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The Art of Writing No. 22
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 22What differentiates a professional writer from a writer, i.e. any literate individual? In the last blog I showed examples of how we must interfere with regular brain patterns to produce something worth reading as a fictional artefact. Just because everyone can run does not mean that they are athletes worth entering for prizes and being… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 21
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 21A further note on writing dialogue. People speak with different sentence lengths or breaks, they use personal metaphors, their language varies in richness and substance yet much of what passes for speech in novels is barely differentiated. The writer often uses his characters to talk the plot along but not deepen our sense of individuality.… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 20
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 20There is a very appropriate zen tale of the centipede who is asked how he manages to coordinate all those legs and promptly falls into a ditch. Like the centipede we do a hundred things without ever questioning them. It is very difficult and takes a great deal of diligence and practice to refashion your… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 19
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 19There is a much discussed cliché concerning writing. This relates to the difference between a hard day’s slog and a seemingly purple day’s outpouring. The received wisdom is that the dufference is too minimal to make a case for inspiration providing greater quality than perspiration. A good friend and well known writer once said to… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 18
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 18The convenience of an alerts list at the bottom of your growing draft novel is not to be underestimated. Take this note I placed there while writing Azimuth. I had just conjured it up in an early part of the narrative and was so taken with it I copied it for later reference: Find the… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 18
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 18A reader has pointed out that my dichotomy of clay and lego to crudely divide approaches to writing are somewhat patronizing and imbalanced. That was not the intention. By clay I meant organically developed narratives where the writer is only one step ahead of the reader in understanding what is going on, while by lego… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 17
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 17What I ended up doing in the last blog, was show how complexity in characters’ profiles provides a springboard for a book to go in many directions. We can demonstrate this by looking within the action of your own tale. You have three characters. If each displays only one characteristic (thus being a cipher) then… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 16
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 16Let me pursue this question of character complexity. What I said in the last blog was that those that people our pages, to be life-like, have to have shades of dark and light. There is a unique moral colour chart for everyone and it includes sin and evil. What is revealed it is a consequence… Know More
The Art of Writing No. 15
Read more: The Art of Writing No. 15The question of having characters as ciphers or as complex human beings who beguile, infuriate, seduce, anger, irritate and illuminate the reader in turns is crux. In much of fast food literature, written to formula whether bodice rippers, blood rippers, space trippers or crime grippers, women may be depicted in short authorial shrift. They fulfill… Know More