Writing Like a Man with Guest Author Naomi Clark

Writing Like A Man

I’ll be honest. I’ve never written anything from a male point of view before. Actually, I’m already lying – I’ve written a few pieces featuring a male POV, but they’ve never been published and there’s plenty of good reasons for that. So DEMONIZED represented a particular challenge to me, in that it’s entirely from a first-person male perspective, and a particular type of male at that. Ethan Banning is a down-and-out private eye who smokes and drinks too much, is utterly hopeless with women, and desperately in need of some etiquette lessons. Oh, and he’s possessed by a demon that feeds off misery, anger, and despair, forcing Ethan to do some pretty unsavoury things to keep the demon’s influence over him at bay.

So I didn’t just have the challenge of writing a male voice, but also writing a hero who at times is rather unheroic. I mean, you’d be hard-pressed to catch Superman watching porn. The tricky part for me was keeping Ethan both believable and sympathetic. So I turned to my man friends. I say “turned to,” I should probably say “spied upon.” I made careful note of the conversations they had, (mostly focused on Ultimate Fighting Championship and cider), listened to the questions they asked each other, (“how much would you have to be paid to be punched in the face?”), and observed their social habits (all of which seem to revolve around Ultimate Fighting Championship and cider).

In the end I concluded I was hanging around with the wrong men and just started writing. Ethan first appeared in my 2009 novel, AFTERLIFE, so I knew a lot about him already – his sense of humour, his mannerisms and habits were already there, they just needed fleshing out. And I knew how other people saw him. Translating that into how he saw himself was easier than I thought it would be. Once I had a first draft I was happy with, I sent DEMONIZED out to beta readers, hoping they’d tell me Ethan “sounded” like a real guy and not a girl’s interpretation of a guy. I was really expecting bad news – not enough references to cider and being punched in the face, for example. So I was extremely surprised when not one of my beta readers commented on Ethan’s voice at all.

I’m going to assume that means I did a good job. Hopefully readers will agree. But if you do read DEMONIZED, and you do think I should have included more UFC references, please feel free to let me know!

Author Bio

Naomi Clark lives in Cambridge and is a mild-mannered office worker by day, but a slightly crazed writer by night. She has a perfectly healthy obsession with giant sea creatures and a preference for vodka-based cocktails. When she's not writing, Naomi is probably either reading or watching 80s cartoon shows, and sometimes she manages to do all three at once.

Find me online!

http://naomijay.blogspot.com/
http://naomi-jay.livejournal.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/naomi_jay
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Naomi-Clark-author/122375344483965

Worldbuilding for the Undead (Or, Do Wraiths Eat Bacon?) with Naomi Clark

Whilst AFTERLIFE was doing the rounds at my writers' group, one key issue that kept coming up was wraith physiology. My main character, Yasmin Stoker, is a wraith who can take either the form of a human being or mist. And this became a huge sticking point, because everyone wanted to know if she had a fully functioning human body when she's in human form. Does she need to eat, sleep, use the toilet, etc? Does she breathe? If she has lungs, a heart, whatever, where do they go when she turns to mist?

And the answer was mostly, I don't actually know. I wrote the first half of this book for Nanowrimo 2007, so at the time it was just a case of "get the words down, sod it if it doesn't make sense!" So I didn't stop to think about whether or not Yasmin had human needs whilst in human form. I know she sleeps (mostly for narrative convenience; a character who's awake 24 hours a day requires a lot more plot than I had at the time). I know she eats human food, but she doesn't need to - it's a comfort thing. The chapter that really sparked off the debate for my writers’ group was one where Yasmin is in bed eating a bacon sandwich. Do wraiths eat bacon? Inquiring minds wanted to know and I had no answers!

Most of the other undead creatures in the book were pretty well developed by that stage in the writing. I knew my vampires, my Lich Lords, my ghouls; how they functioned, what they needed to survive, and what could hurt them. Yasmin was a bit different and I hadn't really figured out all the answers by the time I finished the first draft. Having spent hours agonising over whether or not she had kidney stones and could digest bacon, I came to the conclusion that I might be overthinking things.

But how can you ever be sure? How much detail is too much? Are these the tiny details on which an entire book will rise or fall? Or are they the tiny details that readers will overlook because they accept that we're dealing with supernatural creatures?

I started to set the rules for Yasmin more firmly in place as I redrafted with my group’s feedback, figuring out how much physical damage she could take, what happens to her bacon sandwiches when she turns to mist, and whether a vampire could kill her. And in the end, I think I resolved all the burning questions. I swear though, if I ever have to spend another writers' group meeting trying to explain why vampire sandwiches are not going to happen, I'm scrapping the whole book. It's bacon all the way.

About Author Naomi Clark

Naomi Clark lives in Cambridge and is a mild-mannered office worker by day, but a slightly crazed writer by night. Her short fiction has appeared in ezines from Midnight Times to Dark Fire Fiction. She has a perfectly healthy obsession with giant sea creatures and a preference for vodka-based cocktails. When she's not writing, Naomi is probably either reading or watching 80s cartoon shows, and sometimes she manages to do all three at once. Her debut novel, AFTERLIFE is out now from Damnation Books, and the first of her URBAN WOLF novels, SILVER KISS out now from QueeredFiction.

Visit her livejournal at http://naomi-jay.livejournal.com/

Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/naomi_jay

Interested in AFTERLIFE?

One lucky reader has the chance to win a pdf copy of

Naomi's ebook AFTERLIFE

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post

Guest Blog and Giveaway with Naomi Clark

Ayla Hammond has come home.After years as a lone wolf in a self-imposed exile she’s rejoining the pack and trying to mend fences with her parents.She’s convinced them to accept her girlfriend, but can a lone wolf change her ways?As if homecoming wasn’t hard enough, Ayla also can’t help getting involved in a missing person case.With pressure to solve the case mounting from the pack alphas, Ayla is starting to question where her loyalties lie –
and if a return to the pack she left behind is really what she wants.

In the world of my novel, SILVER KISS, werewolves and humans are separate species living alongside each other. But even though my werewolves never started out as human, they still have some very human habits, and hobbies. One of my characters, Vince, is a fan of unusual beers, for example, and spends a lot of time forcing everything from banana beer to chocolate beer on his friends.

Another werewolf, Glenn, spends his nights dressed up as Gloriana and belting out classic jazz and swing numbers in the local gay club. My heroine, Ayla, has a weakness for pulpy novels about demons and vampires, and would secretly love to believe such creatures really exist. And of course, all my werewolves appreciate a good hunt through one of the parks and gardens around the city, preferably followed by a nice, juicy steak.

My werewolves like good restaurants and family dinners, need hospitals and police stations, just like the humans they live with. After all, you can’t spend all your time running around on all fours, can you? And hey – werewolves need hobbies beyond chasing rabbits and deer around, right? Particularly one of my werewolves – Joel. Joel has a pretty unusual phobia for a werewolf. But you’ll learn about that in SILVER KISS…

Or if you’ve already got a theory, I’ve got a great contest for you. There’s an ebook for a winner at the end of today and everyone who enters now will also be in the running for winning a signed print copy of SILVER KISS drawn at the end of the week.

Just answer this simple question in your comment to be entered into both competitions:

What do you think Joel’s phobia is?

Follow the SILVER KISS BLOG TOUR (http://www.queeredfiction.com/silverkiss.htm) for more chances to win. Check out the itinerary and join me on the next step of the tour. And there are even more prizes on 1st March, the official SILVER KISS release day and I’m live for a Twitter Release Party #silverkiss.

Visit the Silver Kiss page at http://www.queeredfiction.com/silverkiss.htm for a reading as Naomi Clark reads from Wolf Strap! (Released in parts over the course of the blog tour!)

Monday Musings February 22. 2010

So I had a busy weekend, mostly writing and at night watching the first season of True Blood on DVD. I have to admit I am totally hooked. I am bummed the second season doesn't come out on DVD until May. It's a very interesting show, kinda odd, really quirky and totally addicting. It makes me want to get HBO. So where are they on the seasons? Has the third season already aired or is currently airing now or about to start?...

Kim Harrison's Black Magic Sanction is officially released tomorrow! Woo Hoo! I hope to go to one of her signings this coming weekend, she's actually coming to Michigan! I want to go Friday to the one in Ann Arbor but it all depends on my husband's work schedule. Hopefully he can make it because I am not driving that far alone.

This week at Fang-tastic Books Naomi Clark will be here as part of online book tour and Nicole Peeler will be here for an interview on Friday.

Plus I have a few announcements and reviews that will be going up this week. Hope you all enjoy.