My novel ‘Son of a Serial Killer’ arrived courtesy of frustrations in my life.
The dark thoughts that can run through the mind of the broken-hearted, the deceived and the lonely need a way out. To keep these emotions bottled up inside won’t do any good, especially to a sentimental person, any psychologist would tell you that.
Some people under these pressures take to running in the streets, until they’re physically drained and tired enough to sleep off their worries until another day. Others just want to fight, to smash things up and break them into a thousand pieces, showing everyone who doesn’t seem to give a damn that there’s a lost soul that needs saving.
I’ve wanted to lash out, too, but didn’t have the balls to hurt anyone. And I wasn’t crazy enough, no matter how upset I’ve been, to consider self-harming as a viable option. I can’t really run due to my shin splints, so what to do? How to get these raw and powerful emotions out of my system?
I put every single emotion I went through in that depressing period of my life down onto paper, scribbling away as the tears fell from my cheeks and distorted the words that I’d just written.
‘Son of a Serial Killer’ isn’t about my life, per se, but it captures all the pain, all the anger, and eventually all the relief that I felt during and after my darkest of days.
A common tip given to writers is to write about what you know, and if you’ve felt the most powerful of emotions, like heartache or love, joy or pain, then these are the vital ingredients that a book needs to have that ‘realism’ that people often talk about.
I guess I would relate it to character actors, who lead the life of the character they are playing as closely as possible, to live and breathe and feel the way their fictional persona would, thus giving the type of performance that would leave the viewer wondering if they really were who the portrayed themselves to be, that maybe they’d have trouble crossing back to reality.
I am not a trained actor, but I do write from the heart, as well as those dark little corners in the back of the mind. So the end result is the same; a believable and interesting story that runs on the raw emotions of its characters.
You can buy ‘Son of a Serial Killer’ on the following links…
Amazon US – http://amzn.to/102XHxk
Amazon UK – http://amzn.to/18IFyI8
James Ross Fiction 