: Re: How to add various social themes in the story? I'm working on my first novel, which revolves around revenge and violent cycles of human nature for more than 1.5 years. While working on some

@Harper186

Vote Up Vote Down

I propose a two-pronged approach.
The first prong is research. To understand what makes your characters tick, research what violence does to real-life people. You haven't specified what sort of violence you write about, but let's take domestic abuse as an example. You could read scientific literature on the subject, talk to survivors (if they're willing), or perhaps find a support group on the internet.
The book is hardly comprehensive on the subject of how experiencing violence shapes people (there's probably not enough paper in the world), but as an introduction and useful point of reference I can recommend The Emotional Wound Thesaurus.
The second prong is to have an honest conversation with your characters. You've been writing for well over a year. I imagine you know the events of your plot by heart, and also where character actions feel contrived and emotions fake. Print your work and highlight the suspect bits, then ask your characters why they acted or felt the way they did.
You'll likely learn something about their backstory you didn't know yet. Why did the girl not run away from her abusive boyfriend? Maybe when she grew up, her father was exactly like him and she doesn't know any better relationships aren't supposed to be like that. Or perhaps your character snaps back at you. No, I did run away. You must have misheard when writing the first draft.
Either way, depending on the answer you can correct the story by adding in relevant backstory or by changing the flow of events.

(0)

Login to post a comment!