for that time, but mostly because the storyline needs to see my main character grow and learn from her experiences, and how can I empathize with her if I have no idea what she would be seeing, remembering and learning from?
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Without
The images above are from the finished product stemming from a short film script that I wrote a year and a half ago. I'm so excited looking at these stills because I was unable to be there for the big filming event, and it's the first substantial confirmation I've had that the short has been completed. It is ready for distribution among whatever festivals its director and producer - Natalia Andreadis - sees fit and this is even more exciting to me because I can actually list this film on my rapsheet. Natalia is absolutely amazing and has done a stellar job. I could not be happier with the result. She took my vision and made it her own and it has worked beautifully. I can only thank her most humbly! :)
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