To start off with, I just have to get this tidbit of trivia off my chest. Whenever I listen to the song, Tusk by Fleetwood Mac off their album, Tusk, it strikes me that the drum breakdown is exactly the same one from Slipknot's song Only One from their eponymous album. Of course, Fleetwood's album came out in 1979 and Slipknot came out in 1999 so it's clear what came first. Check it out for yourself and see if I'm crazy.
But what I really wanted to talk about is how my emotions have helped me to write more meaningful (at least in my opinion) characterizations. Before I met my amazing wife, I was so closed off to my emotions. Now I alternate between anger and depression with moments of laughter sprinkled here and there. My psychologist says she wants to get a second opinion by my psychiatrist before diagnosing me with bipolar disorder because once it's in my medical record, it's permanent.
Anyway, I enjoy giving some depth to my characters by talking about various emotions they have in response to different situations I place them in. It gives a satisfying richness to the narrative that I like to read as much as I like to write them. The biggest problem my wife and I have with horror movies these days is that many of the characters do stupid things that inevitably lead to their demise. To me, a scary movie would have a character making intelligent choices and doing things exactly the way I would do them, but ends up dying anyway. What's scary about a killer who knows how to kill idiots? A revolving door could do that. Man, I come off sounding like a whiny, cynical asshole sometimes.
Well, at this moment I'm about halfway through writing the sequel to the Nocent book. I uploaded a chapter from the Nocent part 3: Revenant War on Helium.com under the heading Novel excerpts: zombies. I wanted to put out a piece that will exhibit emotion-driven characterization. This is the first morsel of my newest book that I've revealed to the world. Hope you enjoy it!
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