RSS

Got Demons? Use Those Suckers!

06 Jan

1450137_724402270920430_674666324_nAll writers have demons…let’s face it, they are part of the reason we write in the first place. Whether or not those demons are good or bad is purely an individual thing. Some of us try and drink them away others resort to sitting in dark corners cussing at them. I say….use em!

I have always found a place in my writing for my demons. For instance, I am leery of the dark and a smidgen claustrophobic so I have characters in some of my books who are working through those same demons. I know that I am not the only writer who does this. Stephen King has an obvious fear of clowns and Dean Koontz has issues with the possibility of time travel and the bad it can cause. I can point out dozens of writers who use their demons. It’s great therapy too.

There is another reason to use your own demons in your writing…because characters need their own demons to make them more believable and help readers connect to the brokenness that is inside us all. You know your demons better than anyone else so why not share them with some of your characters? Keep in mind you can’t share them with ALL of your characters because that would be redundant but you can share them with a select few and that will help your character development.

 We all have those things that haunt us for whatever reason. We are all, after all, damaged in some way. But rather than pine over not being the perfect person and therefore the perfect writer, realize that those very flaws that you are touting as a bad thing are actually a very good thing for the writer. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t seek therapy if you have visions of murdering your annoying neighbor with a ball-peen hammer but for the most part use your demons. Share those flaws!

© The Writer’s Advice, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

 
%d bloggers like this: