Sarah
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Loved this book! Thank you so much for writing it. Do you have a strategy when it comes to writing normal people's reactions to completely abnormal occurrences?
Scott Hawkins
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[Hi Sarah,
Honestly, writing that sort of thing is a struggle for me. I personally tend to either overreact in a big way or underreact in a big way when something unusual happens. For instance, there's a scene in the book where (SPOILER) a guy is out for a jog and he gets attacked by some dogs. That actually happened to me, more or less. I was jogging through a subdivision and a pack of feral dogs took issue with my presence. I didn't get bitten, but they were definitely not happy with me and there were a lot of them. My actual reaction was "well, there's something you don't see every day." I just kept on jogging. A couple weeks later the dogs actually did attack somebody--not fatally, but badly enough that I felt like maybe I should have been a bit more, I dunno, shocked or something when it almost happened to me.
Other times I get these adrenaline dumps that make me too jittery to be really effective at much of anything. When my Dad died I found out at work, and I just sat at my desk shell-shocked for like ten minutes before I could even stand up. I'm seriously lucky I didn't kill myself driving home--I was pretty out of it.
Looking back on it, what I did when I'm writing was to cheat, honestly. I go for a kind of artificial balance between the two things--enough of a reaction to seem plausible, but not so much that it renders the character completely ineffective within the scene.
That's a pretty good point, honestly. I'll see if I can be a bit more honest in future. That might be kind of funny, too--two characters see the exact same thing and react in completely opposite ways.
Hmm.
(hide spoiler)]
Honestly, writing that sort of thing is a struggle for me. I personally tend to either overreact in a big way or underreact in a big way when something unusual happens. For instance, there's a scene in the book where (SPOILER) a guy is out for a jog and he gets attacked by some dogs. That actually happened to me, more or less. I was jogging through a subdivision and a pack of feral dogs took issue with my presence. I didn't get bitten, but they were definitely not happy with me and there were a lot of them. My actual reaction was "well, there's something you don't see every day." I just kept on jogging. A couple weeks later the dogs actually did attack somebody--not fatally, but badly enough that I felt like maybe I should have been a bit more, I dunno, shocked or something when it almost happened to me.
Other times I get these adrenaline dumps that make me too jittery to be really effective at much of anything. When my Dad died I found out at work, and I just sat at my desk shell-shocked for like ten minutes before I could even stand up. I'm seriously lucky I didn't kill myself driving home--I was pretty out of it.
Looking back on it, what I did when I'm writing was to cheat, honestly. I go for a kind of artificial balance between the two things--enough of a reaction to seem plausible, but not so much that it renders the character completely ineffective within the scene.
That's a pretty good point, honestly. I'll see if I can be a bit more honest in future. That might be kind of funny, too--two characters see the exact same thing and react in completely opposite ways.
Hmm.
(hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
James Spencer
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Just a quick query: will there be a new batch of librarians, will they be children, how might they be raised, is the next POTUS also hostile, how about those other demigods, are blackholes related to yet another realm of spiritual connection? Please answer in the form of a sequel or Trilogy or Saga whichever is required. Thanks!
Bob Morrison
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Found your book here in Canada on Chapter.Indigo site on Heather Reisman's List of Top 20 Novels of 2015. I loved the book! Carolyn was just so darn quirky. Also, so many times I was certain where the plot was heading...but it always went in a completely different direction. Any talk of movie rights being picked up? -Bob
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