Victory!

All is well again in the world of Kieren.

My work has been salvaged, backed-up, printed off, not going to leave anything to chance.

Going through what I have written so far I felt that something was missing, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The writing was okay, dialogue was a little flat in places but nothing major, the characters were different and interesting, I had enough twists and cliffhangers to make it exciting... So what was wrong?

Well eventually I figured out that I had ignored my unifying theme, my centralised idea that was supposed to run through all the different plot threads making everything flow correctly. Not just a bunch of stories that just so happen to link slightly as the story progresses.

The theme is the effect of religion on society, both the positive and negative aspects. Celebrity worship being a new religion, the serial killer's murders have a ritual to them, the main characters have religious backgrounds... some have turned their back on their upbringing, some haven't.

But I have made one major change; the character of Sam Worthington has become Samir Begum. Sam was always intended to be a gay character, but when I thought about what I wanted to do with the character it made more sense to make the character Muslim. It helps me illustrate my point that you can choose not to drink, to only eat halal meat never to eat pork, but you cannot change who you are. I need to do a LOT more research on Islam before I continue writing this character (http://www.imaan.org.uk/ has been very helpful so far) otherwise I am going to come across as ignorant and ill-informed.

So off to the grindstone. Until next time.