characters

The Mess Of Us Is Released Next Week!

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Only a week to go until my 23rd book is released…

https://books2read.com/u/4NNka6

Exactly one week from now, my 23rd book, which just so happens to be the sequel to my first ever book, will be released! The Mess Of Us came out way back in 2013.

This is very exciting for several reasons. Of course, it is always exciting to release a new book and it never gets old holding that book in your hands and knowing that you did it!

It’s extra exciting because it’s taken me so long to get around to writing the sequel. I did have ideas for it years ago but didn’t do anything with them for a very long time. Then, a couple of years back I started to think about how the first book ended and that got me wondering exactly what the characters would have done next…

I decided to set the sequel two years after the events of the first book. A violent altercation between Joe and his oldest brother, Leon, led everyone in the book to an uncertain place, fraught with anger, fear, resentment and guilt.

I started thinking a lot about Leon. He is a villain through and through in the first book. Main character and narrator Lou describes him best:

“Leon scares me. I don’t like being in his presence. He makes me feel uncomfortable, but I am unable to really articulate why. He wants to be a hard man; he wants to not care about anyone or anything, as if somehow, he believes this to be the best way to go through life. It is what he seeks to achieve. Not giving a shit. Dealing drugs, if that is what he is doing, (and we can strongly suppose that it is), is just his latest ploy to try to achieve this. He is bizarrely determined to live as crooked and brutal a life as possible, and you can see it in every inch of him – his empty, hard eyes, his lack of remorse or empathy for anything or anyone; the way his body ripples and bristles, as if every muscle within it has been injected with pure blind rage. I wonder whom he is trying to impress, and I can only imagine that it is himself.”

But there are moments in The Mess Of Me where Lou concedes that Leon didn’t exactly have a kind or caring upbringing. As the oldest, he is the scapegoat in their dysfunctional and often violent family:

‘Yeah, he grabbed the frying pan and clocked Mick over the head with it. Jesus Christ there was blood everywhere. He had to have eight stitches.’
‘And the police turned up.’
‘And arrested Leon. Mum and Mick told them to.’
I turn my head and look at the side of Joe’s face. ‘Joe, I’ve never really thought about it much until now, but you do know that is really disgusting, don’t you?’ I watch as Joe nods back at me. ‘He was about fourteen then? He was just trying to protect his mum. I’ve never ever felt sorry for Leon before, but thinking about it now, that was pretty harsh on him.’
‘He’s hard to feel sorry for.’
‘Do you think your mum and Mick ever feel sorry about that? Letting him get taken away, when it was them fighting in the first place? I couldn’t live with myself.’
Joe snorts again. ‘They always think they’re right,’ he replies. ‘Doesn’t matter what you say or do. Doesn’t matter if you prove them wrong or whatever. Neither of them are ever fucking wrong, ever. So no, I don’t think they would ever feel guilty about that.’

It was moments like this one that made Lou wonder about Leon. In The Mess Of Me, she was disgusted by him and frightened of him, but she was also endlessly curious about him and his secret, shady life.

It made me think what had driven Leon to a life of crime. Lack of money and parental support at home are often factors that drive youngsters towards crime. Children from deprived areas are far more likely to be groomed into running drugs for gangs, for example, and in The Mess of Us, as both Lou and Joe attempt to get past what Leon did, she finally discovers how he got into crime:

‘Leon, how old were you were you first started doing it?’
‘Thirteen,’ he replies without hesitation. My eyes grow wider. I think back, trying to picture him at thirteen. He had longer hair back then. He was always bigger than us but he wasn’t huge, or muscled. He was just a kid. I’m still staring, feeling dazed as the realisation hits me. He frowns back at me. ‘What?’
‘I mean… How? How did…’
‘This older kid at school,’ he says. ‘He let us try a bit of grass for free. After school, walking home. Me and Travis, some others. Not long after that he wanted us to pay for it and not long after that he wanted us to, you know. Run errands.’
Shit. I slump back and stare ahead. I had never imagined it like this. I had only ever seen Leon as the aggressor, the bully, the criminal. I had never once imagined that someone else had done this to him, lured him in, made him promises, got him on side. At thirteen…

The Mess Of Us is about a lot of things. The main plot follows Lou and Joe grappling with an unplanned pregnancy alongside dealing with the fact Leon has just been released from prison. But it is also a story about forgiveness and redemption and about what happens to people to turn them hard and cold…

And what is even more exciting for me is that by the time I finished writing it, The Mess Of Us gave me an amazing and unexpected gift!

An idea for a brand new book! A book connecting all of my characters who lives inhabit and cross paths within the same universe. A book that would tie up all of their original stories, whilst dealing with the mystery of a missing child, and delving into Leon more fully as a character.

I had the best fun writing it. It was the easiest and fastest book I’ve ever written, probably because I already knew all the characters so well!

It’s called The Dark Finds You and I hope to release it towards the end of 2025, so stay tuned. I will be posting a lot about it and how it connects to my other books nearer the time!

Meanwhile, I’d really appreciate it if you grabbed a copy of The Mess Of Us whilst it’s still just 99p for the ebook! It does help if you have read the first book, but it can certainly be read as a standalone.

Thank you!

Here is the blurb:

“Dear World, so, obviously we made a mess of it. Inevitably. Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing to you again, would I?”

What do you do when the man who beat your boyfriend into a coma is about to be released from prison? What do you do when that man is your boyfriend’s older brother who wants to make amends?

Now a couple, Lou and Joe are struggling to get over the traumatic events of two years ago. When Joe’s brother Leon is released from prison, they must decide if either of them are able to forgive and forget what he did.
Meanwhile, an unexpected pregnancy throws their lives into chaos and when tragedy reawakens Lou’s self-destructive tendencies, she faces losing everything they have built. Can she fight her body image demons once again? Can either of them trust Leon? As Joe and Lou try to decide whether bad people can truly change, they are about to have one mess of a summer.

The Mess Of Us is Available to Preorder!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

The sequel to my debut novel, The Mess Of Me, is coming soon.

https://amzn.eu/d/1tSsuD1

Exciting news! The Mess Of Us is nearly here! Over ten years have passed since I published my debut YA novel, The Mess Of Me, but I’m delighted to share that the sequel can now be preordered on Amazon! I only have the ebook set up at the moment and it is currently discounted at just 99p. I will have the paperback version set up soon, followed by both ebook and paperback on multiple platforms.

Here is the blurb:

“Dear World, so, obviously we made a mess of it. Inevitably. Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing to you again, would I?”

What do you do when the man who beat your boyfriend into a coma is about to be released from prison? What do you do when that man is your boyfriend’s older brother who wants to make amends?

Now a couple, Lou and Joe are struggling to get over the traumatic events of two years ago. When Joe’s brother Leon is released from prison, they must decide if either of them are able to forgive and forget what he did.
Meanwhile, an unexpected pregnancy throws their lives into chaos and when tragedy reawakens Lou’s self-destructive tendencies, she faces losing everything they have built. Can she fight her body image demons once again? Can either of them trust Leon? As Joe and Lou try to decide whether bad people can truly change, they are about to have one mess of a summer.

This sequel has been a long time coming but as you know, I have been very busy writing and publishing other books within this universe, as well as The Day The Earth Turned series. November saw the release of At Night We Played In The Road, which is a spin-off from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, and The Mess Of Us, which also connects to these books, will be released on February 14th 2025.

There will then be one final book in this universe, The Dark finds You, which I hope to release in the summer of 2025. That book is a crossover book, taking characters from lots of the other books in order to tie up all their stories.

For example, at the end of The Mess Of Us you might wonder what happens next to Leon, whose redemption arc is a pivotal plot point of the book, and you will find out in The Dark Finds You. This final book will basically pick up where The Mess Of Us ends!

If you are new to my books and are interested in gritty, character led stories that share a universe, this is the suggested reading order of the books:

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series
The Mess Of Me
Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature
The Holds End trilogy
At Night We Played In The Road
The Mess Of Us
The Dark Finds You

It was a lot of fun being back with these characters again. The sequel had been building quietly in my head for a few years, and what concerned me most was Leon’s release from prison. How would Joe and Lou react to this? Would Leon want to apologise to Joe for what he did to him? And would Joe and Lou be able to forgive and forget what happened? I was curious about Leon as a character. In The Mess Of Me he is painted, quite rightly, as a total villain. However, towards the end of the book he commits a vile crime on the same day he saves someone’s life. I found that really interesting to explore and The Mess Of Us started to form in my head.

I hope you enjoy it and as always, thank you so much for following my journey!

Why Do So Many Authors Forget To Create Characters?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 8 Comments

It genuinely puzzles me…

Image by JULIO VICENTE from Pixabay

I read a lot. A few books a week usually. I have a to-read-list in a notebook and I jot down the titles of anything I come across on social media or anything recommended to me that sounds like my kind of thing. I am a bit fussy – I’ll admit that – but there isn’t much I won’t read other than romance and erotica. I’m not mad keen on fantasy in its typical form but I will read anything paranormal, supernatural or magical.

I don’t consider myself a reading snob. I do have a few favourite authors of whom I will happily devour every new release they put out. I’m not majorly into the classics and I read graphic novels and comic books as well as traditional books.

But there is one thing that annoys me and frustrates me more than anything else and I just keep coming across it – more often than not in traditionally published books with amazing sales and thousands of reviews…

Authors who forget to create characters!

Now, bear with me. Obviously these authors don’t pen books with no characters, expecting the location and plot to carry themselves. But it does feel a bit like this:

Author checklist

location: researched, described beautifully – check

plot – ironed out, checked over, worked through, twists and turns, no plot holes – check

research into topic – yup, done – check

writing skills/talent – yep, can string a sentence together and construct a story – check

characters – oh, they’ll do. – check

NOOOOO!

They won’t do. ‘Any old character’ will not do. I’m genuinely getting sick of it so excuse me if this comes across as a bit of a rant. Before I talk about the lack of characterisation that has driven me crazy lately in numerous books I’ve read, (and I won’t be naming them, to be fair to the authors) let me first tell you about a book that has got its characters right.

I am currently reading Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney. It’s a crime thriller about a serial killer and its set in 1980s Birmingham, UK. It’s the author’s debut novel which I find incredibly exciting as I would happily read anything else she releases. I won’t go into the plot too much but essentially the main character is a 13 year-old girl called Ava, who has the unusual hobby of searching for and studying dead animals. It’s while doing this she comes across the body of the first victim, a teenage boy she knew. Ava is quite simply a memorable character. She is smart, wise beyond her years, fiercely loyal to her friends and her dysfunctional family, and she is constantly one step ahead of the police in solving the crimes. However, the other characters are also wonderfully drawn. Her best friend John has his own personality, life and background, as do the two detectives Delahaye and Lines. I would argue that Delahaye is another main character along with Ava, but Lines is just as well realised.

Let me put it simply. There are two detectives investigating and they have different personalities. You know, like real people do in real life. They look different but they also sound different. I can tell them apart and I don’t just mean by their different names. They have particular ways of saying things, little gestures or mannerisms that are mentioned here and there, they have different ways of responding to the brutal scenes they witness and so on. These characters will stay in my head for a long time and although the plot is brilliant and the writing gorgeous, personally, I need to care about the characters to care about the plot.

Is it just me?

I keep imagining how I would feel about this book if the author had not created her characters so vividly. I would want to know who was killing the children and why and I would enjoy the investigation’s progress in revealing the killer. I’d appreciate the location and research gone into the story and plot. But would I care about Ava? About John, and Delayhaye and Lines? No. I wouldn’t.

And when you don’t care about the characters it makes it very hard to care what happens next…

Okay, onto the books that annoyed me recently. There have been too many but I’m going to talk about two. The first was marketed as a found footage style horror story. The blurb intrigued me and I bought it because it came up in a book group I’m in on Facebook. I added it to my to-read list months ago and finally got around to reading it recently. The story was interesting. A reporter who fears losing her job asks if she can investigate some footage that has gone viral online and her boss agrees.

The main character decides to head to the last known location of the missing friends (on her own) to find out. Despite numerous warnings and red flags on the way, (the locals are either vile to her, downright creepy and pervy, or try to tell her to go home) but she ignores them and gets to the location, which by the way, is totally secluded. I was already tiring of this character. Why would you do that? Why would you go alone?

Anyway, what then follows was a series of bad decisions on her part and the whole story stepped up a gear as she began to unravel what was going on. The plot itself was fine. It had twists and turns. I didn’t guess what was going on. But I truly did not care…

There were times when the main character was running for her life, or hiding from danger, or crying down the phone and there were times when it seemed she was about to be killed… but I did not care. I had no attachment to her whatsoever in fact I started to wish she would get killed because there was just no point in her. Zero.

The other characters were just as bad. You couldn’t tell them apart. They had different genders and different names, if that helps? That was about it. Oh, they looked different. You know, some girls had blonde pixie cuts and some boys has brown curly hair or whatever. But when they spoke they all sounded the same.

What the author did here was come up with a good horror story – a bit of a Blair Witch, if you like, and there is nothing wrong with that. What the author did not do was create any characters. He gave them names, but the main character, for example, could have been anyone. I could not tell you a single thing about her personality other than her vocation and that in my opinion she was a bit dim to go out there on her own.

Okay, the next one was similar. It was a crime thriller and part of a series. Needless to say, I won’t be reading any more in the series and I am genuinely confused about the amount of positive reviews these books have. The writing was fine, the locations were fine, the plot was fine. It involved two private investigators, one man, one woman, who I believe appear in all the books. This time they had been hired to try and solve the cold case of a missing teenage girl. There were two notorious and now behind bars, serial killers in that area at time, which made it a tad interesting. But also, I guessed really early on who had actually killed the girl.

But back to the characters. The man and the woman. That was the only way I could tell them apart. She had a son. He also had no personality and said things that any of them could have said. None of them had any mannerisms or nuances of personality. There was some back story, obviously, as its part of a series, but that didn’t seem to help give them personalities. If you met these people in real life you would be bored stiff in minutes. They were so forgettable, so banal, so pointless…

I just didn’t care.

But maybe it’s just me? Plenty of reviewers seemed to love these books but personally, I want to feel something for the characters, even if its hate and loathing! I want them to stand out from each other and everyone else. I want them to have back story, past trauma, motivations and hidden desires. I want them to be flawed and interesting and funny and smart, and, well, anything that makes them human!

I won’t be going back to those authors to find any of that.

I truly think there are two types of writers out there. Those who come up with a great idea, a concept, a plot and a way to weave it all together. They then have to shove some characters into the plot to do the heavy lifting.

And there are those that come up with everything, maybe not all at once, but bit by bit, both plot and characters developing alongside each other. Those that know the story is the character. The character is the story.

There would be no story without the character. Yes, work on the plot, weave that magic, keep the reader hooked, write beautifully and do your research… yes, yes, yes. But please, please, for the love of my sanity, remember to create the characters as well. And put the same amount of effort into them!

Genuinely though – is it just me?

If You’re Planning More Than Writing, You’re Going To Miss Out

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

A balance between actual writing and preparation is what to aim for

Image by Yerson Retamal from Pixabay

I’ve been running my own creative writing business for over ten years now. I used to run creative writing workshops for adults and kids, but these days I just concentrate on the kids. My writing clubs are run on Zoom or in person via after-school clubs, and my clubs are always full. My school clubs all have waiting lists. It thrills me to know there is a thirst for writing among young people and I love my job.

However, in all the years I have worked with young people and with adults, whether its running clubs and workshops, or taking part in literary and writing festivals, there is a phenomena I always come across and it always, always worries me.

The over-planner.

The writer, whatever their age, who plans, plots, preps and then plans, plots and preps some more. Often this process, for older writers at least, has been going on for decades. I have met countless adults who are still working on a book they had the idea for as a youngster. I fully understand that life gets in the way. That happened to me and I had a ten year break where I did not write at all. I also understand that self-doubt gets in the way and even money gets in the way.

Let’s not doubt that writing a book, finishing a book and publishing a book is a hard road to hoe.

But many writers seem to be self-sabotaging themselves from the beginning and I am curious to know why.

Within my writing groups, I come across three types of writer.

One, the writer who loves writing, happily responds to every and any prompt or challenge, writes short sharp things, declares them done and then moves on to the next.  These writers are a joy, and I predict that as they get older they will settle down to something a bit longer, something that takes more of their time, but for the moment they are having fun and more importantly, they are finishing things. 

The second type I come across is the ‘have a million stories on the go at once but rarely finish one’ writer the ‘have a million stories on the go at once but rarely finish one’ writer, and again, this is very common with young writers. I used to do this myself. I always tell them not to worry. Having too much to write is not a bad thing, it shows how much is going on inside your head and it also demonstrates that the writer is constantly being stimulated and inspired by the world around them. Great stuff. I have every faith that this writer too will eventually find a story they are passionate about and will stick with it and finish it.

The third type is the ‘have an amazing idea, have created an entire universe, but can’t stop planning and prepping’ writer. This one worries me and in my groups, I keep an eye on these ones as it is a tricky trap to escape from once you fall into it.

There is perfectionism at work here and we all know perfectionism can stop us writing. I think these writers are able to write regularly but everything becomes about planning the book more than writing the book.

Often it’s a complex story, perhaps one that has been with them a long time. It means a lot to them and they want to get it right and do it justice. And of course over time, the writer changes and matures and evolves, so they go back over their writing again and again noticing things they can improve. There is nothing wrong with doing this as a young writer by the way. In fact I would advise against publishing books at a very young age because undoubtedly your writing will get better as you get older.

But I come across a lot of adults with amazing stories they’ve been working on for years, yet they are still not ready to publish. This isn’t about them trying to find an agent, or trying to decide what publishing route to choose, this is about them not thinking the story is ready at all. This is about them working on it, planning, preparing, researching, plotting forever and ever…and never letting go of it to move on to the next thing.

For some reason they can’t quite let it go. They can’t quite share it or declare it finished. Or perhaps they can’t quite write it, because the planning has totally absorbed them and taken over. Some writers are natural planners. They like to plan everything out before they start. I’m talking full plot, sub-plots, intricate character profiles, location research, general research and much more. They often end up with a vast body of work which is undoubtedly impressive, but the story has still not been written.

My advice to this kind of writer is always the same. I always tell the young people in my writing groups that planning and plotting should be a balancing act alongside actual writing — dipping your toe in the water, if you like.

Some writers hate planning and just want to dive right in but I encourage them to do just the minimal amount. At least a plot idea, or brainstorm, at least a character bio or a vague idea for the location. Get that down then start writing. When you get stuck, go back to planning. Does this character need more fleshing out, for example? More back story or motivation? Do you now need to research the location a bit more so you’re not just winging it?

Planning and writing can go hand in hand and happen alongside each other. But they need each other. We cannot have a great story without a bit of planning and we cannot have a great story if we never write it because we are too hung up on the preparation.

Personally, I like to have a vague plot and my characters sorted first,  then the location and after that I start writing. I always like to know what’s roughly going to happen in the next chapter or two and that is enough to keep me going. The story and the characters undoubtedly change and evolve as I write and that is part of the beauty that too much planning can sometimes rob us of.

I don’t like knowing everything before I start – I like finding out as I go along.

But I also won’t start with a blank slate because I’d get stuck really quickly.

It’s all about balance.

For those who don’t finish, who spent maybe years planning and plotting and adding to their body of preparatory work, just consider how fast life goes. Please. On day it will be too late. How sad is that? My greatest fear is dying before I tell all the stories in my head. My goal is to get them all written and published before I die. I can’t think of a greater pain for a writer than bearing untold stories!

Once something is written, once something is out of your head and your planning notebooks, you can make it better. You cannot edit a blank page. You cannot improve a story that has not been written. You’ve got to become comfortable with the process of a first draft.

This is perhaps something some writers struggle with.

A first draft is you telling yourself the story. It should be basic and clumsy. Ugly, even. You should wince a little when writing it, but you should not let that stop you. You are building something for the first time. You are finding your way and if you start writing it, believe me, the characters and the world you have created will start to help tell it for you. A process will begin. Something simultaneously controlled by you and in control of you.

It’s magic, I promise.

I cringe at my first drafts but no one is ever going to see them. I don’t know my characters that well yet, despite the bios I’ve created. It feels clunky and unnatural when they speak or act, but I push forward. I tell the story. Once it is done I go back over it and wow, often its better than I thought it was! But if you don’t ever write the first draft, how will you know?

To the over-planners I say this. A first draft is your friend. A first draft is your starting point. A first draft is a promise. A first draft has so much potential and once it is written in all its stumbling unsure glory, you can sharpen up those perfectionist and over-planning skills and put them to use.

Preparation, notes, ideas, research and snippets are no good all on their own. Plus, you are missing out on the best part of writing if you never get past this stage — writing ‘The End’ and cracking open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate before the real hard work starts…

Go on. Stop planning. Write.