Rory A. Miller

2nd sept 2015

Despite its rawness, this is an excellent book on the use of violence in fiction from someone who has great experience. It seems the author wrote the book because he simply could not stand some of the idiotic ways in which authors pen violence. It is a very good resource for putting your character's minds into thinking about and conducting violent acts and describes the feelings, reactions and processes of a variety of different techniques and outcomes. I will definitely be thinking of this when I write my next sword fight or hand to hand combat scene.

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1st sept 2015

Wow, this book is very full on, but in a good way. I have only ever had cause to hit someone (properly) once in my life and I have never fired a weapon on anything other than a range, so I suppose when it comes to violence and understanding it I am a little green. However, the author of this book is anything but green. If you are after a straight forward, no punches pulled (pardon the pun) explanation and examination of various elements of violence then this book is an excellent resource. I picked it up for research purposes because I didn't want one of my complex violent characters appear two dimensional. This book will help me delve into the mind of my character and understand them better so I can hopefully do them justice on the page. Be prepared, you don't want to read this for a bit of light fluff, it describes real events and real deaths and the associated psychological implications. It can be a little repetitive and could have done with an edit, but it essentially does the job and somehow, the rawness of it adds to it's power.… (més)