Dr Stephanie Carty is a writer, NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and trainer with a qualification in teaching higher and professional education. Her fiction is widely published and has been shortlisted in competitions including the Bridport Prize, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Bristol Short Story Prize and Caterpillar Story for Children Prize. Her novella-in-flash Three Sisters of Stone won Best Novella in the Saboteur Awards. She is represented by Curtis Brown

We’re very excited that our small press Ad Hoc Fiction is publishing Stephanie Carty’s’s guide book Inside Fictional Minds, which is now available for pre-order from Ad Hoc Fiction at a 25% discount during the pre-order period and released on June 24th.

Below, Stephanie explains how the guide book came into being, what it contains and how to use it. Stephanie will also say more and answer questions in a mini ten minute spot at 2.30 pm BST on the next Great Festival Flash Off day, June 26th and Jude Higgins, representing Ad Hoc Fiction, is hosting a launch of the book on Zoom on Saturday, July 3rd from 8.15 pm – 9.15 pm BST.

At the launch, we will hear from Stephanie, Louise Ryder, psychotherapist and the artist who painted the beautiful cover. Also five writers of short and longer fiction: Rachael Dunlop; Neema Shah; Wiz Wharton; Sarah Moorhead and Melissa Fu who have all attended Stephanie’s Psychology of Character in Writing course and will read extracts from their works saying how they used her suggestions, also covered in her new guide, to deepen their characters.

Everyone is welcome to come to the launch – flash fiction writers, short story writers and novelists. And anyone else who is interested in learning more about this fascinating new book.
Email Jude {at} adhocfiction {dot} com asap for a link.

Q & A with Dr Stephanie Carty

• You have been running your courses on the Psychology of Character in Writing for several years now and they have been very popular for writers of long and short fiction.
  Can you tell us more about what gave you the idea for devising these courses?

It’s the perfect combination for me of applying what I’ve learnt as a clinical psychologist to my other love which is writing. What I’d noticed in some stories and novels was that lots of thought appeared to have gone into creating an interesting character with quirks, desires and emotional reactions but that sometimes their behaviours didn’t add up or a sudden change in them jarred as unrealistic. Once I started to run the Psychology of Character course, it was clear that many writers had not thought in depth about why their characters acted the way they did or what it would take to change their patterns. From the very first practice session, the feedback of how much of a difference it made to attendees to learn a little bit about some key components of how humans develop, act and grow encouraged me to continue.

• The book is a complement to your face to face and online courses, but it is also something that writers can use separately from them. Can writers can dip in to, or is it something to work through from the beginning?

What I love about the book is that it covers a wide range of ideas followed up by tasks to put ideas into practice so there should be something relevant for every writer and every story. I’m certain that people will use it according to their own style – some will want to read from cover to cover for an overview whereas others may already have in mind where their gap or uncertainty lies for a particular character. I’d actually recommend reading the whole book from start to finish without doing any of the tasks first. That will allow a writer to have a ready-made framework of how elements interact with one another. Then choices can be made about which sections to work on thoroughly using the questions posed to deepen understanding and bring the learning to life.

• I think you have 48 exercises in all to try out in the book. What would expect writers to discover having completed them?

There are actually 123 questions divided into 48 sets of tasks – far more than I’d expected there to be when I started to plan the book! To me, the active element of Inside Fictional Minds is crucial to its usefulness and sets it apart from some other resources that are more academic in format. The focus is on everyday behaviours,, emotions and unconscious mechanisms rather than extremes such as serial killers. So the tasks should lend themselves to any setting,, genre or length of story as people are people! I think one of the most interesting things for writers will be seeing how topics that may seem separate actually all impact on one another to create complex, interdependent factors that make their characters who they are..
Several of the beta readers also stated that they learnt about themselves!

• Can you say how thinking about character development is useful even for micro fiction?

I think in very short fiction it can be a challenge to find room for character development. One method is to show your character’s defence mechanisms in action. In my upcoming short fiction collection The Peculiarities of Yearning, many pieces rely on a shift in an emotion or longing moving from unconscious to conscious awareness.. The character deals with this by a displaying a behaviour (defence mechanism) that aims to push this emotion or longing back down. If the defence works, you can have a tragic ending where the reader sees what’s missing even as the character denies it. If the defence doesn’t work and the hidden aspect breaks through, then the character has displayed some momentary insight or change. That’s ‘big enough’ for very short fiction and hints at greater development being possible outside of the story.
My flash Cosmina Counts was awarded third prize in Bath Flash Fiction Award. As a standalone flash, I think it uses aspects covered in the book and gives glimpses into the internal world of a trafficked woman by demonstrating her defences, her longing that slips out, clues to her trauma and a return to her pushing the pain away with more defence mechanisms.
Finally, very short fiction requires the writer to condense so much rather than spell things out. Each sentence is a chance to show the reader the world through the character’s ‘glasses’. Word choice and what is focused on versus what is omitted works really well in flash to demonstrate the character’s internal world, which I give some examples of in the book.

• Can you tell us more about the the advantages for character relationships in novels and novellas?

There is huge scope for character development in longer form writing. For example you can show the bumpy ride to change that is realistic rather than sudden revelations or change.. Realisations and beliefs are not equal to behaviour and personality change. There’s an ebb and flow to how we change. The book covers areas such as perfectionism, narcissim, social roles, being a people pleaser as well as a focus on the way that characters experience (and forbid) certain emotions and beliefs. Long form writing allows the character to dip their toe into alternatives, or ‘peel off the armour’ briefly as I explain in the book..
My flash Cosmina Counts is actually a chapter from my second novel. I have the luxury over the course of an entire book to flip forward and back in time to account for Cosmina’s behaviours and then move her realistically from a mindset of revenge and isolation towards facing reality and accepting the help of others. Such a significant change could only work across multiple chapters because it’s human nature to resist our painful, hidden aspects coming to the surface. My longest chapter in Inside Fictional Minds focuses on change. Longer form provides the space to really delve and deliver without relying on so much interpretation of the reader. Working through the tasks in Inside Fictional Minds should provide a series of insights that although small on their own, can build into an overall picture of a deeply believable and developed character that resonates with readers.