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Messing With my Reader's Minds (And my own, inadvertently...)

9/14/2013

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Sometimes, scenes (or chapters) are really hard to write.
Yesterday was a prime example.
For some crazy reason, I decided to take on writing a novel from the point of view of the main antagonist of my series, Kaden. It's a Macbeth-ish negative character arc situation. Throughout the novel, he lies to people and manipulates them. And yet I have an urge to make him sympathetic.
Call me crazy — I may be. Actually, a certain person who reads my stories had a bit of a joking debate with me about whether I was a sociopath too...it was entertaining, to say the least.
Picture
(To the left is a cover of the piece I'm writing, with a link to the piece on Figment.com. Nothing wrong with a little self promotion...)
It came to a point  where I had to write one of the most emotional scenes in the book (besides the climax.) See, during the book, Kaden is always lying to other characters and being not-completely straightforward and his thought process is pretty...unique (See the quote to the right). I'm talking no feelings, just ah well you gotta do what you gotta do.

I can tell she’s about to let me. Mentioning Josh nearly always works. 
However, in this chapter, he is being extremely straightforward. He's going through an emotional breakdown of sorts and trying to hold back flashbacks of a painful childhood memory (not going to say what because that's revealed later in the book). His shield is down and he's feeling emotional and being very honest to the reader with what he's going through.
I didn’t like being left alone with my own thoughts like this.  After all, they tended to turn to dark places.
Later in the series (as this is a prequel of sorts) Kaden goes on to do awful, awful things. I was actually feeling kind of creeped out and sympathetic to him, and I actually asked a certain reader "remind me why I should hate him?" or something to that effect. Her response was "YOU DO NOT LIKE KADEN. HE IS EVIL." My response was "I know but...I feel bad for him." She replied "He is a sociopath. He wants you to feel like that. HE IS EVIL." 
Eventually, I got straightened out. But that really was only the tip of the iceberg...I hadn't posted the update yet!
Someone tells me that I should say that the following reactions are how you know you're writing a sociopathic character right. I don't want to be vain, but I will say that the book is messing with people's minds.
I hate you. You are messing with me again...Him sitting on the bed... can I feel bad for younger him? I'm gonna go cry now... and then wanting, NEEDING to talk about it...Stop messing with my HEAD, PLEASE!!!! *wail*... I'm intrigued and tortured at once. WHY DO YOU DO THIS?!?!? 
Answer: Because I'm a writer.
Not cool...You're making me feel bad for KADEN... of ALL people. It had to be Kaden....
Yeah. Sorry about that. (Although not entirely, because it's pretty incredible that my story messes with people like this...)
Now it's not entirely clear to my readers whether he's a sociopath or just a messed-up dude with a bad past.
And it's going to stay that way.
Of course, next chapter, his shield goes back up...
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    ME!

    I'm a teenage girl who likes writing novels. I enjoy exploring the relationships with characters, creating complex antagonists, and side characters who threaten to take over the plot of the series.. I'm a psychology/science geek who also likes writing and music as you can probably tell from my other blog. 

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    My blogger friend Fairley over at fairleysreviews.blogspot.com nominated me for this award!
    Aurora Sanders

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