Mind Games

Last week I witnessed a women getting run over by a car. 

Although the woman survived the incident with only cuts and scrapes, the image still burns in my mind. I see her look of dismay and her flailing arms at the moment she was hit. I watch as my mind replays the horror of watching the car push her body into the street like some discarded piece of trash. The vision is as clear as if it were happening again right in front of me.

Episodic memory is a person's unique memory of a specific event. It is not completely understood why we remember certain instances in our life while others go unrecorded, but it is believed that emotion plays a key role in our episodic memories. The emotions we experience at the time help to bake the event into our long-term memory so that it becomes more strongly ingrained.

When I was writing Windborne, I found myself drawing heavily on my episodic memory of events that had happened in my childhood. As I wrote, I relived these experiences and was able to describe them in great detail. Writers of psychological thrillers often employ this technique through the use of flashback. Many times the character's motivation is revealed through incidences that resurface in their episodic memory. These memories are often triggered by something they experience in the present that immediately sends them back into the past where they relive the experience for the benefit of the reader.

Episodic memory is unique to each individual. That is why eye-witness accounts often vary. However, the recounting of the memory will often trigger a similar memory in the listener. This tool can be invaluable in producing empathy. It can help the reader identify and sympathize with a character.

Many readers of Windborne have shared that they experienced similar events in their lives or they remember stories handed down through the generations that were similar in nature. This is a key element in all of my writing...to touch the reader's memory and sensitivities so that they can not only appreciate the story, but also experience it.

Wanda DeHaven Pyle is the author of Windborne, The Stone House Legacy and The Steel Canyon Legacy available on Amazon and Kindle at
http://amazon.com/author/wandapyle.

Follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wandadehavenpyle

and Twitter at https://twitter.com/pyle_wanda

The Story Before the Story

Regardless of purpose or plot, three-dimensional characters that live and breathe and walk around in your head are what give a story life. One critical way to breathe life into a character is to provide a backstory. Generally, this is the character’s history that precedes the events of the plot and lends depth or believability to the main story.  It also provides motivation for the way the character responds to these events.

Backstory may be revealed by various means, including flashbacks, dialogue, direct narration, or recollection. In Windborne, most of the backstory is revealed through direct narration and dialogue. Each character’s story begins chronologically earlier than the narrative of primary interest.  This was done to provide motivation and believability for the character’s reactions later in the story.  For example, Virginia lavishes her love on her handicapped sister and her first born child. When she loses both, she begins to withhold affection from anyone else close to her and instead becomes overprotective of her few possessions. Helen grows up neglected and insecure: as a result, she ties herself to an abusive relationship thinking it is what she deserves. Leah longs for the security and stability she never had as a child, only to discover that it comes with a price—her independence.

In The Stone House Legacy, the backstory will be revealed through a combination of flashback and narration. Unlike Windborne, the backstory will not chronologically precede the main story. Instead it will be revealed gradually as the story unfolds.  The protagonist and antagonist will be more clearly defined so the challenge will be to find the “fatal flaw” in the antagonist that makes him vulnerable and the single redeeming characteristic in the antagonist that makes him sympathetic. Both must be revealed at just the right time to move the plot forward without giving anything away!

Many writers are masters of the plot, but fall short when it comes to making their characters real enough to be believable. It takes time to get to know your characters personally. To do so means getting inside their heads. In discovering their past and their memories, you must also analyze the effect these things have on the person they become in your narrative. You must get beneath the surface and really get to know your character.  If they are real to you, chances are they will be real to the reader.

Sometimes this means revealing more of your own past than you may be comfortable with. The good news is that you can still hide behind the thin veil of your character and choose just how much or how little to reveal. You can also embellish those details that help to move the plot forward and eliminate those that do not.  In Windborne, I  resurrected some painful memories, but the result was not only cathartic, it took the past off my shoulders and placed it squarely on the shoulders of my character.  I no longer have to own in alone!