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I am very pleased to present to you a guest
post by Alexandra Sokoloff. Wednesday I will be
Guest Post
I love the holiday season. There’s nothing better
than having everyone around me caught up in a holiday frenzy so I can sneak
away and get caught up on my reading.
Only this week, when I picked up a couple of highly
recommended books, I was horrified to find that they’re torture porn. Yes, two
more books about women (beautiful women, of course) being captured, raped and
tortured in gruesome, sexualized detail.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but am sick to
death of reading crime novels and seeing movies and TV shows about women being
raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered. I’m not too happy about it
happening in real life, either.
So my Huntress Moon series turns the
tables. The books follow a haunted FBI agent on the hunt for a female serial killer.
I worked as a Hollywood screenwriter for ten years
before I snapped and wrote my first novel, and in that time I worked on several
film projects featuring serial killers. One of my core themes as a writer is
“What can good people do about the evil in the world?” – and as far as I’m
concerned, serial killers are an embodiment of evil. So for several years I was
doing research into the subject every way I could think of besides actually
putting myself in a basement with one of these monsters. I tracked down the
FBI’s behavioral science textbook before it was ever available to the public. I
stalked psychological profilers at writing conventions and grilled them about
various real life examples. I went to forensics classes and law enforcement
training workshops.
And while I was doing all that research, one thing
really jumped out at me about serial killers. They’re men. Women don’t do it.
Women kill, and sometimes they kill in numbers (especially killing lovers or
husbands for money – the “Black Widow” killer; or killing patients in hospitals
or nursing homes: the “Angel of Death”). But the psychology of those killers is
totally different from the men who commit serial sexual homicide. Sexual
homicide is about abduction, rape, torture and murder for the killer’s own
sexual gratification. (And please don’t get me started on books and
films that portray serial killers as having an artistic or poetic bent.
Ridiculous….)
The fact is, one reason novels and film and TV so
often depict women as victims is that it’s the stark reality. Since the
beginning of time, women haven’t been the predators — we’re the prey. But after
all those years (centuries, millennia) of women being victims of the most
heinous crimes out there… wouldn’t you think that someone would
finally say — “Enough”?
And maybe even strike back?
I do.
With the Huntress series I finally
have an umbrella to explore, dramatically, over multiple books, the roots and
context of the worst crimes I know. And at least on paper, do something about
it. So at those times like this week, when I come across yet another thriller
that’s barely veiled torture porn, I throw it in the trash where it belongs and
get back to my own writing.
I believe my job as an author is to give my readers
a thrilling, sensory, gripping adventure that makes them feel — and also makes
them think. It’s all about the fight against everyday evil, for me, and about
the deep connections people make with unlikely other people when they commit to
that fight.
Whoever she is, whatever she is, the Huntress is
like no killer Agent Roarke – has ever seen before. And you may find yourself
as conflicted about her as Roarke is.
As one of the profilers says in the book: “I’ve
always wondered why we don’t see more women acting out this way. God knows
enough of them have reason.”
Alexandra
Sokoloff is the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black
Quill Award-nominated author of the supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, The Unseen, Book of Shadows, The Shifters, and The Space Between; The Keepers paranormal series, and the Thriller Award-nominated,
Amazon bestselling Huntress/FBI Thrillers series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon), which has been optioned for
television. She has also written three non-fiction workbooks: Stealing Hollywood, Screenwriting Tricks for
Alex
is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where she majored in
theater and minored in everything Berkeley has a reputation for. She lives in
Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson. www.Alexandrasokoloff.com
Blog URL: http://www.screenwritingtricks.com
Facebook URL:
http://www.facebook.com/alexandra.sokoloff
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/AlexSokoloff
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/AlexandraSokoloff
Amazon: The FBI
Thriller Series: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011M9AOBM?keywords=huntress%20moon&qid=1451693113&ref_=sr_1_1_ha&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
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