About Me
- Satima Flavell
- Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- I am based in Perth, Western Australia. You might enjoy my books - The Dagger of Dresnia, the first book of the Talismans Trilogy, is available at all good online book shops as is Book two, The Cloak of Challiver. Book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. I trained in piano and singing at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. I also trained in dance (Scully-Borovansky, WAAPA) and drama (NIDA). Since 1987 I have been writing reviews of performances in all genres for a variety of publications, including Music Maker, ArtsWest, Dance Australia, The Australian and others. Now semi-retired, I still write occasionally for the ArtsHub website.
My books
The first two books of my trilogy, The Talismans, (The Dagger of Dresnia, and book two, The Cloak of Challiver) are available in e-book format from Smashwords, Amazon and other online sellers. Book three of the trilogy, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation.I also have a short story, 'La Belle Dame', in print - see Mythic Resonance below - as well as well as a few poems in various places.
The best way to contact me is via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/satimaflavell
Buy The Talismans
The first two books of The Talismans trilogy were published by Satalyte Publications, which, sadly, has gone out of business. However, The Dagger of Dresnia and The Cloak of Challiver are available as ebooks on the usual book-selling websites, and book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation.
The easiest way to contact me is via Facebook.
The Dagger of Dresnia
The Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans
Mythic Resonance
Mythic Resonance is an excellent anthology that includes my short story 'La Belle Dame', together with great stories from Alan Baxter, Donna Maree Hanson, Sue Burstynski, Nike Sulway and nine more fantastic authors! Just $US3.99 from Amazon.
Got a Kindle? Check out Mythic Resonance.
Follow me on Twitter
Share a link on Twitter
For Readers, Writers & Editors
- A dilemma about characters
- Adelaide Writers Week, 2009
- Adjectives, commas and confusion
- An artist's conflict
- An editor's role
- Authorial voice, passive writing and the passive voice
- Common misuses: common expressions
- Common misuses: confusing words
- Common misuses: pronouns - subject and object
- Conversations with a character
- Critiquing Groups
- Does length matter?
- Dont sweat the small stuff: formatting
- Free help for writers
- How much magic is too much?
- Know your characters via astrology
- Like to be an editor?
- Modern Writing Techniques
- My best reads of 2007
- My best reads of 2008
- My favourite dead authors
- My favourite modern authors
- My influential authors
- Planning and Flimmering
- Planning vs Flimmering again
- Psychological Spec-Fic
- Readers' pet hates
- Reading, 2009
- Reality check: so you want to be a writer?
- Sensory detail is important!
- Speculative Fiction - what is it?
- Spelling reform?
- Substantive or linking verbs
- The creative cycle
- The promiscuous artist
- The revenge of omni rampant
- The value of "how-to" lists for writers
- Write a decent synopsis
- Write a review worth reading
- Writers block 1
- Writers block 2
- Writers block 3
- Writers need editors!
- Writers, Depression and Addiction
- Writing in dialect, accent or register
- Writing it Right: notes for apprentice authors
Interviews with authors
My Blog List
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Favourite Sites
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Blog Archive
Places I've lived: Manchester, UK
Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia
Places I've lived: Geelong, Australia
Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW
Places I've Lived - Sydney
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Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier
Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA
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Places I've lived: High View, WV
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Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA
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Wednesday 27 November 2013
Hormones and Reading
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
Last weekend, I attended a very interesting day at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, in Greenmount, which is on the outskirts of Perth, Western Australia. There were two workshops, both run by Perth author Nikki Logan.
The first one lasted three hours, and was about how reading impacts the human brain, and how to enrich your writing by helping readers to get the absorption experience they crave. Nikki provided us with interesting info on the bio-chemistry of arousal. We're not talking sexual arousal here, you understand, but arousal of all kinds - the visceral arousal of a good thriller, the emotional arousal of romance, the intellectual arousal of a mystery, the sensual arousal of erotic fiction and the creative arousal of speculative fiction, Of course, you can have more than one kind of arousal in a novel, and intellectual arousal can go with non-fiction, too, so it's a good thing for all writers to know about.
When I posted my doings to Facebook, one of my friends was a bit uneasy, and she asked in a comment. 'Do you think it's ethically right to chemically addict people to your (plural) writing?'
The fact is that when we sit down to get absorbed in something, certain hormonal activity will occur. So knowing how to get people absorbed is helping them to have that experience. You know what it's like when you really get into a book - sit down to read at 10.00 AM and next thing you know it's 2.00 PM and you're starving so you have to go and get something to eat, but you resent leaving the book! It's all because of Dopamine and his mates, and that's what I wrote in reponse .
My friend responded with "'helping them have that experience" sounds like manipulation to me! There have already been great and gripping books where writers didn't consciously do this.'
Indeed there have, but they were written by frighteningly talented writers who knew instinctively how to get those hormones flowing. As a craftsman writer, I have to learn how to do it. The experience for the reader is the same, whether the writer does it consciously or unconsciously - and it's the experience that readers want! It's no different from film techniques, where they deliberately set out to scare you, make you laugh or have you on the edge of your seat with excitement. It's the hormones that do it in all cases and it's the very reason that readers read and viewers view!
I understood where my friend was coming from, though. There was a time when I refused to go to the movies because I resented 'having my emotions manipulated'. Yet I still read books and listened to music! I told a friend why I didn't go to movies and she burst out laughing. 'Don't be silly,' she said. 'That's exactly why I go to movies!'
The penny dropped. I realised that it is the job of the creative artist in whatever field to manipulate the emotions - to make us laugh or cry, to make us know what it is like to be chased in the dark by a nameless horror, to rejoice at the birth of a child, to grieve at a death, to make us remember the joy of lying on the beach and getting sunburnt with our first lovers ...
In short, all the arts are about the human experience. At the end of a good film, ballet, opera, play, piano recital, rock concert, book or art exhibition, we should feel something. And, if it's an especially good work, we might have learnt a new way of looking at our own experiences of life and what makes us tick, both individually and collectively. Yes, we are paying to 'have our emotions manipulated'. And that, my friends, is a very good thing, and I want to learn how to do it well. If you want to learn, too, hie thee to yon Amazon and buy Nikki Logan's book, The Chemistry of Reading.
Nikki's afternoon workshop was about Marketing and Branding. I learnt a great deal from this too, and that's great, because as I have triumphantly announced, I have recently sold my first novel to Satalyte Publishing. I came away from Nikki's second workshop with lots of ideas on brands, promises and position statements, among other things. Watch this space as I try some of them out!
Emotions picture by Toddatkins (http://batonrougecounseling.net/managing-emotions/) [CC0], via Wikimedia
The first one lasted three hours, and was about how reading impacts the human brain, and how to enrich your writing by helping readers to get the absorption experience they crave. Nikki provided us with interesting info on the bio-chemistry of arousal. We're not talking sexual arousal here, you understand, but arousal of all kinds - the visceral arousal of a good thriller, the emotional arousal of romance, the intellectual arousal of a mystery, the sensual arousal of erotic fiction and the creative arousal of speculative fiction, Of course, you can have more than one kind of arousal in a novel, and intellectual arousal can go with non-fiction, too, so it's a good thing for all writers to know about.
When I posted my doings to Facebook, one of my friends was a bit uneasy, and she asked in a comment. 'Do you think it's ethically right to chemically addict people to your (plural) writing?'
The fact is that when we sit down to get absorbed in something, certain hormonal activity will occur. So knowing how to get people absorbed is helping them to have that experience. You know what it's like when you really get into a book - sit down to read at 10.00 AM and next thing you know it's 2.00 PM and you're starving so you have to go and get something to eat, but you resent leaving the book! It's all because of Dopamine and his mates, and that's what I wrote in reponse .
My friend responded with "'helping them have that experience" sounds like manipulation to me! There have already been great and gripping books where writers didn't consciously do this.'
Indeed there have, but they were written by frighteningly talented writers who knew instinctively how to get those hormones flowing. As a craftsman writer, I have to learn how to do it. The experience for the reader is the same, whether the writer does it consciously or unconsciously - and it's the experience that readers want! It's no different from film techniques, where they deliberately set out to scare you, make you laugh or have you on the edge of your seat with excitement. It's the hormones that do it in all cases and it's the very reason that readers read and viewers view!
I understood where my friend was coming from, though. There was a time when I refused to go to the movies because I resented 'having my emotions manipulated'. Yet I still read books and listened to music! I told a friend why I didn't go to movies and she burst out laughing. 'Don't be silly,' she said. 'That's exactly why I go to movies!'
The penny dropped. I realised that it is the job of the creative artist in whatever field to manipulate the emotions - to make us laugh or cry, to make us know what it is like to be chased in the dark by a nameless horror, to rejoice at the birth of a child, to grieve at a death, to make us remember the joy of lying on the beach and getting sunburnt with our first lovers ...
In short, all the arts are about the human experience. At the end of a good film, ballet, opera, play, piano recital, rock concert, book or art exhibition, we should feel something. And, if it's an especially good work, we might have learnt a new way of looking at our own experiences of life and what makes us tick, both individually and collectively. Yes, we are paying to 'have our emotions manipulated'. And that, my friends, is a very good thing, and I want to learn how to do it well. If you want to learn, too, hie thee to yon Amazon and buy Nikki Logan's book, The Chemistry of Reading.
Nikki's afternoon workshop was about Marketing and Branding. I learnt a great deal from this too, and that's great, because as I have triumphantly announced, I have recently sold my first novel to Satalyte Publishing. I came away from Nikki's second workshop with lots of ideas on brands, promises and position statements, among other things. Watch this space as I try some of them out!
Emotions picture by Toddatkins (http://batonrougecounseling.net/managing-emotions/) [CC0], via Wikimedia
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4 comments:
How very interesting Satima. In fact I would imagine if our hormones are not stimulated in some way, we would come away from the movie dissatisfied or put down the book disappointed or whatever. If I were a writer I would certainly grab that information.
Good luck with your book. Keep us updated.
Tht's what Nikki said, too, Jo - it's a fact a prospective purchaser will not want to buy a book if s/he reads the first couple of pages and is not immediately engaged by it, which, I suppose, explains why we are constantly told to start our stories 'in media res' - in the middle of things, where there's some action. The old style of novel-writing, where you could start with lengthy descriptions and introducing characters, has gone in this age of instant gratification!
Hi Satima. I'm following a link from Jo's blog. I'm a Queenslander. My latest novel is in three parts - the third part is Western Australia in the 1920s. I feel it was good timing to find your blog and see what you offer.
I"m adding you to my blogroll...
Denise
Nice site, Denise! Lots of interactive stuff, which is always good. I shall link to it in my blog roll, too.
You might like to consider adding my publisher http://satalyte.com.au/submissions/ to your 'Publishers open to submissions' list. They are a new company and open to all genres.