Author Kiri R. Newton has stopped by today with a guest post for the Undertow blog tour.
Black, white and fifty shades of grey
Relax, this will not be about ‘that’ book or why I dislike it or anything of the sort instead more about writing entirely in grey tones. What do I mean? Well, the formula for writing a good story is actually quite simple; characters, location, conflict, villains, more conflict for extra measure and resolution. In every story you come across you will be introduced to the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ who will spend the entire story fighting over or for something and in the end there will be a winner and the story is over. It’s the classic tale of black and white that is in every story on the face of this earth because as humans we’re wired to find the light, the dark and then expect a result. Undertow though is a little different. Ok sure, we’re introduced to the good guys and then the bad guys but are they what they seem? Dasan knew who Zoe was right from the moment he clapped eyes onto her and yet doesn’t reveal to his son at least until much later, let alone Zoe. Then when he explains Zoe’s alleged destiny to her, he skimps on details. He also skimps on the story of how the mess started in the first place, simply because it suited him. For a good guy, Dasan is awfully shady about some of this goings on in the present; let alone what he got up to in the past. Then we have the antagonist, Nesoi. Her motives are painted black by Dasan but are they really? When mer-folk set up their kingdoms, Forsthwyth in the North Sea was the centre only to be moved to the Pacific even though it was promised to be returned. Nesoi simply wants to return the throne to where she, a few others believe it belongs and carry on her father’s goal who wanted to do the same but died before seeing results. Then there’s Nesoi’s son Nox. For all its worth, he could be the legitimate heir to the throne and is being denied it by Dasan. We don’t actually know. Sure Nesoi’s manner of going about things is a little crooked but Dasan is no better. When we compare the protagonist and the antagonist they are quite similar as well. Both are leaders not followers, not afraid of treading on anyone else’s toes to get their point across and ‘means to an end’ type people. Not to mention the fact that they are both sassy chain-smokers with questionable dress sense. This then jumps down to the next generation where Nox is the polar opposite identical twin of Josiah. When you strip away the outer layers, they could be the same person just with two very different ways of doing things. And this was entirely my motive. Straight out black and white in a story is boring. When you hear the creepy music you know who is going to pop out of the shadows with a hunting knife and wreak havoc. What’s far more interesting is being told whose right and whose wrong but then finding yourself questioning it? Are they really all they make out to be? Human nature makes us question what we believe and I wanted my readers to do just that.
About Kiri R. Newton
Its weird right but as an author I could tell you about my characters inside out and yet when people ask me to talk about myself I go all quiet. Anyways, here I go.
I am a child of ‘91 born in Jandowae, a tiny little town out past Dalby. When I was five my parents decided to pack everything up and move to Tonga in the South Pacific after Dad visited there and mum fell in love with the place after reading a book about it. So I grew up in a third world country, fluent in a second language by the time I was eight and lived amongst the locals who I was friends with.
When I was thirteen my father passed away and due to the fact that the government refused to pay my mum a pension over there like they did my father, we were forced to move back to Australia.
As for my writing career, I started writing progressively longer short stories in Grade 5 where one teacher noted on my report card that ‘I had unique ideas and an unusual talent’. By Grade 7 I had completed my first novel a post-apocalyptic fiction where cats are the highest life form and live basically as we do and follows the lives of a litter of cats, the characters based on a litter of cats belonging to my neighbour. I continued writing different things from horsey stories to Phantom of the Opera fan-fiction right through my teenage years, nothing serious, mostly just a lot of scribbling.
In Grade 12 I realized that if I was going to be serious about being a writer I needed to finish stories, not just have a lot of random scribbles to my name. So forgoing all my assignments I finished my second book called Dynamite which is an Australiana tale about a racehorse. Two years later I went on holidays to Fiji, came home and three months later Undertow was completed. In the middle there I wrote a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic called The Dark Assassin with my now ex-boyfriend. The year after that I completed Hazardous, which will be my next published title.
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