5 things telenovelas can teach you about writing

Kate del Castillo the Queen of telenovelas 

(Photo (c) Netflix)

I came across some telenovelas on Netflix - and now I'm hooked. 

In case you don't know what a telenovela is, it combines the words television and novel for good reason. A telenovela is a serial drama mainly made in Latin America so usually in Spanish. Usually there's a hint of soap opera about them and they are very dramatic. 

My favourites so far have been Ingobernable (starring Kate del Castillo the Queen of telenovelas as the First Lady of Mexico), La Reina del Sur (the English language version is Queen of the South and it's about Teresa Mendoza who goes from grieving woman to drug lord - also played by Kate del Castillo) and The Marked Heart (A woman who's given the heart of a young mother who is murdered for her organs becomes part of her reluctant donor's family life). 

Watching them isn't just entertaining, it's also taught me a few things about writing - 

Telenovelas have lots of "WOW" moments 

1. How to keep people interested by using twists and turns - telenovelas seem to have a twist every 5-minutes. There is never a dull moment. If a telenovela was a book you would never put it down. At least not because you were bored. 

2. Having lots of characters isn't necessarily a bad thing - when it comes to the plot it gives you much more room for manoeuvre. Characters that seem like peripheral ones at the start can be given more of a storyline that can be just as good as the main storyline. Many characters means lots of threads to pull. Lots of subplots. 

Too much telling not showing in dialogue

3. How not to write dialogue - one thing that's very noticeable about telenovelas is the use (or should that be abuse?) of information dumping in dialogue.

Example - "I know that you found the letter in the jewellery box and read it and found out about me stealing the baby from the woman who lived downstairs."

Give your big reveals time to breathe

4. Give your big reveals time to breathe - they don't tend to do this in telenovellas which often means the big "WOW" moment you get is so fast you don't get to savour it. When writing your novel, give readers the chance to think, "WOW, I didn't see that coming" and to react to their surprise and absorb what it means for the story. 

5. Think about the music that would accompany the scenes in your novel - Telenovelas make use of music to illustrate what's happening in the story very well. 

Girl in the picture: Review - one of the most remarkable true crime documentaries you will ever watch

Photo: Netlix

Girl in the picture is one of the most remarkable true crime documentaries you will ever watch. It does something that not all true crime does and brings to life the person who was murdered to such an extent that you almost feel as if they are sitting watching it with you and saying "this is my story."

In this documentary, they speak to the woman's friends and the love and admiration for her shines out in amidst all the darkness of what happened to her. Despite the grim details of her life she was a good friend, vivacious and kind and everyone who met her instantly loved her whether it was at high school, the trailer park where she lived for a time, or the strip joint where she was forced to work by the man who always told her he was her father. 

She was super smart, driven and it was obvious she would have achieved amazing things. Had she lived long enough.

Best thing is you probably won't remember the killer's name

Another thing Girl in the Picture does amazingly well is put the perpetrator very much in the background. This documentary is no glorification or attempt to understand an evil man's actions. It's more a testimony of how a beautiful person inside and out with an intelligent mind, who had a scholarship to one of America's top colleges, was robbed of her future by a paedophile.

A truly shocking tale

The story doesn't seem that unusual when you first hear it. A woman is found seriously wounded after a suspected hit and run. It seems like a straightforward case. But when the police try to identify the woman who later dies of her injuries after battling against the odds to stay alive for 5 days, so begins an investigation with a plot more complex than any crime thriller I have ever read.

The police visit the lady they believe to be this young woman's mother to tell her that her daughter is dead which comes as a surprise. Her daughter died at the age of just 18 months. The woman on the road can't be her daughter so who is she?

And so begins a search for the truth that last for years with so many twists and turns at times you feel giddy. Imagine being the young woman who had to live through that all. And we do. Every vile detail feels like a boot in the gut.

The search reveals some horrifying details of the horrendous cruelties inflicted upon this young woman by a stepfather who abducted her when she was just 5 years old and later kidnapped and murdered her 6-year old son.

Suzanne was adbucted when she was 5

In case you haven't watched the show, I won't give the game away about what transpires. So, no spoiler alerts needed.

Thanks to these dedicated people who stopped at nothing to get to the truth, both law enforcement, jornalists and resaearchers, Suzanne Sevakis finally has her real name on her gravestone. She has people who truly mourn her. Her daughter can visit her mom's grave.

Yet, still you are left reeling with a feeling of deep sadness that this amazing young woman never got to fulfil her potential because of a sick psychopath. 

Girl in the Picture is on Netflix. 

Why my latest killer force-feeds their victims in Butcher City - Detective in a Coma Book 2 (the follow up to Vile City)

In Butcher City the killer's victims are force-fed in a similar way
Suffragettes were before they're killed

Years ago I lived on an island. Not one of those remote Islands but one of the most accessible ones you are likely to get. One day I was walking past a local restaurant and I was shocked to see something on the menu that's so cruel the production of it is banned in my country but not the sale. 

You can read about what happened next on my companion blog for my book Living Cruelty Free: Live a more Compassionate Life here 

That product was Foie gras which is made by ramming a metal or plastic pipe down a duck or goose's throat so their livers swell abnormally to around ten times their normal size. 

Foie gras is French and translates as fatty liver.​ 

There's never been an appetite for reversing the ban on producing it in the UK where I live because even farmers who could make money out of producing this vile 'foodstuff' find the cruelty involved too much. 

In Butcher City, DI Waddell investigates a sinister killer who's killing
people and removing their livers

When I was writing book 2 in the Detective in a Coma series (the follow up to Vile City) I wanted to do something a bit different. Come up with a different method of murder whilst also letting people who don't know into the sick little secret of how cruel a 'food' Foie gras is. 

In Butcher City, my killer craves Foie gras but is so sickened by how it's obtained he decides that he'll make a human version instead. Pretty gross but as well as coming up with a more novel way to kill people, it also gives folk an insight into one of the cruellest things humans eat. 

A food so cruel that when Scottish tennis star Andy Murray discovered what it was he banned it from being served in the hotel he owns. 

If you want to see how it's used in Butcher City you can check out the book now.

A killer is stalking his victims on Glasgow's streets.
Men are being abducted, kept tied up for weeks and force-fed, then strangled and their livers are being removed.

~from Jennifer Lee Thomson @jenthom72 and Diamond Crime~ 

#ButcherCity Detective in a Coma Book 2, the follow up to VILE CITY is out

now-

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