Sara Niles's Blog: Sara Nile's Blog, page 7
February 17, 2012
The Timeless Art of Great Writing
Art survives whole civilizations and it is what makes savage man civilized; art inspires, impassions and motivates the human mind and spirit to soar higher, to do better than ever before. Writers are artists whose words formed on paper create a literary canvas that lingers long after the writer is gone. If you doubt the truth of those words, call to mind the words trapped in the books of long dead writers, such as the works of Shakespeare, John Milton, Herman Melville, Emily Bronte, each well remembered for the artistry of their words and the depth of their storytelling.
But Art, is an individual thing, it is the visible and palpable exhibition of inner drives and imaginations, a literary Rorschach test for all to see. Writers expose their inner selves when the art of writing is performed by the authentic self. A few examples come to mind: Charles Dickens wrote of deep dark fears possessed by children whose lives were engulfed in poverty and abandonment and his childhood heroes and heroines were all victims of an unfair society that abandoned them to the degradation of work houses after snatching their parents from them. Fyodor Dostoevsky suffered exile as a debtor by a society that had little mercy or pity for the hapless among them, and so the author wrote of hapless souls whose spirits were governed by societal conflicts. In Dostoevsky’s masterpiece work, Crime and Punishment, one can almost feel the pain of the author who transposed his fears and anguish into the character of Raskolnikov whose ill formed conscious was not adequate for the moral conflicts he was tested with. In the famous American story To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee writes of a social recluse by the name of Boo Radley and after the book gained international fame, the author slowing slipped from view and became a mystery to the world; perhaps too well aware of how Boo Radley felt and thus able to artfully portray him to the world.
Whether the art is created from words and music or words on paper, it still leads the patron into their own unique caves of emotion and enables them to see with new eyes. In the case of literary art, the imagery is sometimes created from simple words, sparse descriptions that wield powerful effects; or the words themselves can be artistically presented in such a way as to maximize the emotional and social experiences of the reader. The book becomes the stage and the words put on the play, the theater becomes a new world and the reader journeys into new insights.
Not all art is great and not all books are well written, but once in a while, a few great books come along that remain timelessly unforgettable, classics, true works of art, their authors immortalized forever by their work.
Sara Niles
Author of The Torn Trilogy
But Art, is an individual thing, it is the visible and palpable exhibition of inner drives and imaginations, a literary Rorschach test for all to see. Writers expose their inner selves when the art of writing is performed by the authentic self. A few examples come to mind: Charles Dickens wrote of deep dark fears possessed by children whose lives were engulfed in poverty and abandonment and his childhood heroes and heroines were all victims of an unfair society that abandoned them to the degradation of work houses after snatching their parents from them. Fyodor Dostoevsky suffered exile as a debtor by a society that had little mercy or pity for the hapless among them, and so the author wrote of hapless souls whose spirits were governed by societal conflicts. In Dostoevsky’s masterpiece work, Crime and Punishment, one can almost feel the pain of the author who transposed his fears and anguish into the character of Raskolnikov whose ill formed conscious was not adequate for the moral conflicts he was tested with. In the famous American story To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee writes of a social recluse by the name of Boo Radley and after the book gained international fame, the author slowing slipped from view and became a mystery to the world; perhaps too well aware of how Boo Radley felt and thus able to artfully portray him to the world.
Whether the art is created from words and music or words on paper, it still leads the patron into their own unique caves of emotion and enables them to see with new eyes. In the case of literary art, the imagery is sometimes created from simple words, sparse descriptions that wield powerful effects; or the words themselves can be artistically presented in such a way as to maximize the emotional and social experiences of the reader. The book becomes the stage and the words put on the play, the theater becomes a new world and the reader journeys into new insights.
Not all art is great and not all books are well written, but once in a while, a few great books come along that remain timelessly unforgettable, classics, true works of art, their authors immortalized forever by their work.
Sara Niles
Author of The Torn Trilogy
February 3, 2012
Think Outside the Box
The market is driven by supply and demand, whether the goods provided are housing and food or books. In the case of books, the veritable food for our literary souls, the publishing houses, until recently, gate-kept which authors were given the opportunity to breach the gap between books written and books read. The readers who originally set the tone of what was popular, often were fed what the publisher thought readers wanted, until a new author appeared on the scene who broke the mold and cleared the way for a new style of writing.
Two examples come to mind: Stephen King and Truman Capote. Stephen King presented publishers with an out of the box style of writing that was not initially accepted by publishers as they rejected King's submissions repeatedly with the notion that nobody would read that 'stuff'. King had written three novels that would go on to become bestsellers by the time he finally was accepted by one worn-down publisher, intent on getting King out of his hair. The rest is well known history, King was not only well received when his first book, Carrie was published in 1973, but went on to become one of the most successful authors of all time, with books selling in the hundreds of millions of copies.
Truman Capote, was another author who dared to think and write 'outside the box' when he produced In Cold Blood in installments posted in The New Yorker in 1965, detailing the 1959 murders of the Kansas family by the name of Clutter. The horrific crime took place in one of the most peaceful communities of the Holcomb Kansas area and was committed by two disturbed prisoners newly released from a Kansas prison. Capote meticulously researched each individual involved in this horrific plot, in order to not only tell a story but to reveal the characters as complex psychological beings who were molded by individual experience, personality and by societal influences.
It is particularly interesting as to how Capote broke out of the box with his writing by straying from the overused and common form of journalistic writing to use an innovative flowing narrative style that allowed In Cold Blood to be read like a fiction novel; in effect, Capote claimed to have created a new genre 'the nonfiction novel'.
It is this insight rich, detail oriented style of writing that made Capote world famous with the publication of the 'first' true crime book that read like a novel instead of a prolonged news article. Capote developed the characters of the Clutter family, enabling the reader to both understand them and feel deep empathy and compassion for the hardworking, upstanding family; while also creating a humanistic perception of the murderer Perry, the victim of the worst of societal evils, childhood abuse and abandonment. The conflict of good versus evil and man against man as well as himself if powerfully orchestrated into the story.
The reader is made to both understand how psychopaths are created by an unfair system and how society is ultimately faced with the monsters in the end. The societal conflict is reminiscent of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and how the monster turned on its masters in the end. The problem with this story is the reader realizes from the beginning that the 'story' is not a story at all, but an actual historical happening skillfully recreated by the author, a fact that makes In Cold Blood all the more thought provoking.
The bottom line, is the play it safe approach that publishers have relied upon for decades is giving way to the modernistic writing styles of authors such as Stephenie Meyer with the Twilight series and Amanda Hockings paranormal romance novels; each a deviation from the average traditional plot.
In Cold BloodCarrieTwilightThe Torn Trilogy Volume II
Two examples come to mind: Stephen King and Truman Capote. Stephen King presented publishers with an out of the box style of writing that was not initially accepted by publishers as they rejected King's submissions repeatedly with the notion that nobody would read that 'stuff'. King had written three novels that would go on to become bestsellers by the time he finally was accepted by one worn-down publisher, intent on getting King out of his hair. The rest is well known history, King was not only well received when his first book, Carrie was published in 1973, but went on to become one of the most successful authors of all time, with books selling in the hundreds of millions of copies.
Truman Capote, was another author who dared to think and write 'outside the box' when he produced In Cold Blood in installments posted in The New Yorker in 1965, detailing the 1959 murders of the Kansas family by the name of Clutter. The horrific crime took place in one of the most peaceful communities of the Holcomb Kansas area and was committed by two disturbed prisoners newly released from a Kansas prison. Capote meticulously researched each individual involved in this horrific plot, in order to not only tell a story but to reveal the characters as complex psychological beings who were molded by individual experience, personality and by societal influences.
It is particularly interesting as to how Capote broke out of the box with his writing by straying from the overused and common form of journalistic writing to use an innovative flowing narrative style that allowed In Cold Blood to be read like a fiction novel; in effect, Capote claimed to have created a new genre 'the nonfiction novel'.
It is this insight rich, detail oriented style of writing that made Capote world famous with the publication of the 'first' true crime book that read like a novel instead of a prolonged news article. Capote developed the characters of the Clutter family, enabling the reader to both understand them and feel deep empathy and compassion for the hardworking, upstanding family; while also creating a humanistic perception of the murderer Perry, the victim of the worst of societal evils, childhood abuse and abandonment. The conflict of good versus evil and man against man as well as himself if powerfully orchestrated into the story.
The reader is made to both understand how psychopaths are created by an unfair system and how society is ultimately faced with the monsters in the end. The societal conflict is reminiscent of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and how the monster turned on its masters in the end. The problem with this story is the reader realizes from the beginning that the 'story' is not a story at all, but an actual historical happening skillfully recreated by the author, a fact that makes In Cold Blood all the more thought provoking.
The bottom line, is the play it safe approach that publishers have relied upon for decades is giving way to the modernistic writing styles of authors such as Stephenie Meyer with the Twilight series and Amanda Hockings paranormal romance novels; each a deviation from the average traditional plot.
In Cold BloodCarrieTwilightThe Torn Trilogy Volume II
January 22, 2012
My Books and Me
Sara Niles was a former victim of extreme domestic violence as a young woman that led to her being forced to disappear with five small children in 1987, when she was only twenty-nine years old. In 1995, the birth of the book Torn From the Inside Out began the odyssey of The Torn series, the unforgettable literary journey of life.
In accord with the spirit of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, Sara Niles became the 'master of her fate and the captain of her soul'; after her escape, Niles spent twelve years obtaining academic secondary and post secondary education and experience in psychology, sociology, behavioral science and domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction dynamics. The goal of Sara Niles was to weave the underlying dynamics of human behavior into the Torn series unobtrusively like a shadow, so that the reading of Torn is as entertaining as it is informative. The artistic beauty of the author's writing is a direct result of accumulated personal, academic and professional experience that makes Sara Niles unique as an author of nonfiction memoirs.
The Torn Trilogy is the culmination of over fifteen years of work refining the pages of a passionate and literary work of art created from the "Pain so great as to tear the soul inside out" (Torn From the Inside Out)
Niles (Pen name for Josephine Thompson) is a former Professional Domestic Violence Trainer & Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuse counselor
My Books:
The complete Torn Trilogy is approximately 1200 pages of literary narrative
Literary Narrative Nonfiction: Over fifteen years in the making in order to tell a tale so great, as to tear the soul inside out
The Torn Trilogy contains three complete works, written in a compelling literary narrative style that is unprecedented in the realm of literary narrative nonfiction. Using powerful literary symbolisms and metaphors, well developed characterizations and powerful emotional impact, The Torn series takes the reader on the journey of a lifetime.
Let the Journey Begin… Sara Niles
Sample of first book of The Torn Trilogy:
Excerpt
Chapter One Torn From the Inside Out
“Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky, it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I; nearly a foot taller and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints. Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive”…February 13th, 1987, the night of Sara Niles’ flight with her five small children."
The Torn Trilogy
In accord with the spirit of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, Sara Niles became the 'master of her fate and the captain of her soul'; after her escape, Niles spent twelve years obtaining academic secondary and post secondary education and experience in psychology, sociology, behavioral science and domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction dynamics. The goal of Sara Niles was to weave the underlying dynamics of human behavior into the Torn series unobtrusively like a shadow, so that the reading of Torn is as entertaining as it is informative. The artistic beauty of the author's writing is a direct result of accumulated personal, academic and professional experience that makes Sara Niles unique as an author of nonfiction memoirs.
The Torn Trilogy is the culmination of over fifteen years of work refining the pages of a passionate and literary work of art created from the "Pain so great as to tear the soul inside out" (Torn From the Inside Out)
Niles (Pen name for Josephine Thompson) is a former Professional Domestic Violence Trainer & Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuse counselor
My Books:
The complete Torn Trilogy is approximately 1200 pages of literary narrative
Literary Narrative Nonfiction: Over fifteen years in the making in order to tell a tale so great, as to tear the soul inside out
The Torn Trilogy contains three complete works, written in a compelling literary narrative style that is unprecedented in the realm of literary narrative nonfiction. Using powerful literary symbolisms and metaphors, well developed characterizations and powerful emotional impact, The Torn series takes the reader on the journey of a lifetime.
Let the Journey Begin… Sara Niles
Sample of first book of The Torn Trilogy:
Excerpt
Chapter One Torn From the Inside Out
“Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky, it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I; nearly a foot taller and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints. Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive”…February 13th, 1987, the night of Sara Niles’ flight with her five small children."
The Torn Trilogy
Sara Nile's Blog
"My writing is mission oriented and imbued with a deeper purpose because of my traumatic life experiences: I write nonfiction in order to make an appreciable dent in the effect of domestic violence an
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