tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6365514489256515202024-03-17T20:03:38.520-07:00KITCHEN TABLE WRITERS I’m Nina Milton, and this blog is all about getting out the laptop or the pen and pad to get writing. My blogposts are focused on advice and suggestions and news for writers, but also on a love reading with plenty of reviews, and a look at my pagan life, plus arts and culture.
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Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.comBlogger278125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-10650384964527765972024-03-14T02:01:00.000-07:002024-03-14T04:02:57.584-07:00Pace Your Story – What Literary Pacing is all about <div class="separator"><p style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"> <img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoYjJ6xMZ59FyKIWu6vIfs98D1lABAWIwW3V7gklkrwzOEsyGLrLvxShyphenhyphenr6R9McLZecvJ5MwlxsbMwXuCUuCxZySi9F4qcB69Pl3NIev54XmqHMa6ed5Gf25TEBOaQdvOx5M-QIDdr45iSMZKC54KQTCs1J_nzc6Jy1i9r6nMHUgcxC1ICl9FcjuYg2s/w400-h225/th-51.jpeg" style="text-align: left;" width="400" /> ......<span style="font-size: large;">PACE is the timing by which the major events in the story unfold and by which the scenes are shown. Also the process of stretching out the big scenes by slowing down time and compressing offstage action (speeding up time) to match the reader’s emotional needs. This means that it might </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">crawl along, feel crushed, or flow and slide like a slow river. It might then accelerate, thrusting forward, </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">or</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"> hurtle like a booster rocket</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">. Pace </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> is a tool that controls the speed and rhythm readers are pulled through events. It refers to how fast or slow events in a piece unfold and how much time elapses in a scene or story. Pacing can also be used to show characters aging and the effects of time on story events.</span></span></p></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-align: justify;">We usually expect pace to be created from the action, but dialogue and even inner monologue can engender pace. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">A build-up of pace and is mostly used to advance the action and create</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">nail-biting </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> dramatic tension, while drop in pace will create a different mood...dreamy, thoughtful. A slower pace can also cleverly be used to </span><span style="font-family: arial;">delay the peak of the tension for as long as possible, teasing the reader and gaining an explosion of drama once that pace changes. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The technique used is a process of stretching out, by slowing down time and compressing offstage action to match the reader’s emotional needs. As </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">James Scott Bell explains </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">in</span><i style="font-family: arial;"> Plot & Structure</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">, <i>‘When you’ve got a handle on the trouble for your character… you are ready to stretch. Go through the scene beat by beat… Take your time with each one’</i>. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The opening to a novel is a good place to announce to the reader the sort of pace they should expect. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Pace should fluctuate, changing regularly, to create variety within a piece, but it's you – the writer and author of the piece – who decides what the pace should be and when it should alter.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As a writer of crime fiction, sometimes I want my reader to know there will be more pensive moments, even among the thrills. This opening is dreamy and contemplative, despite the subject matter and opens my second novel, where I use devises such as longer words, sentences and paragraphs, deep imagery, and expanded descriptions, upping the pace just a little with action and dialogue at the end; </span></p><div><br /></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The retrieval was unceremonious and without dignity. The woman’s body was winched from the Dunball Clyce at 17.13, dripping with sluice-slime. The hip bones shone white against the sun and there were fish swimming in her belly.</i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>It had been the hottest day that summer. The mountainous heaps of sand and gravel at the Dunball Wharf Aggregate Works had dried out so completely that a choking dust rose from them. The waters below had heated until their reek oozed into the nostrils. No one wanted to move fast, and sounds were muffled, as if the late afternoon sun had thickened the air. </i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>The two detectives had arrived as the body was trundling on the gurney over to the white tent where the pathologist waited like an adjudicator at some macabre contest. The woman was found stripped of any clothing and the technician had thrown a green sheet over her poor mutilated and rotting body for that short journey, but the gurney jerked as its wheels stuck to the walkway, which was so burning hot it was melting the policemen’s thick soles, and the woman’s head slid to the edge, her heavy locks falling free, as if she’d just unpinned them. Despite the river weed and silt, her hair was still glorious; as black as a nighttime lake, not tampered by bleach or dye. </i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>Detective Sergeant Gary Abbott had stepped forward, his hand outstretched, and touched the woman’s hair, crying out like a distressed relative. 'Take care with her, for God’s sake!' <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gallows-Second-Shaman-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B08LX19XZK/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=W7l0z&content-id=amzn1.sym.3413293e-3815-4359-96ba-1ec5110e0b30&pf_rd_p=3413293e-3815-4359-96ba-1ec5110e0b30&pf_rd_r=258-4979198-8633058&pd_rd_wg=YFU1z&pd_rd_r=65ba46aa-03dd-4d59-be82-388e25c54507&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank">(On The Gallows, Midnight Ink Press)</a></i></span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><img class="CSS_LIGHTBOX_SCALED_IMAGE_IMG" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi74RLdLoyCqqd7ceoqT81U4WeLLQ19XlDVP9r-1xWIVwhrjVLkmQkixjRI4XA5wMijHe6YHeev67fsSlVN5Bq75YABXHT_nheP0mI9O20U_bzAYMIYfL-cKctfKs4oGaODNksOSzlr_JZwNzuMoaA-unb_ApcR_OSbYrmICcGvdu6t2a7RUiy9-q-Ku34/w267-h400/81Uzgsl8h9L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg" style="height: 240px; width: 160px;" width="267" /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On the other hand, I wanted a more foreful pace to open my fourth novel, although still I hold back a little;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i> <span> </span>John Spicer was already waiting, when Larry drove down into Harper’s Coombe.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>It was like a lover’s tryst – a lung-drying desire.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Larry pulled the old pickup to a halt behind John’s Audi and jumped out the cab. The ground was so soft he felt his wellingtons sink by inches. Across the coombe there were patches of shining water, the start of little lakes.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>Bloody rain. It was never-ending. Even down here in the coombe, the wind behind it was throwing water into his face.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>He pulled the fur of his trapper hat down around his ears and went to the back of the pickup. Water pooled on the tarp, trickling down to the metal base as he shifted it, wetting the random items he carried. His fingers were slippy as he spun the combination lock. It was an old-fashioned document case, but it did the job. Empty, of course, because the previous money he’d carried home was now in a Second World War tin box, which had belonged to his father’s father and had previously held old documents and his sister’s first baby shoes. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>Soon, he would buy a soft leather case with a laptop inside, slender as a slate tile.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As the action grows, I start using very short, active sentences, curtailed paragraphs, stronger verbs and sharper phrases;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div><i><span> </span>'You’ll need a tow,' Larry grunted. 'You’re in too deep.'</i></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>He mashed his way to the pickup, his jeans stuck to his backside. Somewhere in the back was a bit of good rope they could use to get the Audi out of its predicament. <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span> H</span>e shifted the briefcase to one side. It was still wide open, like a dog waiting for a treat.</i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The bastard owes. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>A double payment.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Fucking feels sorry. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>For me.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Fuckhead.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He’s in too deep.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Bloody fluid fizzed inside his brain until it felt like it was oozing out of his eye sockets. He wiped them and looked at his hands. Nothing but mud and rain and hot, invisible tears.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Blackmail is the bigger crime.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The back of the pickup was littered with his stuff. Bits from the farm, bits for the car, a spare sack of layer’s pellets. He spotted the fat coil of blue rope towards the bottom and reached down for it. His hand knocked against his shotgun. </span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At the end of this opening, a murder has been committed and I've already exhausted my reader, so I open the next section of the story with a much gentler pace; </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQN4yaKnC48ZaokPSiTGzEv4kfKsvGsGebqSD3iyn_pgo5kokGJ0BgDtoEEBYSPWYtzX_qlSA-q7RsneGjmnS3l3BehlT1qmSE4Xzef5wwcTJLF4A4D4P7nFnFnLT_wnNQfMT6WkAPWi7Ee8_6FyIYp5ZiPbEPT_H6ceDvc7e9LeebdCX-m0c4Uk8ljYM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="943" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQN4yaKnC48ZaokPSiTGzEv4kfKsvGsGebqSD3iyn_pgo5kokGJ0BgDtoEEBYSPWYtzX_qlSA-q7RsneGjmnS3l3BehlT1qmSE4Xzef5wwcTJLF4A4D4P7nFnFnLT_wnNQfMT6WkAPWi7Ee8_6FyIYp5ZiPbEPT_H6ceDvc7e9LeebdCX-m0c4Uk8ljYM" width="150" /></a><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span></i><span style="font-style: italic;">All over Christmas, rain fell over the Somerset Moors – fast rain – hard. It splashed</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /> into the canals and dykes, forcing up droplets, churning mud from the bottom. The waterways swelled, filled and spilled over roads and rail tracks, uprooting power lines as it spread.</span><i><div><span> </span>One morning I got up, booted the laptop up, and on every news site were images of my county, bogged with water. Floods were churning down village high streets, taking cars along for the ride, rising over the hedges. Families leaned from their bedroom windows as they waited for rescue. </div><div><span> </span>My house escaped damage. The sluggish, smelly creek at the bottom of my garden moved up several gears, running swift and flush to its brim, but it didn’t reach the top of the gully. I was lucky. Most of Bridgwater had been built above the flood plain, but on the other side of the town, people were sandbagging their front doors.</div><div><span> </span>On the moors, a hundred square miles lay under shimmering water. In the deepest places only the canopies of bare trees and the roofs of churches jutted through the surface…and a few villages safely on the highest ground. These were islands in past times, and when they get cut off like that, it’s easy to believe the myths and legends of Somerset.</div><div><span> </span>How the county got its name because the Ancient Britons came here only in summer when the grass re-emerged from the waters, fresh, lush, virgin pasture for their flocks and herds.</div><div><span> </span>How Joseph of Arimathea sailed from the Holy Land after Jesus had died, landing his boat on Wearyall Hill where he planted his staff as a Christmas flowering tree.</div><div><span> </span>How early man built roundhouses on stilts and walkways to pass over the marshes.</div><div><span> </span>Once a week throughout the winter, I drove to Muchelney to visit an elderly client who liked a hand and foot massage, splashing my Vauxhall through surface water until I could go no further. Then I’d wait for the boat, a RIB that had become a bus service now Muchelney was an island again. I shared the boat with the postman, a local farmer, and the district nurse.</div><div><span> </span>When I stared out over the floodplains, I couldn’t help thinking that anything could be lost down there. 'You can’t see the bottom for the mud.'</div><div><span><span> </span> <span> </span>'</span>It’s not just mud,' the nurse had said. 'Sewage, leaking chemicals. Dead animals.'</div><div><span> </span>'Even the worms are dead.' <i> <a href="(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Through-Floodgate-Fourth-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B091J2QRF1?ref_=ast_author_mpb" target="_blank">(Through the Floodgate </a></i><a href="(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Through-Floodgate-Fourth-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B091J2QRF1?ref_=ast_author_mpb" target="_blank">Midnight Ink Press)</a></div></i></span></div></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I'm slowing pace because I want to produce an absorbing read at this point. To help this, I focus on one subject in a prolonged way (for a crime fiction, at least!) Increasing pace can lose you that absorption, as you replace it with dramatic tension. So I used the rhythm of the writing to enhance the effect, with alliteration to highlight the watery theme and a repetitive start to some of the paragraphs, with 'how, how, how...' </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There are various ways to engender pace, including some quite small, but important adjustments:<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></p><ul><ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To speed up pace, move more quickly over the parts which have no major impact on the character, especially minor common actions (preparing food, for instance), whilst focusing on any major action. </span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow place, expand and dramatise outcomes, actions, especially minor actions (preparing food, for instance). </span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To speed pace, use clipped dialogue, staccato words, shorter sentences, lots of full stops and short paragraphs. In screenwriting, minimise the scenes as you build-up tension. Use what you’ve learnt about about phonetic symbolism.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow pace, use longer words, words with a smoother feel, longer sentences and longer paragraphs. Use phonetic symbolism.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To speed pace, use the present tense. Reduce your use of the present participle (‘ing’ endings) and check you have not moved into the passive form.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow pace, try including the present participle and the perfect tense (he had seen her) within the simple past where this is might be effective.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To speed pace, take out most of the character’s thinking process. In acute scenes of action, this can be reduced to almost nothing. (This technique tends to be redundant in scriptwriting.).</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow pace, allow the character to be reflective and record the thinking process. Use interior monologue, especially deep, unfiltered thought processes from the narrator.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To speed up pace, use snappy dialogue, snatches of free indirect discourse and no long speeches.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow down, delve deep into imagery and utilise a more dreamy mood.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To speed up, make images clear and precise, with sharp sights & sounds. Omit adverbs and avoid as many adjectives as possible</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow, explain an outcome…use exposition rather than an active scene to describe something that has happened.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span>To speed up, avoid </span><span> ‘countersinking’, </span><span>when the writer allows the actions implied in the story scene to become explicit – ‘</span><i>let’s get out of here,’ he said,</i><span> </span><i>urging her to leave</i><span>. You can countersink emotions, too, by allowing your character to give blatant and unnecessary clues to his own emotions…</span><i>I laughed heartily as I told my news...</i><span>and countersink action description…</span><i>she rose from her chair and stood up.</i></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To slow down, allow a little exposition, but be careful that this 'tell' doesn't replace 'show', but is there to do a job. </span></li></ul></ul><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Two further techniques can be used to vary pace.</span></p><ul><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Cliffhangers hold off the denouement of the scene ending. Some sub-genres of fiction have this as an accepted method of completing book chapters, and it’s particular useful in writing for children, while TV and radio series have employed this technique for many years. Delayed outcomes force readers to start the next chapter, and force viewers to make a note to watch again next week</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jump-cuts move from an unfinished scene to somewhere else entirely. This is a technique widely utilised by screenwriters, but novelists, non-fiction writers and other scriptwriters can use it too. For scripts, the jump-cut naturally shuttles to another scene. For prose, the jump can move into exposition, interior monologue, or backstory. It can also move to description, but do beware of the caution given above. Be sure to jump back again, before the previous scene is forgotten.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Rapid-fire dialogue invigorates a scene. Pared-down dialogue has a natural velocity</span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rapid-firing of situations and events, all occurring immediately, one after another will up the pace dramatically, especially if these events 'bare down' on protagonists.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Very short chapters, segments and added break-out parts, such as texts or newspaper headlines, turn up the pace. The reader digests them and passes through them smartly, giving the feeling of speed. </span></li></ul><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="660" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5uAgoCQUrwelk2PliEx5UdK9x4mHXA1PAFtYAZM8Yu5DorqDdez4QRCvfQ5NA7xU2rE6pWyccxeWSFLDHKvO62PqDv_4WhAa_mwbwNlVn0WMCUaiGyKPx3jC1BCjUGBbhaJklWivIhAmfGhPaYdM_XzIGXcnJzNp2GkWrLk3s9QqGD7xzpLvjrBwdk1o/s320/221267.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="320" /></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Exercise</span></b></p><ul><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Experiment with slowing and speeding up the pace of your work.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Take a scene that you know is too slow and use some of the techniques to speed it up.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Now take a scene which you would like to be more contemplative or introspective and again, try some of the techniques to widen and deepen the voice.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Share your resulting writing by commenting on this blogpost!</span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div><br /></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-50891176166909447912024-02-17T07:33:00.000-08:002024-03-13T23:54:32.270-07:00The Beautiful Tau Banner of Lady Dai; Duchess of the Han Dynasty<p style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.850000381469727px;"> </p><div class="undefined" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.850000381469727px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; outline: none;"><div class="body-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--body-content-text-color); line-height: 1.775rem; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; outline: none;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-grid; line-height: 1.4; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52);"></span></span></li><span style="color: #2e3134;"><span style="font-size: large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 4px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWT3eOGnePthwfHPcAGR86HHoulF0OJqzELluUSAiZnNXEXd8m0lj4yo1k6As3I183krJ2WyAPUmRkMyDmT4ZRyLBGr2ApvboeNDTA8q1b_uKpX005UGw3eWwhcIznON3ouZBecKjNbJn-UVYHIwAxP-2R46iMv-3oiEfFCGaUrcBUu0V38VJQJD8EUY/s600/Lady-of-Dai-mummy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6699cc; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="600" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWT3eOGnePthwfHPcAGR86HHoulF0OJqzELluUSAiZnNXEXd8m0lj4yo1k6As3I183krJ2WyAPUmRkMyDmT4ZRyLBGr2ApvboeNDTA8q1b_uKpX005UGw3eWwhcIznON3ouZBecKjNbJn-UVYHIwAxP-2R46iMv-3oiEfFCGaUrcBUu0V38VJQJD8EUY/w400-h238/Lady-of-Dai-mummy.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"> Xin Zhui, (better known as the Lady Dai)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">In 1971 some builders stopped for a smoke as they dug out an air raid shelter on a hill in Hunan, China. They were puzzled; as they dug deeper into the hill, the soil crumbled away as if it had previously been disturbed. They lit their cigarettes and noticed that the matches burned with a deep blue flame. They might not have known that decomposition of human remains can release highly flammable gasses, but they left the site quickly, and reported their finding. </span></span></span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 4px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDTfRyAQoNJXXXw-LR8isUKKgPNLpMb2LLxbAd8HRG0hGgvacS7PWWl68KXpMPw-mqwClLJNsu1koxL4UQHWZcTYwbZVYQUMeE3EzksQi8dSFD7WE_Vgg_Q9axovvsd2DngVa_bNGXfguKQKGM6IJBWlI2nIYJcfgRbdWFdrA3ohzmxLiALjaC9HNwU4/s1920/JGYJSEEVLp5UD5rMRLxHdu4wtQYv5GA1yrOUZvcV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6699cc; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDTfRyAQoNJXXXw-LR8isUKKgPNLpMb2LLxbAd8HRG0hGgvacS7PWWl68KXpMPw-mqwClLJNsu1koxL4UQHWZcTYwbZVYQUMeE3EzksQi8dSFD7WE_Vgg_Q9axovvsd2DngVa_bNGXfguKQKGM6IJBWlI2nIYJcfgRbdWFdrA3ohzmxLiALjaC9HNwU4/s320/JGYJSEEVLp5UD5rMRLxHdu4wtQYv5GA1yrOUZvcV.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;">The outside cavity holding the three coffins</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">When the archeologists arrived a few months later, they established that this was the resting place of a noble family of the Han dynasty. Two tombs, of the Marquis of Dai, who died in 186 BC, and a male relative, who may have been a son or brother, had been disrupted and robbed. But the final tomb, built circa 163 BC, for the Marquis's wife, Xin Zhui, (better known as the Lady Dai), was intact, and the archaeologists discovered an opulent, spectacular and surprising interior. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; padding: 4px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXY4Ygm1Jsq1YocNfxc0CqzuSus4cDXpIFj2nuzU78ewh-Z-N3-xhNv5dB-u845vThtNY1PT-YOlSaLHoqwxbV6obF5m3-GftZP1DAtUG2a1kep0_g8cfbIftag396N7aW1I0TAXDRgQv-hVcg-py3cuwH082jkEf5_96kALJZw1PEP4hLTHq0osbw7wg/s472/Lady-of-Dai-mummy-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #6699cc; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="472" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXY4Ygm1Jsq1YocNfxc0CqzuSus4cDXpIFj2nuzU78ewh-Z-N3-xhNv5dB-u845vThtNY1PT-YOlSaLHoqwxbV6obF5m3-GftZP1DAtUG2a1kep0_g8cfbIftag396N7aW1I0TAXDRgQv-hVcg-py3cuwH082jkEf5_96kALJZw1PEP4hLTHq0osbw7wg/s320/Lady-of-Dai-mummy-3.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;">One of the three inner caskets</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">The tombs were accessed via rectangular vertical shafts dug deep into the earth, a method originating from the bronze age. Lady Dai's funnel-like crypt contained more than 1,000 precious artefacts, including makeup, toiletries, lacquerware, and 162 carved wooden figures which represented her staff of servants. A meal was even laid out to be enjoyed by the 50 year-old duchess in the afterlife. In the central area lay three nesting coffins. Inside many layers of silk was the beautifully preserved mummy, wrapped in her finest robe, her <span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52);">skin still soft to the touch. The fact that </span></span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">she was quite corpulent, from her amazingly rich diet – scorpion soup was apparently a </span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">favourite – may have helped the quality of her ancient skin.</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 4px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGg6y759Z1IPK3bXSOVmmrsNfz3UacN8sLXK3nCue2qWSrPR7ipP1xzETo8uOh-gjsYhdUqWyO93dA_8xLU-fzv1y3H0lCRmeWC-4ZmLhmF9U6Zh92u87t52UQ4zSd0qWNQA923YbHrlqd-MVLxLY6ho2EmqwBl0Xov0bSK4dwR2010ks8idZH8Eo8a8/s283/Lady-of-Dai-mummy-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #6699cc; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="283" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGg6y759Z1IPK3bXSOVmmrsNfz3UacN8sLXK3nCue2qWSrPR7ipP1xzETo8uOh-gjsYhdUqWyO93dA_8xLU-fzv1y3H0lCRmeWC-4ZmLhmF9U6Zh92u87t52UQ4zSd0qWNQA923YbHrlqd-MVLxLY6ho2EmqwBl0Xov0bSK4dwR2010ks8idZH8Eo8a8/s1600/Lady-of-Dai-mummy-4.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px; text-align: center;">An artefact found in the tomb</td></tr></tbody></table></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">The outermost coffin was a plain box. Inside were the three nesting coffins painted with hugely expensive lacquer in black, red, and white. This protected from water damage and bacterial invasion</span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">. I cannot imagine how awed the archeologists must have been as they steadily revealed each coffin.</span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">But even more magnificent than all of this, was the banner that lay on top of the innermost of the coffins. This almost intact piece of beautifully painted silk would have been part of the procession of the Marquise to her resting place. And on it were full and intricate instructions for her soul. The banner instructed Xin Zhui's spirit how to reach her paradise</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">. </span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">This </span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">T-shaped silk banner was over six feet long and in excellent condition for 2000-year-old fabric. It is a very early example of pictorial art in China.</span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I first encountered this breathtaking story of life in Ancient Chin</span></span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">a at a lecture given at Lampeter University, in West Wales. Fabric specialist had travelled from across the country to learn more about Lady Dai’s banner, its art and its messages. </span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">The banner is divided into four horizontal sections. In the first, Lady Dai is pictured standing on a platform, leaning on a staff, wearing an embroidered silk robe. Framing the scene are white and pink sinuous dragons, their bodies looping through a 'bi' (a disc with a hole, representing the sky). This section is remarkable in itself, as it is the earliest example of a painted portrait of a specific individual in China.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">In the section below this scene, sacrificial funerary rituals are portrayed in a mourning hall. Tripod containers and vase-shaped vessels for offering food and wine stand in the foreground. In the middle ground, seated mourners line up in two rows.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> On a mound in the between two rows of mourners there are the patterns on the silk that match the robe Lady Dai wears in the scene above this.</span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">Lady Dai’s banner helps the modern world understand the religion she followed two millennia ago, and how artists began to represent depth and space in early Chinese painting. They made efforts to indicate depth through the use of the overlapping bodies of the mourners. They also made objects in the foreground larger, and objects in the background smaller, to create that illusion of space.<a aria-controls="fancybox-wrap" aria-haspopup="dialog" class="fancybox image" href="https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered.jpg" style="border: 0px solid rgb(34, 35, 34); box-shadow: transparent 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: border-box; clear: left; color: #a83a2a; float: left; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Diagram of Funeral Banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui), 2nd century B.C.E., silk, 205 x 92 x 47.7 cm (Hunan Provincial Museum, Changsha)" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-76779" class="wp-image-76779" decoding="async" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 226px) 100vw, 226px" src="https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered-300x465.jpg" srcset="https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered-300x465.jpg 300w, https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered-870x1348.jpg 870w, https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered-991x1536.jpg 991w, https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered-1322x2048.jpg 1322w, https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mawangdui_silk_banner_from_tomb_no1-Recovered.jpg 1595w" style="border: 0px none rgb(34, 35, 34); box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" width="257" /></a></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">Above and below the scenes of Lady Dai and the mourning hall, are images of heaven and the underworld. Toward the top, near the cross of the “T,” two men face each other and guard the gate to the heavenly realm. Directly above the two men, at the very top of the banner, is a deity with a human head and a dragon body.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">Dragons and other immortal being look down from the sky to a toad standing on a crescent moon flanks the dragon/human deity and what looks like a three-legged crow within a pink sun. The moon and the sun are emblematic of a supernatural realm above the human world. In the lower register, beneath the mourning hall, the underworld is painted with a red snake, a pair of blue goats, and an earthly deity, holding up the floor of the mourning hall Two giant black fish cross to form a circle beneath him. The beings in the underworld symbolize water and earth, and they indicate an underground domain below the human world. </span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a aria-controls="fancybox-wrap" aria-haspopup="dialog" class="fancybox image" href="https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bdb972f08bd95637980e5d25054b735673cf367c.jpg" style="border: 0px solid rgb(34, 35, 34); box-shadow: transparent 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: #a83a2a; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Body of Lady Dai with mourners (detail), Funeral banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui), 2nd century B.C.E., silk, 205 x 92 x 47.7 cm (Hunan Provincial Museum, Changsha)" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-76781" class="wp-image-76781 size-medium" decoding="async" height="239" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bdb972f08bd95637980e5d25054b735673cf367c-300x239.jpg" srcset="https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bdb972f08bd95637980e5d25054b735673cf367c-300x239.jpg 300w, https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bdb972f08bd95637980e5d25054b735673cf367c-870x692.jpg 870w, https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bdb972f08bd95637980e5d25054b735673cf367c.jpg 966w" style="border: 0px none rgb(34, 35, 34); box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /></a><br /></span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While other mummies tend to crumble at the slightest movement, Dai is the most well-preserved ancient corpse yet to be discovered. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">Unlike most of the mummies found in ancient Egypt, her organs were all intact – <span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52);"> there was still blood in her veins</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">—Type A. </span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">This allowed pathologists the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform an autopsy on the preserved body, 2,100 years after her death, ultimately giving us a firsthand glimpse at how the richest of the rich lived during the Han Dynast and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">is arguably the m</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">ost complete medical profile ever compiled on an ancient individual.</span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">Thanks to her luxurious lifestyle, the Marquise had </span><span style="color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, gallstones, liver disease, diabetes, and high cholesterol. She must have been in pretty constant pain from </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">a fused spinal disc.</span></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; border: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(46, 49, 52); color: #2e3134; font-family: Helvetica;">Immediately after she was exposed to oxygen for the first time in 2,000 years, her body started to break down, which caused some of the visible decay apparent in the photograp of her mummy at the top of this blog. </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font;">Her body and belongings were taken into the care of the Hunan Museum, where she now lies in state.</span></span></li></ul></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-10947066608897858892024-02-08T06:31:00.000-08:002024-02-15T10:34:50.168-08:00PLOT OUTLINE OR SYNOPSIS; Which do you need?<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Plotlines and Synopses </b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtZ-hFpkU1jq989XzhQkQRQmgja-uxRluZOlxkChebXvyqo1azOdrfGhVwWr7W-JTeaUl2lM3V-a5mfeELR-xMn5t-gNPlF3NCBoKW04ew8U1YNHbZUMtngRcGE68hWVCYDCj94Q12kjapMHJmJaSbHvBsIZi8uY-B8pkGMRvN7Vb8VBBZAmGOXDTrSuI/s1800/Signpost.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtZ-hFpkU1jq989XzhQkQRQmgja-uxRluZOlxkChebXvyqo1azOdrfGhVwWr7W-JTeaUl2lM3V-a5mfeELR-xMn5t-gNPlF3NCBoKW04ew8U1YNHbZUMtngRcGE68hWVCYDCj94Q12kjapMHJmJaSbHvBsIZi8uY-B8pkGMRvN7Vb8VBBZAmGOXDTrSuI/w400-h265/Signpost.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">People often get muddled when referring to the plot outline or synopsis of their story. There is a huge difference between the two. Until you are ready to market your work, don’t attempt to write a synopsis, and refrain from calling any outline you write a synopsis, even in your own head. </span><p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> A <b>synopsis </b>or <b>proposal</b> should not be written until <i>after </i>the work has been completed (at least in the first draft) – it’s the overview that other people want to see, not something that you should work from. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, as you create the work, you’ll need an outline of some kind (even if you are the most avid of ‘character-led’ writers). You can call this a plotline, plot outline, plot map, story outline...whatever you like, so long as you don’t call it a synopsis!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></b></div><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Try this Kitchen Table Exercise </span></i></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoYjJ6xMZ59FyKIWu6vIfs98D1lABAWIwW3V7gklkrwzOEsyGLrLvxShyphenhyphenr6R9McLZecvJ5MwlxsbMwXuCUuCxZySi9F4qcB69Pl3NIev54XmqHMa6ed5Gf25TEBOaQdvOx5M-QIDdr45iSMZKC54KQTCs1J_nzc6Jy1i9r6nMHUgcxC1ICl9FcjuYg2s/s474/th-51.jpeg" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoYjJ6xMZ59FyKIWu6vIfs98D1lABAWIwW3V7gklkrwzOEsyGLrLvxShyphenhyphenr6R9McLZecvJ5MwlxsbMwXuCUuCxZySi9F4qcB69Pl3NIev54XmqHMa6ed5Gf25TEBOaQdvOx5M-QIDdr45iSMZKC54KQTCs1J_nzc6Jy1i9r6nMHUgcxC1ICl9FcjuYg2s/w400-h225/th-51.jpeg" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">3Draw a representation of an ECG – the line your heartbeat takes electrically – on a sheet of paper. (You don’t have to be medically exact!). </span></li><li style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">This pattern is also an excellent plan of a good plot.</span></li><li style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Try to slot the plot of your story (short or long,) into the cardiogram. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">There should be peaks o</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">r climaxes, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">w</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">h</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">ere the action and drama rise to a point, and resting phases, which are absorbing to read but allow a rest between the action. </span></span></li><li style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">As we get to the middle of the story, the heart rate should increase, and the peaks shoot a little higher, reaching their highest point towards or at the end, just as your reader's heartbeat should increase as they 'get into' your story and begin to turn the pages faster.</span></li><li style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Take a look at what you've got. Did your plot go up and down?</span></li><li style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you have to admit your story is in asystole, (a flat line), your story is as dead as the patient on the table. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">If it seems to have fibrillation (too fast a heartbeat), you may have too much plot and not enough character development; your reader will want ‘resting phases’ as they read, which is why the pattern has peaks and troughs.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">NB: this is NOT your plot outline. It's an exercise to lead you into creating one.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">Now try </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Creating a Map of Your Story</span></span></li></ul><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span>Creating a Map of Your Story</span></span><br /></span><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A plot is not just any map; it’s a treasure map. There are instructions for the reader at the beginning, danger (or at least tension) along the journey and a wealth of satisfaction at the end. There are more ways to map your plot than there are...well...plots! </span></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Here is a list of just a few of these below:</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fragmentary</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">notes</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that jot down the ideas as they come to you. This might include:</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">snatches of dialogue</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">descriptive passages </span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">character sketches </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-O1ERv_Vm_rCSEL3Wtb7d9Nej1ci10xAWsEDx-iAuoD5hYG3anaKhgQT1Z1J16xQVu5_5qPFhoFtXVVBtHPtsSSbfutn00Gw0K7WbVto_455u1CW_fy__Fb3llIn-gALXZWjjSwEf1W88JjzhaGgUG2fq8J7yPJErIqtZlYUAeFwiG7ux6uo8KBSRC6g/s2048/IMG_0055.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-O1ERv_Vm_rCSEL3Wtb7d9Nej1ci10xAWsEDx-iAuoD5hYG3anaKhgQT1Z1J16xQVu5_5qPFhoFtXVVBtHPtsSSbfutn00Gw0K7WbVto_455u1CW_fy__Fb3llIn-gALXZWjjSwEf1W88JjzhaGgUG2fq8J7yPJErIqtZlYUAeFwiG7ux6uo8KBSRC6g/s320/IMG_0055.jpg" width="240" /></span></span></a></div></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">possible themes</span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">thoughts on how the story might work.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A designated </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">note book</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, with the title of the story on the front. At first, it will contain the fragmentary notes, but as these build up, you will include further techniques, such as those listed below.</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Diagrammatic</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> forms</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">might include:</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Webmaking</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; jotting previous ideas (including characters and their traits) all over a large sheet of paper, then seeing how they join up.</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Clustering</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; writing one phrase (or the title of the story) in the centre of a large sheet of paper, then using a ‘freewrite’ technique to create clusters of further thoughts. Each new thought comes out of a previous one, until it is exhausted. You then return to the first phrase and start again, so filling the paper. Afterwards, watch for the important clusters to jump out at you.</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mindmaps</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, which spring out of brainstorming</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Character sketches, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">look for events, obstacles, opposition and conflicts to shape plot</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lists</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that you might develop as the idea developes</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Timelines </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">are useful, especially for longer stories or stories that use flashback a good deal. In this case, why not create a timeline of the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">plot</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> and a timeline of the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">story</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (see the illustration above)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Index</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">cards</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, where your ideas can be shuffled around in front of you</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">A pegboard or whiteboard technique, where you put things up, move things round and rub unwanted ideas out.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">As you write, keep asking:</span></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">What is my character’s goal and how important is it to them?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Who is my character’s opponent, and how much of a threat are they?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">What are my character’s obstacles, and how am I going to space them out in the novel, so that there can be peaks and lulls in the dramatic tension?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Have I at least an idea about the final conflict, and how it may lead to a satisfying conclusion for my character?</span></li></ul><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgbtP0IjFdb_Q4PR-aOzFvxDhpEQ-adDwvr1Vn6LCgu3t1GzeqZfD3ZExF74L4BwWHyFnVca3Ntj01AhB0EzUALUb3i-lcCGf9-0HO7U5VKzxKiWJpmC28b6S8fdGSxXCdOr8mv_TqbNJh8B5ANQIHYr95i3hLGU3k9shr64-VsJ1ItTT3TmSvuID45o/s474/th-50.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="474" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgbtP0IjFdb_Q4PR-aOzFvxDhpEQ-adDwvr1Vn6LCgu3t1GzeqZfD3ZExF74L4BwWHyFnVca3Ntj01AhB0EzUALUb3i-lcCGf9-0HO7U5VKzxKiWJpmC28b6S8fdGSxXCdOr8mv_TqbNJh8B5ANQIHYr95i3hLGU3k9shr64-VsJ1ItTT3TmSvuID45o/w400-h228/th-50.jpeg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Creating an Arc</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span>However you start to gather ideas, most writers then want to pin these fragmentary thoughts to some sort of template or plotting device. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In his book<i> Writing a Novel</i>, Nigel Watts recommend the ‘eight point arc’, suggesting…<i>every classic plot needs to pass through eight phase</i>s… Here are his eight points; </span></span></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Stasis</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; the base reality, and the ‘status quo’ of the story. A ‘day like any other’ (although it might also contain conflict or opposition) </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Trigger<span>; an event, beyond the control of the protagonist, which turns the stasis from average to exceptional</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Quest</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; not just about fantasy; the trigger will generate the quest which may take up<br /> the journey of the story</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Surprise</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; this is often an obstacle or conflict, but it could be pleasant; the heroine meeting the hero, for instance. A surprise definitely helps ‘middle slump’ </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Critical Choice</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; a brick wall in the protagonist’s path means they have to make decisions. This is where causality is most necessary, otherwise the story can descent into chaotic coincidence.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Climax;</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> in literary theory, this is any great moment of intensity – the peak of a conflict situation. Watts give this example of the middle three phases…if the surprise is a burglar…the critical choice of the householder is self-defence, the climax is the burglar being hit over the head…</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reversal; </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">a story is better for having reversal, sometimes call the peripeteia in literary theory. Watts points out…if the climax does not result in reversal, a question is raised: is there a purpose to the climax other than as spectacle? Of course, you can have spectacle in your story, but it is plot event, rather than plot development. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Resolution</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">; the completion of the plot, where a new status quo is established.</span></span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Aristotle and Freytag</span></div><div><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj90j4QbiB0RktCrj-JerXWynOg7CagXhpAMRb3OlUWeD6u6pA3XWu3wCjoJm7GxGQJr_lX7wN3b0ZjkkWfNz1F1hmoRhBG4PEQ8SRtPvN3Khraxb_n0898lNUc6uDaR2om68pmTWK6TCRpT90lVWk38lgtSM2dOgqHh-8YzOfaHw1yx7uLbJcMbXN3iKg/s400/Detail-Roman-copy-portrait-bust-Aristotle-Greek.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj90j4QbiB0RktCrj-JerXWynOg7CagXhpAMRb3OlUWeD6u6pA3XWu3wCjoJm7GxGQJr_lX7wN3b0ZjkkWfNz1F1hmoRhBG4PEQ8SRtPvN3Khraxb_n0898lNUc6uDaR2om68pmTWK6TCRpT90lVWk38lgtSM2dOgqHh-8YzOfaHw1yx7uLbJcMbXN3iKg/s320/Detail-Roman-copy-portrait-bust-Aristotle-Greek.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span><br /></span></span></div>It's probable that Watts developed his 8-point arc from the very first thinking on creating a structured plot. That may go as far back as Aristotle, who</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> used the the term 'mythos' to denote plot and describing it as ‘the arrangement of incidents’. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">By studying Aristotle and the Greek playwrights, Gustav Freytag developed a plot pyramid in the 19th century, dividing story into five dramatic elements.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span>A Introduction</span><br /><span>B Rise, or rising movement</span><br /><span>C Climax</span><br /><span>D Return or falling movement</span><br /><span>E Catastrophe</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The pyramid looks like this––</i></span><span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKlqHKSY6qqVMe8VI_uwzCNchVe3OXz1TkiOWvHyr-S5V9Q8J1dmjCC0BKiEwam1ogLIB-AJFYvDKrRMVwSSvuRmFIjgZd_4xJU5nNYYFZySMkMiUdzqTO8539OG_OCZvk4gmRvFoT7Ok6mEicbXkHiPwQPMaJAGZX4j5RHCRrcQB3R0yQLat_UWK4niY/s650/Freytags-Pyramid-Plot-Diagram-2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="650" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKlqHKSY6qqVMe8VI_uwzCNchVe3OXz1TkiOWvHyr-S5V9Q8J1dmjCC0BKiEwam1ogLIB-AJFYvDKrRMVwSSvuRmFIjgZd_4xJU5nNYYFZySMkMiUdzqTO8539OG_OCZvk4gmRvFoT7Ok6mEicbXkHiPwQPMaJAGZX4j5RHCRrcQB3R0yQLat_UWK4niY/w400-h306/Freytags-Pyramid-Plot-Diagram-2.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YiNW1UNjsi5n8G6uBDnB3PVRoXNVp0auctYlI8zm7FfFTw4z6u4JRmguQXmRtx0ITjgeMsWjXQlHr9H8LmGxCRCrHHIO-wSgVaSfwUajrDbEqCSvr2o0cAzGmSPJfm0wOhzewwsVFINU22ssyGokC4ea5bVvtjCeLzChh707g7i1uEhvaiNvkk9qIO0/s533/440px-Die_Gartenlaube_(1886)_b_501.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YiNW1UNjsi5n8G6uBDnB3PVRoXNVp0auctYlI8zm7FfFTw4z6u4JRmguQXmRtx0ITjgeMsWjXQlHr9H8LmGxCRCrHHIO-wSgVaSfwUajrDbEqCSvr2o0cAzGmSPJfm0wOhzewwsVFINU22ssyGokC4ea5bVvtjCeLzChh707g7i1uEhvaiNvkk9qIO0/s320/440px-Die_Gartenlaube_(1886)_b_501.jpg" width="264" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gustav Freytag, from Die Gartenlaube (1886)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Be aware that a plot-based triangle does not have to have the perfect symmetry suggested above. A crisis could arrive sooner, and often arrives further on in a story.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Almost all plotting structures and methods have evolved from Freytag’s Pyramid, but over time the original terms have slightly changed, especially our approach to the ending, ‘catastrophe’, refers mostly to a dramatic tragedy, and although you may certainly be writing one of those, it’s also possible you’re aiming for a happier end. </span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nowadays, you’re more likely to see:</span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">A) Exposition, Stasis, or Ground State</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">B) Complication or Inciting Incident</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">C) Crisis </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">D) Anticlimax or reversal</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">R Resolution or dénouement.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span>However, </span><span>triangles</span><span> beats, point-arcs etc, are not the only way to plot. Here's three ideas that might suit your story better; </span></span></div></h2><ol>
<li style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Storyboarding. Film directors assemble a series of photographs or drawings on a storyboard, moving these pictures about, rejecting some and adding others until the relationships between them, and their relevance to the story, are clear. Writers can make storyboards in the same way. Use a large sheet of paper or new unlined notebook –use pin men if you’re not a natural artist.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><i></i></span>Start with the characters It’s an excellent idea to plot through your characters, and you can do this as you write, but the problem will arise that you won’t quite know what will happen next, and you can trail down the wrong route for a long time without realizing – although some of these trails need to happen – they are a form of plotting in themselves. You might like to look at the alternative methods of creating plot maps above, to use alongside this method.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8a8tnaqoh1y2cc_yyfiWUUcT1T1faK70ZW9Ph8Evc6-D552zBQbsWtIOf17A_BAeBoO1Hxw9kc86_uVZz4H3nte1Z9BAeu2qyF_yUYOt77uOUafUfYuWQRpjOFfpQZS5NbPGFVM9jQt9ZwrwqUL0d6jhY4Dx3mXRdETtbOKDYunXTBsXXM-MpHf30Up8/s2048/IMG_0350.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8a8tnaqoh1y2cc_yyfiWUUcT1T1faK70ZW9Ph8Evc6-D552zBQbsWtIOf17A_BAeBoO1Hxw9kc86_uVZz4H3nte1Z9BAeu2qyF_yUYOt77uOUafUfYuWQRpjOFfpQZS5NbPGFVM9jQt9ZwrwqUL0d6jhY4Dx3mXRdETtbOKDYunXTBsXXM-MpHf30Up8/w320-h240/IMG_0350.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></span></li>
<li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fruitcake. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Take a bowl,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">stir in a freewritten sentence– one that will grab you. Add handfuls of the ideas in your head – however feeble – while you continue to stir your freewrite. Pour in any of the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">list above of "Fragmentary notes". </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Feed in settings, themes, obstacles, problems, new characters, more problems and emotions. Keep writing. Add other problems. Open up to other possibilities. Keep stirring, and bake.</span></span></li></ol><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Finally, don't forget Cause and Effect </span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Causality is a massive part of the plotting mechanism which will have a riveting effect on the plotting of your stories. Readers love to see the ‘story build up’, as events, thoughts, behaviour etc., set up in the early moments of the story, connect, build and develop the story. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Causality is linked closely to the motivation and personality traits of the characters. As the plot unfolds causality results in a process of significant change which gives the reader regular emotional hits, until the conclusion is revealed. Using causality, a plot builds up from incidents that impact on one another. These incidents should not be a series of unrelated events. Causality will help you get a patterned, driven, tight plot that takes the reader on a journey via the motivation of the characters. Causality also helps you guard against implausibility; if the character’s motivation and conflicts are always directed by cause and effect, the writing will be far more believable. It is by combining causality with conflict that the strongest plot affects are gained. Conflict allows the ‘screws’ of cause and effect to tighten towards the end of the story. The reader knows all the complexities will be sorted, but they can’t for the life of them see how. A good ending will generally spring that sort of surprise; the ‘how’ of making a satisfactory and (if the author wants) happy ending, where the character has survived his ordeals, and learns and grows as a person. Using a learning/growing outcome often helps the plausibility of the story, and leads to a satisfying end, because the main character will have mostly sorted things out for himself and be responsible for most of the good outcomes. </span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxEscScs81FUVut6-26OLKwr9v6wgh9TQQ-A8IAgNJLHpFHNqfP5mL2dOvbovsOVAq4c25Eor8-NqoQQwcn324wgpMuZQFTTwbgCxsgjB71rEc35eXgFECrqivttfu5FIlG9ce0-z1oatY1mfrTDSt94NKE49ZKyRse3gxE2hrJz2PnvDrmnH9x00AuZg/s776/incandescent-bulb@2x.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="456" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxEscScs81FUVut6-26OLKwr9v6wgh9TQQ-A8IAgNJLHpFHNqfP5mL2dOvbovsOVAq4c25Eor8-NqoQQwcn324wgpMuZQFTTwbgCxsgjB71rEc35eXgFECrqivttfu5FIlG9ce0-z1oatY1mfrTDSt94NKE49ZKyRse3gxE2hrJz2PnvDrmnH9x00AuZg/s320/incandescent-bulb@2x.jpg" width="188" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">H</span><span style="font-size: x-large;">ow is your plot going?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Do let KitchenTableWriters know, by talking to us all through our comments page. Look forward to hearing from you! </span></div></span><ol><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></span></ol>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-50720432839834979932024-01-22T02:50:00.000-08:002024-01-22T02:53:42.732-08:00Descriptive Writing: The Truth is in the Zoned-In Detail <p><br /></p><p data-reader-unique-id="4" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 18px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO5QpEjf9QdnFNQovEuD6hAxwLLcdJPwDZrdSZre7QFz0vIb0M2sCmZaaEOW4a9TmwHgk6Am3dywm_tDCnNNzFXl_d7xSsUu_msUsDhsJN7j2lhRhAoQA2BQZlkORtr_JBEBabLXIvdCmpNli1acGLh5XpBF3CBMXe_de-dsH2CtZMXszcuUxIkylxi2g/s640/bracken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="640" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO5QpEjf9QdnFNQovEuD6hAxwLLcdJPwDZrdSZre7QFz0vIb0M2sCmZaaEOW4a9TmwHgk6Am3dywm_tDCnNNzFXl_d7xSsUu_msUsDhsJN7j2lhRhAoQA2BQZlkORtr_JBEBabLXIvdCmpNli1acGLh5XpBF3CBMXe_de-dsH2CtZMXszcuUxIkylxi2g/w400-h268/bracken.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The truth is in the Zoned-in Details</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">In her marvellous book<i> Reading Like a Writer</i>, Francine Prose says this;<i> </i></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="4" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Details are what persuade us that someone is telling the truth––a fact that every liar knows instinctively and too well...what a relief it is when a detail reassures us that a writer is in control</i>…</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="4" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9aXPBtHZd9mM57kAvlrK-7gh0bk7tWUL9BpathnuNaldX2r8uaagLYV56pRK1OX45YW-AcvbejgyUFGjfqcVR3lEIS0tfk7GtpF7wtrINnFWHHoHAvIWF4pmM2JTFNQOWyd0SrXnYjJa1WOXj4yqLNUjn5HhLXu9zkcMdyRPfZTsqcksfinpMXa19FzQ/s436/916rnkb-U5L._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="284" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9aXPBtHZd9mM57kAvlrK-7gh0bk7tWUL9BpathnuNaldX2r8uaagLYV56pRK1OX45YW-AcvbejgyUFGjfqcVR3lEIS0tfk7GtpF7wtrINnFWHHoHAvIWF4pmM2JTFNQOWyd0SrXnYjJa1WOXj4yqLNUjn5HhLXu9zkcMdyRPfZTsqcksfinpMXa19FzQ/s320/916rnkb-U5L._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Fiction writers need to be excellent liars. Their entire story is made up – of course it is. And it's in the descriptive details that those stories look the most convincing. It's not the Devil that's in the detail, it's where fiction appears to be its most true. </span><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="4" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One of the first things I learnt about describing as a writer of fiction was this, from my own tutor… <i data-reader-unique-id="6" style="max-width: 100%;">although we are using words, we are stimulating pictures in a reader’s mind. </i></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="4" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Students of Creative Writing often find this one of the hardest things. I can’t blame them; they want to be able to jump in, feet first, and start creating something whole; making stories, </span><span style="font-family: -apple-system-font;"><span style="font-size: medium;">working on plot, writing about action, developing their characters, saying important things to the reading world. </span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="4" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system-font;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They may be impatient when told that the first thing they should work on is how to describe. But have you ever read writing so vivid that you felt as if you were actually there? This is description that appeals to the senses — eyes, nose, ears, tongue or skin. The clue is in being specific. I call this ‘</span><b data-reader-unique-id="9" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">zoned-in detail</b><span style="font-size: medium;">’.</span></span></p><p></p><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23690" class="clear" data-reader-unique-id="11" style="clear: both; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.4em 0px; max-width: 100%;"><figcaption data-reader-unique-id="14" style="margin-top: 0.8em; max-width: 100%; text-align: left; width: 646.09375px;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;">Think back to the last thing you wanted to describe in your writing. A landscape, a neighbourhood, or something smaller; a room, a piece of furniture or an artefact. How did you describe this? Did you use any detail at all? Did you use too much? </span></figcaption></figure><p></p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;">Better to use the right details, of course, but knowing what the right details are is not an easy skill to acquire.</span><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">Chekhov was a master of description, in both his drama and in his wonderful short stories. Here's his take on what I call 'zoned-in detail'.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">In my opinion a true description of nature should be very brief and have the<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVqwZW03laRY6YU6vpZeBl9ZHB7p-YQT8N3EF73DmgpfO1gZXHmSg0S6ublDzeBsOc5FueTpdfpi298lb9sH0qJEPh1sGQLjxYy18pb2D4XN2tMJGn0P0iyJZqAyS6JCPPB8E2g8aBafopPH8ZYaDotvwvCA7MZGj7BJGJxFlTCRb7CaBaZIhyWz_qxYI/s648/th-48.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVqwZW03laRY6YU6vpZeBl9ZHB7p-YQT8N3EF73DmgpfO1gZXHmSg0S6ublDzeBsOc5FueTpdfpi298lb9sH0qJEPh1sGQLjxYy18pb2D4XN2tMJGn0P0iyJZqAyS6JCPPB8E2g8aBafopPH8ZYaDotvwvCA7MZGj7BJGJxFlTCRb7CaBaZIhyWz_qxYI/s320/th-48.jpeg" width="234" /></a></div>character of relevance. Commonplaces such as "the setting sun </i><i>bathed the waves of the darkening sea, poured its purple gold, etc" – "The sealers flying over the surface of the water tittered merrily" – such commonplaces one ought to abandon. In descriptions of nature, one ought to sieze upon the little particulars, grouping them in such a way that, in reading, when you shut your eyes you get the picture.</i><br /></span></span><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;">I think Chekhov has put it so well. When you describe, take your time and, rather than concentrating on an overall picture, zone-in and look at some small detail that can exemplify the whole. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;">Recently, I needed to describe the two oak trees that are a legend in the county of Somerset. Locally called Mog and Magog, they can be found on a country path inside a small enclosure. I tried describing them directly, but it felt flat, so I skirted around, zoned-in and tried to find the right symbolic gestures to allow the reader to 'see the oaks in their mind':</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br data-reader-unique-id="18" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;" /></span><i data-reader-unique-id="19" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNtjddZANjBZecke27rrvCzEWvjqKkRtQ_5rPJymOUGamaD7bvEEwCRb51PPF8K02yeXgPgtIPeyybj55rRCFZVE6YQVYNdLUXKphnRKGbdo088hORmwvezkMdsv1dqSzHY7ch8evtk_SDFH8PjWfqmhaAPvkK0z4SK6D444Wape9Krl52bgq9NnQGhw/s500/cover%20Beneath%20the%20Tor%20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNtjddZANjBZecke27rrvCzEWvjqKkRtQ_5rPJymOUGamaD7bvEEwCRb51PPF8K02yeXgPgtIPeyybj55rRCFZVE6YQVYNdLUXKphnRKGbdo088hORmwvezkMdsv1dqSzHY7ch8evtk_SDFH8PjWfqmhaAPvkK0z4SK6D444Wape9Krl52bgq9NnQGhw/s320/cover%20Beneath%20the%20Tor%20.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">The oaks were almost leafless and white with age, and he was leaning into the further of them, his arms hugging the trunk, which was so broad it would have taken several of us to surround it completely. I rested my hand on the gnarled and weathered bark of the other tree. The day was warm, bees already buzzing in the foxgloves. A woodpecker rapped with furious persistence in the distance.</span></i><span style="font-size: large;"><br data-reader-unique-id="20" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;" /><i data-reader-unique-id="21" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;">“Oh, listen,” I whispered.</i><br data-reader-unique-id="22" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;" /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Tor-Shaman-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B08S45CHPM?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JOUkCLOo6ZI4403mHXAPvpB8U5hTaS_sCCbU9acHpH_RhL8kFht91yEWN2-TgEIdqL8S_crCD7_xzGoMstLoRti2qfhleXbUAMra0u9FHcAFO0dcgWDUFr-uyVIFcSasX7TjZP3nhQKCPXT7-dm1giaaFT5-1ug8WKr_CgFhQO-hrN0RH6jRbXuoVG0rq5tgl_jrot5H6O6DmN_XXT6EgA.ahZ0mRBa96TEnTKuhpW-6oJBK3bCs6GTPektveYaE2o&dib_tag=AUTHOR" target="_blank"><span style="color: #416ed2; font-family: -apple-system-font;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span> <span> </span></span> Beneath the Tor by Nina Milton</span></span>, </a><br data-reader-unique-id="24" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;" /></span><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23691" class="clear" data-reader-unique-id="25" style="clear: both; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: -apple-system-font; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.4em 0px; max-width: 100%;"><figcaption data-reader-unique-id="28" style="margin-top: 0.8em; max-width: 100%; width: 646.09375px;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;">I went for the sense of sight, but also touch and hearing, and conveying the image through a person’s actions. What I was trying to avoid was information overload. Readers cannot hold an infinite number of details in their mind at the same time. If I described everything about the trees, my readers would end up sensing none of it.</span></figcaption></figure><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;">The strange truth is, the more detail you chose to include, the less boring the writing becomes…moving into close-up is absorbing. On the other hand, skimming over description loses the reader and results in a lacklustre narrative line. What readers want, and love the most, are the details of life as they know it and can recognise it. A writer who can recreate the ‘commonalities’ of life so that they appear fresh and new on the page will engage and entrance their writer. Samuel Johnson said, “</span><i data-reader-unique-id="31" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;">”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br data-reader-unique-id="32" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;" /></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;">Zoned-in detail gives you the opportunity to use your descriptions to achieve other parts of the Craft of Writing. Good description will often also:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px;"></span><ul data-reader-unique-id="34" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><li data-reader-unique-id="35" style="max-width: 100%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TrMMlImudzZbzHQk2XM3RViU7WxIgArmDReVd-vEwyweH5d10-3p9iB9zxhykAhFR2uNyqnc3PCZsSMItK8yYr9VxQuzjGn-2L9t-292YTOx_MT4mzHhhs3R76oYuIzP4T_61GDPERbTL11a5RjZJWe3eFTfZqIBYU5pEQ3ErOPZwRilas9PT2mIf1A/s2048/IMG_0350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TrMMlImudzZbzHQk2XM3RViU7WxIgArmDReVd-vEwyweH5d10-3p9iB9zxhykAhFR2uNyqnc3PCZsSMItK8yYr9VxQuzjGn-2L9t-292YTOx_MT4mzHhhs3R76oYuIzP4T_61GDPERbTL11a5RjZJWe3eFTfZqIBYU5pEQ3ErOPZwRilas9PT2mIf1A/s320/IMG_0350.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Reveal and differentiate places and characters</li><li data-reader-unique-id="36" style="max-width: 100%;">Enhance mood and atmosphere</li><li data-reader-unique-id="37" style="max-width: 100%;">Heighten the reader’s identification with character</li><li data-reader-unique-id="38" style="max-width: 100%;">Hint at clues to theme or outcome</li><li data-reader-unique-id="39" style="max-width: 100%;">Suggest a larger picture or background information</li><li data-reader-unique-id="40" style="max-width: 100%;">Deepen symbolism</li><li data-reader-unique-id="41" style="max-width: 100%;">Add jokes and/or moments of depth</li><li data-reader-unique-id="42" style="max-width: 100%;">Express the emotions of the narrator</li><li data-reader-unique-id="43" style="max-width: 100%;">Add extra zing to the writing by bringing the five senses onto the page.</li></ul><p data-reader-unique-id="44" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">Looking back at the six lines of description I wrote about Mog and Magog, I wonder myself if I managed any of the above. I certainly didn’t attempt much description of the trees, although later, I do a little more, using dialogue. But, was there atmosphere? Did the narrator’s own feelings come across? Could you guess a little about the man hugging the tree? Were there hints of what might come later in the story? Was there any ‘zing’?</p><p data-reader-unique-id="44" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">One thing is clear; avoiding description because you don’t think you’ll do it well is not an option – it is one of the building blocks of creative writing.</p><p data-reader-unique-id="44" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">So, don’t be afraid of zoned-in detail – it makes all the difference – it is the complete opposite of writing huge swathes of description that skim over detail and bore the reader to sleep. By bearing in mind that you don’t have to describe the whole thing, and looking closely at the most interesting parts of the whole, the description is enhanced. The reader won’t want to see it all – that’s like being too close to the screen in the cinema.</p><p data-reader-unique-id="44" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">Next time you need to describe, remember; in you want to convince your reader of the absolute truth of your story, that truth is in the zoned-in detail.</p><hr data-reader-unique-id="50" style="background: var(--horizontal-line-color); border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; height: 0.5px; max-width: 100%;" /></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-88563670152363558842024-01-02T09:22:00.000-08:002024-01-02T09:22:54.224-08:00 The Secret Life of Characters<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqDDFej0LeUVJ4xDGgD7MnIgy2ox01HL9vov6E28ao8BwnPi0xZXxc7NqcVlbOVqLrf-_eO-7m2bPpBUgNIOkyDY_FuSKrKib20dKRqsM_LTt_Vx0eOQcbLvEbutGgJKe0EOpvbF2nZLDaHKH92FJZgDlrtiPqqAbkCls26wVXU4lM90LkcdVTaIpID3I/s960/10995644_761043907327122_2541325244409532393_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqDDFej0LeUVJ4xDGgD7MnIgy2ox01HL9vov6E28ao8BwnPi0xZXxc7NqcVlbOVqLrf-_eO-7m2bPpBUgNIOkyDY_FuSKrKib20dKRqsM_LTt_Vx0eOQcbLvEbutGgJKe0EOpvbF2nZLDaHKH92FJZgDlrtiPqqAbkCls26wVXU4lM90LkcdVTaIpID3I/w400-h265/10995644_761043907327122_2541325244409532393_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /><br />While I was writing my quartet of crime fiction novels, all about the same character, I got too know Sabbie Dare really well. She felt like my sister at times.. </span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Now, I love it when people reviewing the books talk about Sabbie as if she’s real, listing her faults, her hopes and fears, the things that make her tick. But I can say honestly, that I know Sabbie Dare better than any of her readers. Better than Sabbie Dare knows herself.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Creating a protagonist that will be sustained through hundreds of thousands of words of fiction will need more planning, dreaming and creating than the main character in a short story, or even the first draft of a novel, but don’t think that lets you off the character hook. </span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYdN7BvuyPfqPnuk3E7TexrKKIaJdMeqD45admpdYmOiSganpbl7xTLTIvbVIdVAEN44w85QEQ_r1an59uR24R3oJA760oZZ4hXCIDJOEDDgCdOlftGrqCsQ6v5-2KPNwjRAvG4K3_PtzxAZoBqGP23qHabZIC32DSUNeWQx5tSCPSkw4Dtuuc6Id2JpA/s600/16853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="512" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYdN7BvuyPfqPnuk3E7TexrKKIaJdMeqD45admpdYmOiSganpbl7xTLTIvbVIdVAEN44w85QEQ_r1an59uR24R3oJA760oZZ4hXCIDJOEDDgCdOlftGrqCsQ6v5-2KPNwjRAvG4K3_PtzxAZoBqGP23qHabZIC32DSUNeWQx5tSCPSkw4Dtuuc6Id2JpA/w170-h200/16853.jpg" width="170" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">You want your readers to be driven by emotion as they read, and in fiction it’s the characters who engage that emotion. For this to happen, the reader has to be trapped in a sort of magic…temporarily, and must believe the character is real. One hundred percent a living person, who is relating their story through words on a page. That’s the magic of fiction and it is perhaps a strong reason why people want to write and why they enroll on creative writing courses. In the past, you may have found yourself totally identifying with a compelling character in a novel, a play, or even a short story or poem, and now you too want to create such characters.</span><p></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">How did those previous writers do it? How did they get you to totally believe in their inventions? One route towards gaining that sort of direct link with a reader is to know your character as well as anyone; better than the character themselves.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxL7oswzZyvhhBmeAGLFLLWxExpP5jtUq5QzfYeqw45G2QNfPcgkCfk31r7tocX8xrria7S13YpcwBQ8PUjhmHBt141HtJg2FTjzg47hc54xgP_NKUp4JCJNAXXaA20pGk5_ueq3LQGS15b9SBwFL_50RFsWz_ghfuO6lxuEZnZO0Y90qC5gjZPz84qA/s500/51BEKTgtW8L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxL7oswzZyvhhBmeAGLFLLWxExpP5jtUq5QzfYeqw45G2QNfPcgkCfk31r7tocX8xrria7S13YpcwBQ8PUjhmHBt141HtJg2FTjzg47hc54xgP_NKUp4JCJNAXXaA20pGk5_ueq3LQGS15b9SBwFL_50RFsWz_ghfuO6lxuEZnZO0Y90qC5gjZPz84qA/s320/51BEKTgtW8L.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When my protagonist, Sabbie, starts out in book one,<i> In the Moors, </i>I reveal that as a child she lived in a children’s home, and the social workers encouraged her to make a ‘My Story Book’ that would fill in some of the blanks in her past. In a way, I helped her stick the photos in and reluctantly write underneath them in large, misspelt capital letters. I know that she still has this scrapbook, and that she’s hidden it from herself by tossing into the loft space.</span><p></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So how do you acquaint yourself well enough with your characters to fool your reader into believing they are authentic people? Picking apart the words on the page can reveal a host of useful strategies.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When I'm mentoring my writing clients, I ask them to create a history of their main character. It is tempting to dash through writing exercises such as these quickly, without thinking too much, b</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">ut I employed these ideas to help me create Sabbie Dare, and I found them wonderfully useful.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">First, chose a character if you don't already have one, and then ask these questions</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">within the context of any story you are building around them so that they grow in your mind: </span></p><ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What do they look like?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What is their full name?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What do they like to be called?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Do they have a nickname?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>How old are they?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What sun sign are they?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Who do they live with?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What is their relationship with these people?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What are their more secret feelings towards these people?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What is their home address?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Within that environment, what room or area is their favourite, where they feel most themselves?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What clothing and accessories do they wear and is this a conscious choice?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What car do they drive?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What car would they like to drive?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What is their job and where do they work?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Are they happy in their work?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What social status do they maintain?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Who are their friends?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Are there important places or possessions in their life?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>What small details would help you discover more? Do they love animals, always watch the Six Nations?</span></li></ul><div class="separator" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; clear: both; font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi74RLdLoyCqqd7ceoqT81U4WeLLQ19XlDVP9r-1xWIVwhrjVLkmQkixjRI4XA5wMijHe6YHeev67fsSlVN5Bq75YABXHT_nheP0mI9O20U_bzAYMIYfL-cKctfKs4oGaODNksOSzlr_JZwNzuMoaA-unb_ApcR_OSbYrmICcGvdu6t2a7RUiy9-q-Ku34/s240/81Uzgsl8h9L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi74RLdLoyCqqd7ceoqT81U4WeLLQ19XlDVP9r-1xWIVwhrjVLkmQkixjRI4XA5wMijHe6YHeev67fsSlVN5Bq75YABXHT_nheP0mI9O20U_bzAYMIYfL-cKctfKs4oGaODNksOSzlr_JZwNzuMoaA-unb_ApcR_OSbYrmICcGvdu6t2a7RUiy9-q-Ku34/w213-h320/81Uzgsl8h9L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This will help to develop them. I chose to use freewriting to do this and took on </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">the </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> first person persona, because I wanted to get into Sabbie’s head and under her skin. I let each question take care of itself, often scooting wildly off the subject, letting Sabbie talk until she’d talked herself out. </span><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Some questions were pages long, and other barely got a nod. Here is part of my freewrite </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> for the first question:</span><div><p></p></div><div>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Q: What moral values do they have?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A: One thing I know; where ever they came from, my ‘moral values’ didn’t come from my mum.There were times when my mother was up to being a good mum. They can’t have been frequent, but obviously they were numerous enough to keep our heads below the parapet of the social services’ gun-sights, for no one tried to take me away from a woman who was mostly out of her head. But when life smiled on Izzie Dare, she’d assume we’d behave like sisters. She’d scream at me – ‘we are not staying in!’ as if it had been my decision to do so, zip up my pink anorak and we’d be riding a bus, with her whispering, ‘what shall we do when we get into town, Sabrina?’</span></i></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She took me to the first Bonfire Night I can recall. I am very clear about this memory. I know I was in Miss Goodwin’s class, as I went up from Reception to Year One five months before my mother died, so it had to be that November the fifth. I clung to her as we watched the fireworks rain down because, although my head was filled with starry wonders, I was terrified that the explosions could hurt her. I don’t think I ever worried that things might hurt me. It was in my heart from the first that my mother was the vulnerable one.</span></i></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The second exercise I underwent was to find Sabbie's </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Deep, Dark Secret</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is something that will lend considerable depth to a character’s qualities is to endow a secret upon them…or discover what their secret is. Not all people have deep secrets, but a surprising number do. A character with a secret is highly attractive to readers, who will read on to find out what is hidden in someone’s life, perhaps because in real life, secrets mostly stay hidden, but in fiction there is one person who is privy to the secret…the writer. So ask yourself, does your character have a secret? As before, knowing this secret may not change the way you write a story around this character...or it might change it radically. Equally, you might not include the secret in the story, or you might allow the character to hint about it, or you might make it central to the character’s motivation.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I spent some time thinking about secrets using these categories which you, too can work with:</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> Secrets of birth</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Family secrets</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Crimes</span></li><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_e_PYwXgch7iA1YieRhg5nPLu2T2Q1cRrmEFHXs6Z_G-U6zhklUu5aiYFR7bU8DLjWPtuBlSrK01-qTzkwpU3JCvKh4d3nksnLQ6kOVKDwnI1HvXKqzN0WpdgISStxA7gC6fmnIyM_Q6To2gVXzuoiW3fCHCwAjwjVdKFMN0bfjhC1aqzHuyLluwZGic/s500/cover%20Beneath%20the%20Tor%20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_e_PYwXgch7iA1YieRhg5nPLu2T2Q1cRrmEFHXs6Z_G-U6zhklUu5aiYFR7bU8DLjWPtuBlSrK01-qTzkwpU3JCvKh4d3nksnLQ6kOVKDwnI1HvXKqzN0WpdgISStxA7gC6fmnIyM_Q6To2gVXzuoiW3fCHCwAjwjVdKFMN0bfjhC1aqzHuyLluwZGic/s320/cover%20Beneath%20the%20Tor%20.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Finances, such as bankruptcy or hidden wealth</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Love, closeted or unrequited</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Festering hatred</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Phobias</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Secret connections or relationships</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Physical problems </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">And here are some specifics to give you further ideas...</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The photo of Sam they never carry</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The friend they’ll never speak to again</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Why they can’t or won’t have children</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The reason they never see their dad</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Why they have a secret bank account</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That they refused to donate a kidney to their wife</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That they never mention 1989</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">What is under the patio/in the locked drawer</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I took my time making notes, to develop the story behind the secret.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9IIhyGocDEtLM2-_qK37GejZXTuC_bvO0WHWHrN2CXphFd1w4zVsDuuKSrfPlIQqLHvnR_S8KyX_GRviOD9elxjpVdvy7GAcPnymOLr8xZN8s8zxPNGd1xMpqA5H12OPZuWdIHxz-W5iQDY4Dgke4LIEGAuv-a5qYCkWfTYsM1KqkwIsUoiB0mqiAMlU/s500/51vunMObJ9L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="314" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9IIhyGocDEtLM2-_qK37GejZXTuC_bvO0WHWHrN2CXphFd1w4zVsDuuKSrfPlIQqLHvnR_S8KyX_GRviOD9elxjpVdvy7GAcPnymOLr8xZN8s8zxPNGd1xMpqA5H12OPZuWdIHxz-W5iQDY4Dgke4LIEGAuv-a5qYCkWfTYsM1KqkwIsUoiB0mqiAMlU/w126-h200/51vunMObJ9L.jpg" width="126" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Remember – this secret may not be a main part of the story of that character – it may not be part of the story you’re telling about them at all, but it is part of their overall story and so important in the enrichment of their character…it will affect how they behave.</span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> By choosing two of the list given – ‘secrets of birth’ and ‘family secrets’ I was able to<br /> develop ideas for Sabbie. I revealed that she does not know much about her mother and nothing about her father. In book one she explains this to the reader, but in book two <i>On the Gallows</i>, she begins to learn some of that history, and in the third and four books of the series, <i>Under the Tor</i> and <i>Through the Floodgates</i>, this theme continues to expand. </span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Don't presume that your character will not know about their secret, though – they could very well know it – they may hide it away as the dark core of their story, they may simply not need to tell it now, or even be able to articulate it to themselves. One way or another, this secret will enable you to know more about your protagonist, than the reader.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Nina-Milton/author/B00E748CT6?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1704215458&sr=8-1&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true"><b>The Shaman Mystery Series</b> by Nina Milton, published by Midnight Ink Books is available at Amazon. </a></span></p><p style="color: #000078; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #000078;"></span></span></p><div><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></div></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-70259518981306832992023-11-26T07:17:00.000-08:002024-01-22T02:59:39.467-08:00Who Will Win the Booker Prize 2023<p><span style="font-size: large;">So tonight, at the rather late time of 9pm the winner of the Booker prize will be announced, as with tradition at a grand dinner where all the shortlisted authors will be waiting with bated breath.</span></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV_tGicRjJlW83oDp5-zGnbzHlYg-_eq1beXJPj1K6CBlF5OFButxdZ5NWaUHZW4percetKTBelum-LeogV7nhwfmRqShyphenhyphenmTIZk5tgyYuAzGVgpX-DGtdv7lWrpdZDGZ28tCIEVs9j05iPJjCKXVg1AMcuiX0rgRmnJH-3_3l1_N2L3E3l_FT8baCxLu4/s1200/Group%20Top%20Down%20Messy%201_WIDER_slice.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV_tGicRjJlW83oDp5-zGnbzHlYg-_eq1beXJPj1K6CBlF5OFButxdZ5NWaUHZW4percetKTBelum-LeogV7nhwfmRqShyphenhyphenmTIZk5tgyYuAzGVgpX-DGtdv7lWrpdZDGZ28tCIEVs9j05iPJjCKXVg1AMcuiX0rgRmnJH-3_3l1_N2L3E3l_FT8baCxLu4/w400-h300/Group%20Top%20Down%20Messy%201_WIDER_slice.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the Long<span>List<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;">With a record number of new authors on the list, and a high number of women writers, the Booker are justifiably proud of their longest this year, and also point out that none of the six shortlisted authors have been shortlisted before </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I have read nine of the books chosen to be judged. And of those 6 didn't make it to the shortlist. For each book I've read, I've marked it with five possible points. Not sure how the judges do it, but I worked like this; </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>ONE POINT for the crafts of writing; dramatic tension, pace, light and shade and mood, structure <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span>choice of Point of View, appropriate imagery</div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ONE POINT for the narrative voice and its arc.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ONE POINT for characterisation; did I fall in love (or hate!) with the characters?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ONE POINT for creativity </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ONE POINT for sheer brilliance</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Longlist - these are the books that didn't make it to the shortlist. </b></span></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In Acenstion Martin MacInnes<span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> FOUR POINTS</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The House of Doors. by Tan Than Eng <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span>FOUR POINTS</div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>All the Little Bird-Hearts <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> FOUR POINTS</div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Pearl<span> <span>by Siân Hughes <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> TWO POINTS </div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney<span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span> THREE POINTS </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Old God's Time<span> by Sebastian Barry<span><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>TWO POINTS </div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀. THREE POINTS</span></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span><span> </span> </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span><b> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> The </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Shortlist - these are the books that are up for tonight's prize</b></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The Bee Sting<span> <span> <span> THREE POINTS</span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Western Lane<span> <span> <span> THREE POINTS</span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Prophet Song<span> <span> <span> FOUR AND A HALF POINTS</span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This Other Eden<span> <span> FOUR POINTS</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">If I Survive You<span> <span> sadly, not read</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Study for Obedience<span> THREE POINTS </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">As you can see, my points system stirs up some problems. I was really sorry to see that<i> The House of Doors. </i>missed out on the short list. Set mostly in Malaysia around 1911, and featuring a fictional narrator who is telling the story of three historical figures, this scored highly with me for everything apart from 'sheer brilliance' and I recommend it as more accessible and enjoyable than Tan Twan Eng's previous booker longlisted novel, <i>The Garden of Evening Mists.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><i>All the Little Bird-Hearts </i><span style="font-size: large;">was another favourite of mine, especially after receiving an unnecessarily vitriolic review in the Sunday Times Culture supplement, which seemed to be suggesting a book with the theme of an autistic woman, writing by a woman with autism, would not be worth reading, let alone judging. I loved it –– it was original and inventive, heart-warming with a strong narrative voice, a very enjoyable plot and a charming outcome. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But neither of these had the 'sheer brilliance' that is needed to win the booker. Neither, I feel has any of the books I've read from the shortlist. <i>Study for Obedience </i>by Sarah Bernstein was very creative and cleverly written and for those reasons has 'Booker' painted all over it, but it rather left me cold. I didn't fall in love with the unnamed narrator, and didn't thank the author for offering little, if any dialogue. <i>Pearl </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span>by Siân Hughes, is beautifully crafted and I'm glad it had its longest moment, but there is one book that really should have moved forward and didn't.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes was described by The Guardian as <i>'a cosmic wonder</i>'. The review went on....<i>MacInnes evokes a spread of human intimacies, simultaneously capturing them in the largest possible contexts.... </i>I was captivated by the enormous story that this long book contains as it moves from Northern Europe and an unhappy childhood to the deepest trenches of the ocean, to quest for further space travel to to darkest reaches of the solar system. I was amazed that I kept loving this book as I am usually left cold by 'Sci Fi', but although this novel fulfils the themes of that genre, it is also warm and atmospheric, richly described, full of humanity and humility, detailed, yet amazingly profound.</span></div><div><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Western Lane</i>, a story about a bereaved family is almost slender enough to be called a novella, and on finishing it I felt this book would have benefitted from a more rounded approach; the main character was the youngest of three sisters, all, having just lost their mother. If we'd seen what the other sisters were thinking and feeling, as well, this might have recommended itself to me a little more. </span></div><div><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>This Other Eden</i>, by Paul Harding is skilfully written, with strong characters and great narrative drive, and is extremely imaginative, with it's Apple Island setting, but I honestly don't think it should have that final point, for sheer brilliance, what the Booker describes as 'the outstanding book of its year'. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i> The Bee Sting,</i> by Paul Murray, the story of the deteriorating lives of an Irish family which starts off in an extremely entertaining and readable manner, but I needed stamina to get to the end. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>And the winner is:</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><i>Prophet Song</i>, by Paul Lynch</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2023"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2023"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWdOxMwSkzXpev5Uer54gj_BZOimzhfYdaxcQI4xrOip42p0c4G-7gA35Zh5ouaxm5FxbnDYsa0NuKXJ0M29-YWeFkzlYNKVEBwHi8hKvI9ei_Wynf-ej8AJG8hnN5vbXf_yOkd5rWo-Rvi2wafmlE33vKviCqTj8s9ziMrMCMTL115AA6ZHprVeNl9yY/s1240/6000.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWdOxMwSkzXpev5Uer54gj_BZOimzhfYdaxcQI4xrOip42p0c4G-7gA35Zh5ouaxm5FxbnDYsa0NuKXJ0M29-YWeFkzlYNKVEBwHi8hKvI9ei_Wynf-ej8AJG8hnN5vbXf_yOkd5rWo-Rvi2wafmlE33vKviCqTj8s9ziMrMCMTL115AA6ZHprVeNl9yY/s320/6000.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The Booker website described the winning novel as a ‘<i>triumph of emotional storytelling; a crucial book for our current times’.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The author received £50,000 (which he ays he'll spend on paying off his mortgagee!) The event was hosted by Samira Ahmed and Lynxg was presented with his trophy by Shehan Karunatilaka, the 2022 winner.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Heralded in one review as Prophet Song captures some of the biggest social and political anxieties of our age, from the rise of political extremism to the global plight of refugees </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Paul Lynch said of the book, ‘<i>Prophet Song is partly an attempt at radical empathy. I wanted to deepen the reader’s immersion to such a degree that by the end of the book, they would not just know, but feel this problem for themselves</i>’ </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I fully endorse the judges decision, and that in itself surprised me! I loved this story. I read it in a couple of sittings (it's not terribly long, and totally compelling). The story is of 'our time' but is also timeless; I've seen this story in 1940 movies, in South American movies, in Kafka stories, in Russian stories. It's that story of very normal people; a very normal Irish family who are swept up somehow in the country's move to far-right authoritarian extremism. As tyranny takes over the usually peaceful, liberal politics, the father disappears into jail, along with thousands of others, and his wife, with two teenagers, a younger boy and a baby, is left to make sense of what is happening. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmEL6cVeR0k4yZFJvjYxdcSvufKMp65tmZ-9EKGJHOh06qQhdu6Uz-jIJR3KYx0ZzlfM4T6ywhig2g1S9Gn5A5kazeu3U_PH-9NG9v8kvutx-djbgm8EW9FUVKNUWPny_mJPeboRgFNaovbHx8JgVvI1deJdSkEPez1lOhR0WeYS7P68DiKXygMT0W8YM/s4032/AD626C75-20BF-4B6A-8A6E-AA9D3EBF58C8.heic" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmEL6cVeR0k4yZFJvjYxdcSvufKMp65tmZ-9EKGJHOh06qQhdu6Uz-jIJR3KYx0ZzlfM4T6ywhig2g1S9Gn5A5kazeu3U_PH-9NG9v8kvutx-djbgm8EW9FUVKNUWPny_mJPeboRgFNaovbHx8JgVvI1deJdSkEPez1lOhR0WeYS7P68DiKXygMT0W8YM/s320/AD626C75-20BF-4B6A-8A6E-AA9D3EBF58C8.heic" width="320" /></a></div>Perhaps one of the stand-out techniques Lynch uses is his disregard for paragraphs. He dispenses with them entirely, so that streams of dialogue run along lines, until we finally get to the end of that section of prose. It's a risky devise, but he pulls it off because, like the story itself, the layout continually prevents you even taking a breath.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">It's a disturbing novel, one that needed to be written here in the northwest of Europe, but I found it problematic to read in bed, as the words insidiously creep into my dreams.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">My points system worked well for this book; </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div><span>ONE POINT: especially for the way he builds tension in the story</span></div><div>ONE POINT for the compelling narrative voice and its arc.</div><div><span>ONE POINT for characterisation; I was terrified for the characters!</span></div><div><span>ONE POINT for creativity </span></div><div><span>HALF A POINT for sheer brilliance</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div>Lynch was one of four Irish writers to make this year’s longlist and he's the sixth Irish author to win the Booker Prize, after Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright and Anna Burns.</div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In the keynote speech of the evening, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, described the ways in which books had saved her when she was in solitary confinement in Tehran.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">You can watch the event on YouTube, featuring interviews with special guests.</div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-72377407683874927212023-11-23T09:24:00.000-08:002023-11-23T09:24:20.951-08:00Donna Tartt, Carel Fabritius, and The Goldfinch<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9KNejx5i1IYHuwVgltRNvHrRG8Aqxk6bUsJgMN-Nm4yinjjo2GListCvBnnBzL7mF05E2QStfjWKubjGjxCPM3NphHbCz7UqPuXhSxT-p-4XK-1wbTCj5znR7aS2XWTid54iD59DHAxAHlWfwHkuS5vVhBfM1hyGC2MAsfY3eQTMeeDJvdOxPqdKFNwE/s824/Fabritius-vink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="540" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9KNejx5i1IYHuwVgltRNvHrRG8Aqxk6bUsJgMN-Nm4yinjjo2GListCvBnnBzL7mF05E2QStfjWKubjGjxCPM3NphHbCz7UqPuXhSxT-p-4XK-1wbTCj5znR7aS2XWTid54iD59DHAxAHlWfwHkuS5vVhBfM1hyGC2MAsfY3eQTMeeDJvdOxPqdKFNwE/w263-h400/Fabritius-vink.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="word-spacing: normal;">Once morning in 1654, in the city of Delft in Holland, there was a "thunderclap". That was the way the people of Delft described the </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">explosion</span><span style="word-spacing: normal;"> of a factory containing </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">90,000 pounds of gunpowder</span></span><span style="color: #333333; word-spacing: normal;">. Large sections of the city were </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">devastate, and 100 people died. </span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Carole Fabritius was among them, and that may be why so few people have heard of this artist, who had been a pupil of Rembrandt, and, before he reached his thirties, was already an </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">acclaimed painter of the Dutch school. He left a sadly small </span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">portfolio of work, and it's clear might have gone on to paint so much more, if he had survived the blast.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One of his most beloved works is also one of the most upsetting, from the viewpoint of an animal lover; The Goldfinch. Just 9X13 inches, and possibly as a <i>trompe d'oeil </i>and perhaps a clever part of a window shutter, it is beautifully rendered. A small songbird sits on its perch, staring out at the viewer. Every feather is a perfect rendering. And the little gold chain that prevents the bird from seeking its freedom is lost in shadow, you have to peer closely to see that the goldfinch is a captive. It was sitting in Fabritius's workroom, almost next door to the factory, when the blast destroyed almost everything there, including the artist himself.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzP8aAK5qm_PMRN1L_88r5cx9AGgzjOIP3vSCKucOEHQim7n3keX45RdCvAMY93NQ2g_fB-ZxTy0EW2aFkg4S3eAmZScr6PC6-t6dn2JVQK9Hn8Iky3BXoJFzlG3Tc_Hbs30f1WVVTjzbhl7_Q2twll1KvPFU7_Ffr-ETLtjNwI6CbglQkRITZIanXzw0/s460/Donna-Tartt-010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="460" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzP8aAK5qm_PMRN1L_88r5cx9AGgzjOIP3vSCKucOEHQim7n3keX45RdCvAMY93NQ2g_fB-ZxTy0EW2aFkg4S3eAmZScr6PC6-t6dn2JVQK9Hn8Iky3BXoJFzlG3Tc_Hbs30f1WVVTjzbhl7_Q2twll1KvPFU7_Ffr-ETLtjNwI6CbglQkRITZIanXzw0/w400-h240/Donna-Tartt-010.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 13.5px; text-align: start;">Donna Tartt launching </span><em data-reader-unique-id="44" style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 13.5px; max-width: 100%; text-align: start;">The Goldfinch</em><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 13.5px; text-align: start;"> in Amsterdam<br />. Photograph: Bas Czerwinski/AFP/Getty Images</span></td></tr></tbody></table>When I read Donna Tartt's third novel in 2014, titled <i>The Goldfinch,</i> I was expecting something grand, something with an explosion at the centre of it, because her previous two novels had been acclaimed and their powerful stories were still in my mind.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">She certainly offered an explosion; moments after the story begins, a bomb blows out the </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">New York's Metropolitan Museum. 14 year old Theo Decker is in one section, his mother elsewhere. She is killed by the blast. As Theo tries to extricate himself from the wreckage, a dying man tells him to take the small, framed picture lying in the dust. He thinks to take to his mother for safekeeping and finds his way home; she never arrives. From then on, The Goldfinch, with its imploring theme of captive beauty, is his guilty </span></span></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">secret, </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">and a physical connection to his mother. It becomes </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">something he can't bear to be rid of but something he cannot admit he possesses.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">How fittingly linked these two stories are. The fiction of a boy who walked out of an explosion with the painting of an artist who died in an explosion. </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">The Goldfinch</span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">, painted in the year of Fabricius's death, was one of only about 12 of his paintings to have survived the tragic explosion, and in Tartt's story, it survives again, albeit in a setting it has never traveled to; it's hung in The Haig. </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #333333;">I was reminded of <i>The Goldfinch</i> when I read Laura Cumming's latest book</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdrVx5g_PKdWjPivJM4bhdtaGH8qzD7KYqTvcnFqQj89U-2ojL1Ck_PIvk8tebmF8KsJ4_T5CkmUa7MCEMo7YCS7V7UJhxqh4diAIB9T9P-yDpJ9sJITtdKZU2oYDDJKgxRVEIgvKazA3fuSAmu3t2-WWX1KZsarYs3dIxbCZ7T7n8ep3yKI8nUl-c9Y4/s436/91PQUdIQYtL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="305" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdrVx5g_PKdWjPivJM4bhdtaGH8qzD7KYqTvcnFqQj89U-2ojL1Ck_PIvk8tebmF8KsJ4_T5CkmUa7MCEMo7YCS7V7UJhxqh4diAIB9T9P-yDpJ9sJITtdKZU2oYDDJKgxRVEIgvKazA3fuSAmu3t2-WWX1KZsarYs3dIxbCZ7T7n8ep3yKI8nUl-c9Y4/s320/91PQUdIQYtL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" width="224" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">on art;<i> Thunderclap</i>. Although the focus of this book is Fabritius and his works, she also looks at her own approach to art, as an art critic. She says, '<i>We see pictures in time and place. We cannot see them otherwise. They are fragments of our lives, moments of existence…</i>' I wonder if that is also true of fiction; certainly, a school of literature theory suggests that works can only be judged though the eyes of the reader, who brings their own emotional smörgåsbord to the interpretation.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #333333;">Certainly, I began reading <i>The Goldfinch</i> knowing nothing about the painting, or having even heard of Carel Fabritius, but I devoured this long book; it reminded me of Dickens in its complexity and with its whirlwind of amazing characters, and its 'cause and effect' plotting – the</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> dying man who tells Theo to take the painting is guardian to a young girl named Pippa, who </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">was also in the museum when the bomb exploded, and is the only person who Theo feels can understand his heart, as they both lost someone dear in the explosion. T</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">heir lives will collide and separate, repeatedly, throughout the book. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglPGJnNO7dK3Q_FGlZfKUdntymvsppYMOoRwySzROTGHikTZ_a8wCuuOTibv3BYl8nx7y6hvc6hGApb0JodioREExaElyJ5Tg8CXwoQ9S8h9htQ_8F5CvWmq3yVRoaTdaix-EC_XcMV-589Zt5UDSSWA_8qAzsJ52nf5N64M45S3pY0fpVadiBeKGu0hc/s436/81u9JIyUHmL._AC_UY436_QL65_-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="278" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglPGJnNO7dK3Q_FGlZfKUdntymvsppYMOoRwySzROTGHikTZ_a8wCuuOTibv3BYl8nx7y6hvc6hGApb0JodioREExaElyJ5Tg8CXwoQ9S8h9htQ_8F5CvWmq3yVRoaTdaix-EC_XcMV-589Zt5UDSSWA_8qAzsJ52nf5N64M45S3pY0fpVadiBeKGu0hc/s320/81u9JIyUHmL._AC_UY436_QL65_-2.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And yet, Tartt told The Telegraph, shortly after publishing the book that she hadn't even known about the Delft Thunderclap when she wrote it. She <span style="color: #333333; word-spacing: normal;">said</span><span style="color: #333333; word-spacing: normal;">. </span><span style="color: #333333; word-spacing: normal;">'<i>The the first time I saw it, I connected very strongly with it. </i></span><span style="color: #333333; word-spacing: normal;"><i>This little bird, so brave and so dignified, and then you see that terrible little chain</i>…' She was simply looking for the right painting, that</span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="word-spacing: normal;"> would be small enough to carry </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">and would</span><span style="word-spacing: normal;"> </span>appeal<span style="word-spacing: normal;"> to a child. </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="word-spacing: normal;">The rôle of </span>synchronicity<span style="word-spacing: normal;"> in creating a novel can </span>make one<span style="word-spacing: normal;"> gasp. For, if Tartt didn't know much about Fabritius’ death when</span><span style="word-spacing: normal;"> she chose </span>the painting, why is her central character called Theo Decker? Because at the time of his death Fabritius <span style="word-spacing: normal;">was painting the portrait of a church deacon named Simon Decker. </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="word-spacing: normal;">Writing is full of such coincidence, as Tartt admits: </span></span></span></p><div class="after-section-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: left;"></div><div class="section-outer-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: left;"><div class="section-container section-text-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 17px auto;"><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">'<i>It all fit together in ways I could never have imagined. When coincidences like that start happening you know the muses are at your side.</i> ”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It's good to know that when such amazing moments occur, the writer should grasp them with both hands. </span></p></div></div><div class="after-section-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div id="browsi_adWrapper_ai_0_ati_1_rc_0" spottype="dynamic_mc" style="box-sizing: border-box;" typeindex="0"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-67395159161506674062023-09-29T09:55:00.003-07:002023-09-29T09:55:25.341-07:00Literary Giants of New York and the Algonquin Hotel<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZB0z-XyVbxoXNk-JUEAL2_FRM9Q_LtCgIHSWpS-MiA61y0uQuzavN8AeWiGAAQlbaVlzYGfR-qTY9LkwfLZgmCEdBGSp97bfuBhcqGnwUomhWkvP0XqHx0lY_n87f_9Ckf-kUn_w2uA8FILhRzNFVkvGYrDXcq3prcVc0g24dEx3II7uO_0-yWqZxNOM/s1600/p0550zmn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAjwf2VOkNGD7DrPzgV8QcfEHwX9vky7-w9dHa3lb2S2g01SoYRwZDg10XmOEfNYh_fqWTw-LBWsYS1wOBkjRtj2OmhprUop1y49opsY0bMSzMx6E-QmqvrKkhYvoZ01sUjyYWnIa8dZdhY3-L9F7rmdhyns9dH456pVBb1zJ63y3QPBUKfdA8o2sL1r4/s1600/8694678E-678B-495D-9DAF-FE1B06700A19.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1356" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAjwf2VOkNGD7DrPzgV8QcfEHwX9vky7-w9dHa3lb2S2g01SoYRwZDg10XmOEfNYh_fqWTw-LBWsYS1wOBkjRtj2OmhprUop1y49opsY0bMSzMx6E-QmqvrKkhYvoZ01sUjyYWnIa8dZdhY3-L9F7rmdhyns9dH456pVBb1zJ63y3QPBUKfdA8o2sL1r4/w339-h400/8694678E-678B-495D-9DAF-FE1B06700A19.jpeg" width="339" /></a></div></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><p>When my daughter, Bex and I were in New York, we were determined to find out more about the literary side of the city, so we went to the Algonquin Hotel to meet Kevin, who knew all about writing and the Big Apple. </p></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZB0z-XyVbxoXNk-JUEAL2_FRM9Q_LtCgIHSWpS-MiA61y0uQuzavN8AeWiGAAQlbaVlzYGfR-qTY9LkwfLZgmCEdBGSp97bfuBhcqGnwUomhWkvP0XqHx0lY_n87f_9Ckf-kUn_w2uA8FILhRzNFVkvGYrDXcq3prcVc0g24dEx3II7uO_0-yWqZxNOM/s320/p0550zmn.jpg" width="320" /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTyiMhxcT8Ktrh7NXcnT4yFzvQ3HtE9elxv3NUSaLFjfxGAvQQaKeMBEXokLVKvqnSAgWFWyW9UZnd7q5AkBqusl4E1Tk-BHqSAXfJoFHsxyj8v6qr7n8CSlFzS9dV9HheAsyHDLgxrohspvryJPishwsV32D9lnUix7UCDn8BRGMV5RNM5yl_FXP2E_g/s320/14998059-2B0B-4C68-8F20-E40C43DACC8D.jpeg" width="320" /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: large;">The first thing we saw when we arrived at the Algonquin Hotel, was the cat in the window, snuggled up in a little bed for the world to see. This was Matilda the Algonquin cat, who has been resident for something like 40 years. Each time a cat dies, a new cat is brought from a refuge. If it is male, it's called Hamlet. If it is female, it's called Matilda. Each puss wanders the hotel at will, but has this special basket in the front window, looking out onto the road. The hotel is located on Times Square, with Yale, Harvard and the Yacht club headquarters nearby. The hotel façade is imposting and grand, and Matilda gives the place a more welcoming feel.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgIPwsmPhZGHRezwcXsDYZTblNQnhDH8spw5_xs9FibMdLCw3McJLVrlsTbMpnkjUmqQGlTkNxcMhB-01KEXPpVU4cq2xXh5LVAdibQJfyzGXDFFaTWw3_l3d_agU8oTYnHnZ5c2Q9wc_JTO0n8p79JkwInAXlurRX2ThPITRkoeEQ57HLboeM5ws29E/s4032/62A0591F-2C8F-4EAD-9871-7B53F1281FF8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgIPwsmPhZGHRezwcXsDYZTblNQnhDH8spw5_xs9FibMdLCw3McJLVrlsTbMpnkjUmqQGlTkNxcMhB-01KEXPpVU4cq2xXh5LVAdibQJfyzGXDFFaTWw3_l3d_agU8oTYnHnZ5c2Q9wc_JTO0n8p79JkwInAXlurRX2ThPITRkoeEQ57HLboeM5ws29E/s320/62A0591F-2C8F-4EAD-9871-7B53F1281FF8.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><p></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: large;">'I wonder what Algonquin means,' mused my daughter. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;"> I laid down a dollar bet that the hotel name was of First Nations origin. But we were both puzzled – we'd done our homework and knew that the original inhabitants were called </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">The Lenape, who had named </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">the place Manahatta, meaning 'hilly island'.</span><p></p><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="135" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbadz-2cZlNrlC72F3N_TIYEW46slrCxaumFMuK2_Rwao2b3dBfFMV4iKQlCc23rfWK6NHCkdyUaOS-YucxSTz_ii68e9UIsmdVXex_VXuck38c1hsoO8NApn52vNM-n5_iF_ITK_G1CsX_RkacYPW_0Tsf6N2PZ1KRDxoe0rk0cxjuJdTTqe7lE1i6mg/s757/gonksign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="757" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbadz-2cZlNrlC72F3N_TIYEW46slrCxaumFMuK2_Rwao2b3dBfFMV4iKQlCc23rfWK6NHCkdyUaOS-YucxSTz_ii68e9UIsmdVXex_VXuck38c1hsoO8NApn52vNM-n5_iF_ITK_G1CsX_RkacYPW_0Tsf6N2PZ1KRDxoe0rk0cxjuJdTTqe7lE1i6mg/s320/gonksign.jpg" width="320" /></a></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">When Kevin arrived, this was the first question we had for him, and he had the answer; the Algonquin people lived in the Ottawa Valley for at least 8,000 years before Europeans arrived in North America. But the source of the word Algonquin is unclear. 'It is said to mean “at the place of spearing fishes and eels from the bow of a canoe”,' he said.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">Great – I'd won my bet. I tucked my dollar winnings away as </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">Kevin led us through the hotel foyer, all Art Deco dark wood paneling and golden lighting. He explained</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;"> that the hotel had been built in 1902, was twelve stories tall, and shaped like an "H". </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">Bex and I agreed that this was the hotel we'd stay at if we were ever to ship up in Manhattan again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">He walked us over to the famous literary round table, set in an alcove behind the reception area.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;"> 'This is where all the literati of New York would meet between the first and second world wars,' Keven told us. 'It was known for it's lively, witty, and sophisticated conversations.'</span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOIUqPWvS40dspX0Cxeo2CAkL-Ohl0NguQMZCd2OyofdqHRoBgZErYyDODDQFdRsxRuk7OhRQhCG1GwepKZot_93Rf8DG99aiBxgQwOyS5QcfIlXYAJX86shZmv31Ayz1eg9jviHQjUEqf0uyzlTGUokGc7qYJOry36v8VSBGAs5t7je95CImJsYBjH0/s597/dorothy-parker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="597" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOIUqPWvS40dspX0Cxeo2CAkL-Ohl0NguQMZCd2OyofdqHRoBgZErYyDODDQFdRsxRuk7OhRQhCG1GwepKZot_93Rf8DG99aiBxgQwOyS5QcfIlXYAJX86shZmv31Ayz1eg9jviHQjUEqf0uyzlTGUokGc7qYJOry36v8VSBGAs5t7je95CImJsYBjH0/s320/dorothy-parker.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy Parker</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">The group included Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Harold Ross and his wife, Jane Grant, who founded The New Yorker. Also members were the actor Peggy Wood, George Kaufman, Margaret Leech Pulitzer and Donald Ogden Stewart who won an Oscar for <i>The Philadelphia Story</i>, Herman J. Mankiewicz, who won an Oscar for co-writing <i>Citizen Kane</i>. The rumour was that people like </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">F Scot Fitzgerald, </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">Ernest Hemingway</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> and William Faulkner may have also dropped in for lunch; why not, these were wise-crackin</span><span style="font-size: large;">g wits who enjoyed pranks and word teasers, such Dorothy Parker's wordplay fun with: <i>'you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think…Brevity is the soul of lingerie…If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to…'</i></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoxCo3HsmMnVta4P-lf5LaTnwRo14dTvPmECT_F7RBbdrQmUvHCNqzXC89PXxcmCeqOwmymHLMuJND74lxlIJ8tsj4SSaTmzJlIVc2zvkQcuNIybU_BsFPl5G1UW9kFe6fu5uiSQ4q6-3ONdfvUJ57aeyH473w8hic0ixR83uAdhCpgd-o9hIybjUfA0/s900/vicious-circle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="900" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoxCo3HsmMnVta4P-lf5LaTnwRo14dTvPmECT_F7RBbdrQmUvHCNqzXC89PXxcmCeqOwmymHLMuJND74lxlIJ8tsj4SSaTmzJlIVc2zvkQcuNIybU_BsFPl5G1UW9kFe6fu5uiSQ4q6-3ONdfvUJ57aeyH473w8hic0ixR83uAdhCpgd-o9hIybjUfA0/w400-h208/vicious-circle.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">Above</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> the large round table in the alcove is a painting of the club, showing many of its members. </span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTyiMhxcT8Ktrh7NXcnT4yFzvQ3HtE9elxv3NUSaLFjfxGAvQQaKeMBEXokLVKvqnSAgWFWyW9UZnd7q5AkBqusl4E1Tk-BHqSAXfJoFHsxyj8v6qr7n8CSlFzS9dV9HheAsyHDLgxrohspvryJPishwsV32D9lnUix7UCDn8BRGMV5RNM5yl_FXP2E_g/s4032/14998059-2B0B-4C68-8F20-E40C43DACC8D.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Keven took us for a walk around Hell's Kitchen, which is an inner-city </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">area that was reputed to be like ‘the kitchens in Hell itself’ according to the NYPD of the prohibition era. There he pointed out where great writers of the time lived. He took us to the homes of James Thurber and Eugene O’Neil and </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">F Scot Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">A haunt of the young James Baldwin was </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;"> his Aunt Barbara's candy shop near Fifth Avenue. She would later provide inspiration for the character of Florence in Baldwin’s first novel, <i>Go Tell It on the Mountain,</i> published in 1952. Colson Whitehead also lives in Manhattan, where he set his masterpiece, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Colossus. </i>This opens with the 'awful truth' about being a Native New Yorker – <i>'it leaves you ruined for anywhere else.</i>' <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhzlPr9zG7azG0eXEvh-JWcp9zSL779_7J_lMyE-mUZQx2cNF1RaNNOTmDXDxjHyxtDoRNN8TRtbYfoyuXeWBPPMzsyVw2bT7CoptAosBK9tMfzbvlySC9AqbROYXPlacaGfCVJKxsAIE-rOmtQWEbnqDQHfeRZV_sfMhQ8Fk3FyZ-v53WpcDfsbM-3A/s1500/81MCRYuscmL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="954" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhzlPr9zG7azG0eXEvh-JWcp9zSL779_7J_lMyE-mUZQx2cNF1RaNNOTmDXDxjHyxtDoRNN8TRtbYfoyuXeWBPPMzsyVw2bT7CoptAosBK9tMfzbvlySC9AqbROYXPlacaGfCVJKxsAIE-rOmtQWEbnqDQHfeRZV_sfMhQ8Fk3FyZ-v53WpcDfsbM-3A/s320/81MCRYuscmL._SL1500_.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">Most of these writers had written at times for the New Yorker, a magazine I know especially for its amazing short stories and brilliant cover illustrations. W</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;">e found ourselves in the offices of The New Yorker, the New York magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction and poetry. Although it's been around since 1925, it is still the pinnacle of good journalism, and has published some of the most famous short stories, including Annie Prouix's 'Brokeback Mountain' and Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">This office was the opposite of the Algonquin; it was plate glass and steel, giving off an atmosphere of being ultra-modern, professional and efficient. But Bex and I were already longing for Art Deco, and we found ourselves back at the Algonquin, ready to dine very close to (but sadly not on) the round table. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><h4 data-reader-unique-id="809" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; margin: 1em 0px; max-width: 100%;"><br /></h4>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-73356479990288878832023-09-12T01:52:00.003-07:002023-09-12T02:01:54.432-07:00How Authors Plot, and how They Muse<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijuIkCETVff54KfBcC9kmuD13_f-5zTGzHzaPccN18sRvr8DBuOm2DdOBvQdh5g7QEuRzKc5sV9-9muG3F91n0K8HXH-bvkmxvKl5CJl-GZ1A2HHCwJQSaPxc2chPPVVHtNSC_D6wWkJtcyzRQlWYw7xZdvYLelTPDVL9bqFr4MIq2e03lF8GTUeLwO5Q/s436/715Va-HY3EL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="287" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijuIkCETVff54KfBcC9kmuD13_f-5zTGzHzaPccN18sRvr8DBuOm2DdOBvQdh5g7QEuRzKc5sV9-9muG3F91n0K8HXH-bvkmxvKl5CJl-GZ1A2HHCwJQSaPxc2chPPVVHtNSC_D6wWkJtcyzRQlWYw7xZdvYLelTPDVL9bqFr4MIq2e03lF8GTUeLwO5Q/s320/715Va-HY3EL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" width="211" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I've just finished a marvellous novel called Still Life, by Sarah Winman. In its 400+ pages, we visit Florence in the Second World War, post-war London, and Florence during the flood of 1966 and Europe at the start of the 20th century. Moving between these real events are a wide cast of characters, most of them allowing life to take them where it will, and land them wherever it pleases. In The New York Times, the main character, <span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b;">Ulysses Temper is described as 'a searching, wandering protagonist' but it's not just 'Temp' that wanders; the entire story behaves like a river journey. As I reached the final pages, I began to ask, 'what did Winman want to say in this novel?' The Kirkus Review notes this is</span><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"> ''<i>the story of their friendship, though it is also a story of the creation of a family of friends'</i>,</span></span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b;"> New York Times suggests, <i>Does Life Imitate Art or Is It the Other Way Around? </i>and the Independent says it is an '</span><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><i>exquisite testament to life, love and art. </i></span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;">F</span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b;">air points, the story is all about the art of Florence and 'odd families' especially. But thinking about the characters, I've decided that what Winman especially wanted to say is: <i>Ordinary</i><i> People are Really </i></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><i>Extraordinary. </i></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Ulysses is a young soldier in the Allied advance in Italy in 1944 where he works with Evelyn Skinner, a 64-year-old art historian. They form a friendship bond which remain after their paths diverge, But while he's in Florence, Ulysses 'talks down' an elderly gentleman who had decided to take his own life. They go back to the man's lavish but lonely apartment, and again, a bond is formed. Meanwhile in London </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">his soon to be ex-wife, Peg has fallen for a GI called Eddie and gives birth to a daughter she names Alys, but calls 'the kid'. Ulysses is demobbed, and goes back to</span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> working at his friend Col's pub, where Claude the blue parrot is a tavern talking point but hated by Col. The post-war decade moves on, and the novel meanders through many a story, until Ulysses hears that the person who's life he saved has bequeathed him his </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">large apartment. He decides to go back to Florence, and asks his old mate Cress to come with him. Peg, who still yearns for Eddie and is not a good mother to Alys, persuades Temps to take 'the kid'. </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> Cress secretes the unhappy Claude into a bag and off they all go, to live in Italy. They convert some of the inheritance into a thriving</span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> </span><em data-reader-unique-id="71" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;">pensione</em><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">. Alys soaks up the Italian life as she grows into a woman and Cress, who was able to communicate with trees in London, can also communicate with trees in Italy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Throughout the next three decades, </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> Ulysses continues to love Peg, Peg continues to dream of Eddie, Cress finds Italian love in his golden years, and Alys finds love with another teen girl. </span><span style="color: #1b1b1b;">Ulysses goes back to creating globes of the world, and in this way, is crazily linked back to Evelyn, who keeps an eye open for her old war friend, but constantly misses him until, one day, they find themselves all together; now a largish group of young and old, English and Italian.</span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrkU4Ks70s9GQWc_Bcv2no4cp1tG8ycYTU2YC1S7InPsv6aTmxeWbxMkef_kiKseXDuUWOWLiIv0-VUzAZ0Dy666amV-54jpjZ2yCNS6KVqDXlzomCA0dYHi8Er5g5GZawuolPhhfpTiwYYEqRCqfO3lHLR9DkoDCRgo1rG1quCEhydW9KLeJGgBWlq5g/s240/81Uzgsl8h9L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrkU4Ks70s9GQWc_Bcv2no4cp1tG8ycYTU2YC1S7InPsv6aTmxeWbxMkef_kiKseXDuUWOWLiIv0-VUzAZ0Dy666amV-54jpjZ2yCNS6KVqDXlzomCA0dYHi8Er5g5GZawuolPhhfpTiwYYEqRCqfO3lHLR9DkoDCRgo1rG1quCEhydW9KLeJGgBWlq5g/w213-h320/81Uzgsl8h9L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The story, then is a winding route, just like a river. I loved it but immediately thought; 'I don't write like this; I couldn't plot like this'. I'm a bit of a plot junkie; Winman is clearly a 'characterphile'. (<a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2011/10/plot-junkie-or-characterphile.html">I created these terms to describe different 'kinds' of plotter; you can read about them here</a>.) </span><p></p><p><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When I start a book, I'm usually inspired by landscape, my first point of inspiration. In my Shaman Mystery series a walk, years ago, through the Somerset Levels, sparked my interest in the area, followed by a distant, then closer, then close view of the Hinkley Power Station, which is featured in <i>On the Gallows. </i>Landscapes do it for me, but there are many other starting points.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3wCu2st1KICUvAXkM5CPIs7HS9nGsCLNe_2LpKLM2JJSAv_SfWFs_fnwENEIsDF_0IfmDTkIaRhC2fZjpZ2c48M_8h3L65d6WKx_OAA6lDIwccDiwiFFjCAkPvcOgDNNqH3WmDQ_EvEQ7ZvSX4S7oU99fXcCp0ip7Llk4yLRgQDfPlWu-BEhGOP09Vg/s225/cover225x225.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="143" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3wCu2st1KICUvAXkM5CPIs7HS9nGsCLNe_2LpKLM2JJSAv_SfWFs_fnwENEIsDF_0IfmDTkIaRhC2fZjpZ2c48M_8h3L65d6WKx_OAA6lDIwccDiwiFFjCAkPvcOgDNNqH3WmDQ_EvEQ7ZvSX4S7oU99fXcCp0ip7Llk4yLRgQDfPlWu-BEhGOP09Vg/s1600/cover225x225.jpeg" width="143" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">Louise Doughty makes a similar point in her article,</span><i style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;"> Taking a Line for a Walk</i><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;"> (Mslexia No 99). '</span><i style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">My most recent book', </i><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">she says, </span><i style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">'arrived – like Apple Tree Yard and Platform Seven before it – with a strong visual image'. </i><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">She then takes that image 'for a walk', asking questions of it, until she has a scene, '</span><i style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">followed by a scene showing what happens next on the journey...until I worked it out, some 100,000 words later.'</i></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is a great way to write a novel if you are a 'characterphile'. If however you are a 'plot junkie' the idea might fill you with horror! What, no chapter by chapter outline, no timeline, to plot points to lead you on? I'm a plot junkie, but I'm quite tempted to have a go at this meandering method, the next time such an image, or landscape, enters my mind. Or, as happened this time to Doughty, a line comes to you, out of the blue. The same questions can be asked of this line or phrase or sentence, the same walk take, until, chapter upon chapter, you find an answer. </span></p><p><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Doughty talks about how the '<i>synapses in your brain are prompted to join up by something</i>'. She doesn't go on to say what that 'something' is, but I would suggest we go back to the Ancient Greeks, who </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">personified the inspirations that arise from intuition, or 'synapses' if you like, as Muses. The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, or Memory, the Muses prompt those they visit to remember what they have forgotten. Muses with a special affinity for writers are: </span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry</span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcCR44KsFxpggNksGcCR-W6DTHjA2BaCdFoG_uviCIoEkKACRIApjkPKgOuUqtimfkdFgfDuRbn2QHr1HwrolSnGrHzDNsg0m_PxqJMGq22MDR4hmYKpGZ7OUXIGykSltkkSUMAmJx1iDS6i-0y-rrBkTZ1bx964bKanPR-6QuPTCWpe0D8lf1sp6Hn4/s733/440px-Muse_reading_Louvre_CA2220.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcCR44KsFxpggNksGcCR-W6DTHjA2BaCdFoG_uviCIoEkKACRIApjkPKgOuUqtimfkdFgfDuRbn2QHr1HwrolSnGrHzDNsg0m_PxqJMGq22MDR4hmYKpGZ7OUXIGykSltkkSUMAmJx1iDS6i-0y-rrBkTZ1bx964bKanPR-6QuPTCWpe0D8lf1sp6Hn4/s320/440px-Muse_reading_Louvre_CA2220.jpg" width="192" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">courtesy of Wikipedia</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Clio, the Muse of history</span><p></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy<br /></span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Erato, the Muse of love poetry</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred poetry, and</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Thalia, the Muse of comedy</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">Sadly, there isn't a Muse for short stories, as these weren't around in ancient Greece. Their stories were narrated orally, or dramatically, and poetry was used in both forms, especially as it helps with memory...Mnemosyne…</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">when retelling a story</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">!</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Like Doughty, one should never sit around and wait for a muse to visit, in the hope she'll just 'show up'. She should be seduced to come to you. Doughty had gone to Amsterdam, '<i>wandering around the city for a week...with an empty notebook.</i>..' in the hope that she would<i> 'encounter my next book</i>'. She was seducing her Muse, and finally, was obliged. '<i>What do you do when you're in the tase of creativity that I might as well call 'pre-technique', where all your struggles for plot construction or character development are useless because you don't have the foggiest idea what you book is about?</i>' Suddenly a line came to Doughty. The opening line to a story she didn't yet know. The Muse had descended. She could begin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">It seems a bit extreme to visit a different country in order to find your Muse, but you should be on the alert at all times. </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">When your muse pops in every so often to drop a story idea on you, sit up and pay attention.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">When you have a story idea, write it down in a journal or notebook. You can't write every story right away, so put it in the pickling juice and go on. Also remember the wonderful 'Muse-filled' Miscellany File, or Commonplace Book, which I talk about <a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-commonplace-book-miscellany-of-new.html">here. </a>Read, look through your ideas from time to time, crossing out the ones that have lost their muster. Also cross out the ones that seem too cumbersome. Keep the simple ideas and the ones that give you chills in your spine. Maintain this practice and you'll find that you always have a few good story ideas in the queue. </span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-34188675790137570292023-08-14T08:17:00.003-07:002023-08-14T08:17:32.929-07:00 What's the different between a Plot Development and a Plot Event? And what exactly are they?<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5uAgoCQUrwelk2PliEx5UdK9x4mHXA1PAFtYAZM8Yu5DorqDdez4QRCvfQ5NA7xU2rE6pWyccxeWSFLDHKvO62PqDv_4WhAa_mwbwNlVn0WMCUaiGyKPx3jC1BCjUGBbhaJklWivIhAmfGhPaYdM_XzIGXcnJzNp2GkWrLk3s9QqGD7xzpLvjrBwdk1o/s660/221267.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="660" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5uAgoCQUrwelk2PliEx5UdK9x4mHXA1PAFtYAZM8Yu5DorqDdez4QRCvfQ5NA7xU2rE6pWyccxeWSFLDHKvO62PqDv_4WhAa_mwbwNlVn0WMCUaiGyKPx3jC1BCjUGBbhaJklWivIhAmfGhPaYdM_XzIGXcnJzNp2GkWrLk3s9QqGD7xzpLvjrBwdk1o/s320/221267.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />There are masters of plotting who create plot and story with incredible ease.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That's the </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">mystique</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">; what </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">newer writers seem to believe about established writers. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">But that simply isn't true. What successful writers do to 'make' their stories 'zing' is a lot of hard </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: x-large;">work, done long before a final draft every shows its fact to the reading pubic. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Plot events, and plot </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">developments</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> rule the roost when getting your story from its beginning to its conclusion. Likewise, they are the </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">easiest</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> way to create a journey through a story idea that will successfully turn it into a story, whether that's a novel, or a short story.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";">A</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: underline;"> plot event</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is an incident that touches the lives (directly, indirectly, for good or ill) of the main characters without altering the trajectory or outcome of the plot itself. Events are useful for</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">temporarily raising tension, developing characterisation, perspective, relationships, and ‘fill the middle slump’, helping to interest the reader and get them turning the page at all stages of the story. But </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">events</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> never alter the outcome of the story.</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3aqSlAS8ClhjalvZd101FGbNka9IhGoQorw4hhuQWS1KxfJ1RYJj3N33V6LrVVGtIMgjD6ZymhRsXxOF4FghIKXnUrgGIxTzoP1s_jXUMPyoRMBE9ObT9tilELWFuDAuXrMyoXYb-YIYTSsziUVloQTcWQA1HQbNRvc_BqUZgU1--InuQ1WJtqtqMjT0/s672/Charles_Dickens-A_Christmas_Carol-Cloth-First_Edition_1843.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3aqSlAS8ClhjalvZd101FGbNka9IhGoQorw4hhuQWS1KxfJ1RYJj3N33V6LrVVGtIMgjD6ZymhRsXxOF4FghIKXnUrgGIxTzoP1s_jXUMPyoRMBE9ObT9tilELWFuDAuXrMyoXYb-YIYTSsziUVloQTcWQA1HQbNRvc_BqUZgU1--InuQ1WJtqtqMjT0/s320/Charles_Dickens-A_Christmas_Carol-Cloth-First_Edition_1843.jpg" width="210" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">For instance, in <i>A Christmas Carol</i>, by Charles Dickens, the lovely Christmas Day scene at Bob Cratchit's house is an event. It enriches the story, and explains his life and family, but it doesn't alter the outcome of the story. </span></span><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">A</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-decoration: underline;"> plot development </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">is an incident or happening that not only touches the lives of the main characters, but also alters the plot trajectory or outcome. It might be either a cause or an effect. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">(A plot development is sometimes called ‘a plot point’ or ‘a story beat’. They’re basically the same things. )</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">For instance, the </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">arrival</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Marley's ghost at Scrooge's beside is a plot </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">development</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">. In fact it's the first plot point of the story, after introducing Cratchit and Scrooge at their place of work. This moment changes Scrooge's life forever. </span></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiywoGig_c-VFV-CGTj8KkPTawhYzWxpSDmy4XuNuJEdEc1hU18Fp7WgurQLXjbk6zQL9WTS5wfq4cPYlABB2l91U_j13Fbd5tE26_yQgNxhhY7HxOY4En_4ypmW3cea5UFMl2KHR-QHWIT2g4dLWV0QUmRyxoocC-yDMqkL5PMX7N5K-buU8n-jD9kjxM/s600/16853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiywoGig_c-VFV-CGTj8KkPTawhYzWxpSDmy4XuNuJEdEc1hU18Fp7WgurQLXjbk6zQL9WTS5wfq4cPYlABB2l91U_j13Fbd5tE26_yQgNxhhY7HxOY4En_4ypmW3cea5UFMl2KHR-QHWIT2g4dLWV0QUmRyxoocC-yDMqkL5PMX7N5K-buU8n-jD9kjxM/s320/16853.jpg" width="273" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">Although both types of incident can crank up emotional energy, pace and atmosphere and create a gripping read, only plot developments lead on to new causes and effects and ensure that your story contains what makes stories enjoyable to read: action and event, change, wonder and surprise. Subsequently, the right developments will lead to a deeply satisfying conclusion, whether in a short story or a novel. </span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">However, ‘events’ can turn into ‘developments’, sometimes simply </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">because the</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> writers has </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">deliberately</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> plotted a development to look like an event, which then ‘grows like Topsy’ as the story moves on. Sometimes, serendipitously, as ideas develop, around the plot, moments that seemed like an event when first created, will become a </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">development</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">. </span></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: large;">An interesting and useful thing to do is build a chart in which all Developments are noted separately in chronological. Sometimes this can be revealing or even inspiring! </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTN4HNUoExL2gj-lrKUj3jtYeqIdknHnZ4KnMtl3GYjI8rFTyUecrx7jH6JAbpeuVgT-oI3_a0_eUrWF4dazX5-LVVeQ6X8BjkO-cSf2PI194f5A9woij94vMQjWJFFjdoxNGP8d9mC2bKY0e8bO4Las-lHnGp8GbOTfyfsXWQV6kUW0bU1d0Jqu2Hhc/s2048/IMG_1479.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTN4HNUoExL2gj-lrKUj3jtYeqIdknHnZ4KnMtl3GYjI8rFTyUecrx7jH6JAbpeuVgT-oI3_a0_eUrWF4dazX5-LVVeQ6X8BjkO-cSf2PI194f5A9woij94vMQjWJFFjdoxNGP8d9mC2bKY0e8bO4Las-lHnGp8GbOTfyfsXWQV6kUW0bU1d0Jqu2Hhc/s320/IMG_1479.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: x-large;">Here are three tips to successfully navigating your own</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Plot Development Chart:</span></p>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><b></b><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Start a chart at any stage of your writing process</b></span></li>
<li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> If you’re just beginning your story, it will help you see where to start and where to spin off ideas to move your piece forward.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></li><ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">As you map your ideas, you’ll discover that they help to propagate more ideas. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">If you’re stuck at a particular point in your story, you may want to update or create a new map so it reflects—or creates—fresh ideas and story structure. </span></li>
<li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you’ve already outlined or written most of your story, a story map may point out where your structure is weak or not fully developed by what you can’t fill in, or by what you’re struggling to answer. S</span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">teadily go through the chapters from the beginning and note where the developments are.</span></span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">You can also include plot events, but it's better to start with developments to keep your thinking clear (see below).</span></span></li>
</ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Don’t get anxious about the process.</b></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Write what you know—and put it where you think it belongs. You can always change it once you have a clearer understanding of what you're writing about.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><br /></li><ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="background-color: white;">You’re simply placing story developments on a chart in the order you think they will happen. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="background-color: white;">You can mix things around or change ideas as you go.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="background-color: white;">Everything you write can be considered to be ‘written in sand, not stone’ until you develop a stronger idea. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="background-color: white;">Sometimes what you think is the beginning hook may change to be the climax or a conflict once you better understand your story. </span></li></ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Use SHOW, DON’T TELL</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: large; font-weight: 400;">steadily go through the chapters from the beginning and create</span></b></span></li>
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="background-color: white;">Try to capture ideas about development that SHOW, rather than TELL. Use phrases that show the story, and will mean something to you when you read the chart back.</span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">Try asking ‘what if’ as you create this chart, and think of this as a road map that helps you plot your ‘story travel plans’.</span></span></li></ul></ul><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Creating a Plot Development Chart can serve as a visual outline that helps you see the direction your story is taking and whether you’ve overlooked any major points of interest along the way while you're writing plot structure. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTNXHsIZ_zX53VV2eqloUjlWmxOGB1XTY1hCl93-WvFv5WE0AILYgvoS-vBJgNYMdmuFh-_pjDfYgIucjKdyqY8h-CTUhbSDgDHSmq7XJ4Wip6LbNbKpmgt0N3Xvq92CLEQ2vbDzOWQIPRzlbk6_Anb2J12cIxvFI7mdo-4sAC90Uvm3R-HWTBw12u7M/s2048/Nina%20reading%20from%20in%20The%20Moors.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTNXHsIZ_zX53VV2eqloUjlWmxOGB1XTY1hCl93-WvFv5WE0AILYgvoS-vBJgNYMdmuFh-_pjDfYgIucjKdyqY8h-CTUhbSDgDHSmq7XJ4Wip6LbNbKpmgt0N3Xvq92CLEQ2vbDzOWQIPRzlbk6_Anb2J12cIxvFI7mdo-4sAC90Uvm3R-HWTBw12u7M/s320/Nina%20reading%20from%20in%20The%20Moors.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Once you have the broad outline of developments, you can slide the 'plot events' into the mix. Maybe you'll need to start a new chart for this as things can get complicated. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Do have a go; either at enriching the story you're writing now, or by starting a new story you might be thinking about, by using the chart. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Let me know at Kitchen Table Writers by leaving a comment in the comment area </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Enjoy!<br /></span></span><ul>
</ul>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-90027566334927037112023-08-07T11:24:00.001-07:002023-08-07T11:25:07.687-07:00The Truth about Non-fiction<p> </p><br /><span data-reader-unique-id="4" face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSLCXsrYD6NpO927gKsuiwCt0czRAATwBxuFQ3XeRw-vpv1LHSgyRatrJNmsHxEeWDnxLBgntKR3T6zbeKWViJU_4mcFo3YAExShx0VID6BIslSrOW07XQgVhZFkKsjPKR818RmZZ_ueoUdz8DwZXpQpB-AkL9Fh_YBdMZEgBeJE9y9I0dTh6HkZ3K1d4/s1280/DSC00521.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSLCXsrYD6NpO927gKsuiwCt0czRAATwBxuFQ3XeRw-vpv1LHSgyRatrJNmsHxEeWDnxLBgntKR3T6zbeKWViJU_4mcFo3YAExShx0VID6BIslSrOW07XQgVhZFkKsjPKR818RmZZ_ueoUdz8DwZXpQpB-AkL9Fh_YBdMZEgBeJE9y9I0dTh6HkZ3K1d4/s320/DSC00521.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is this the truthiness?</td></tr></tbody></table><b>Truthiness</b> – word of the year in the Merriam-Webster for 2005, even though it was coined on Stephen Colbert's US TV comedy satire show, to demonstrate how people deceive themselves, </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-size: 18px;">despite the evidence or any </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">logic that disputes their belief. </span></span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;">Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to propaganda intended to sway opinions. The invented word was supposed to be 'funny for give minutes', but it has emerged as a </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">major subject for discussion in US politics. </span></span><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;">The truth in journalism is set in stone: it’s not a malleable or debatable concept. This was a lesson the infamous journalist Steven Glass learnt. In <i style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">Shattered Glass</i>, a 2003 biographical drama film, the writer</span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: large;"> Billy Ray told the true story of </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: large;">Glass, who was fired by the The New Republic magazine after inventing most of the 'facts' in his articles. Some of his articles were </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;">funny, if untrue, such as the 'convention of Monica Lewinsky memorabilia but some articles were racist and sexist lies. </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: large;">His fabrications nearly destroyed the reputable magazine, founded a hundred years before.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;">But there is a difference between hard journalism – that is an articles trusted to be as much the truth as the writer can possibly know and pass on – and creative kinds of non-fiction writing, such as memoir, creative journalism, narrative literature and possibly even bio-fiction. These are genres that are increasing in popularity, and while these may not always relate the exact facts of a previous event, they hope to create a truth with their creativity, rather than 'truthiness'.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: large;">Some writers have trouble with the idea that “creative writing” and “non-fiction” go together. A start, perhaps is to think of your writing as</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: large;"> “told well” rather than “made up.” </span></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It's</span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> still confusing though, and leads us into a deeper consideration of what we mean by 'writing truthfully'. Bio-fIction has been slated in the past as misrepresenting what really</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"> happened. But that is not what the creative writer wants, or aims for. They are not attempting to hide behind 'truthiness', but rather create something that will enter the reader's heart. </span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnojig070vE0Z0jAg5mi0ujn8037KlMBe29ezXbayh3Q7n5cL1jA6OqYuKjVWZ2c-MZv7JYvZIwtOERXH0-F9GjXB5lule9-FFXuvVVKHZF88EoI6NMm41Wj_SDHFT08xhDnBS8lgmDp3N-x6GTXAKZz62P3MIk2VxbECYprvmAx9YCu1ZrzjAZTJceug/s500/0008381690.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_SX500_.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnojig070vE0Z0jAg5mi0ujn8037KlMBe29ezXbayh3Q7n5cL1jA6OqYuKjVWZ2c-MZv7JYvZIwtOERXH0-F9GjXB5lule9-FFXuvVVKHZF88EoI6NMm41Wj_SDHFT08xhDnBS8lgmDp3N-x6GTXAKZz62P3MIk2VxbECYprvmAx9YCu1ZrzjAZTJceug/s320/0008381690.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_SX500_.jpg" width="202" /></a></p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Creative non-fiction writing is able to tell both the small story – the damming of a river, the building of a house, an untimely death – and the bigger one, the human narrative with its enduring themes. In doing this, imaginative non-fiction writers commonly use the techniques of fiction – the creation of a narrative arc, character development, scene-setting, action sequences, dialogue and interior monologue. True stories told using these techniques have both the drama of fiction and the force of fact. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Creative non-fiction, though factual, can read like fiction in that it draws you in with attention to detail, clear imagery, metaphors, and other creative writing techniques. </span></span></span><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">In Wolfe Hall, and indeed her three books on Cromwell, Hilary Mantel attempts, not to move away to the truth, but to illuminate it. </span></span></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In her Reith Lecture she said: </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>From history, I know what they do, but I can’t with any certainty know what they think and feel.</i> That fictional approach allowed her to dig into her character's minds and create a fully realised person, who has, in a strange way, particularly through the TV dramas taken from the books, become the 'real Cromwell'.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One of the approaches the non-fiction writer takes is to know that what they are doing will <b>convey</b> the truth. To convey a truth may mean writing something that actually didn't happen in quite that way, or quite that order. It may mean looking at what people might have thought, or how their motives might have moved their intentions. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">The line between life writing and fiction is often blurred: even when writing autobiographical material the writer cannot clearly remember </span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">absolutely everything. And, to make the events of the past more clear, and indeed, more readable, my massage time, and description, and dialogue, and interior monologue to aid the telling of a truth. </span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Finding your comfort zone within this fusion of fact and imagination may take a little time, and a little thought. But try not to worry whether your life writing will be</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyf9CeGUzhNd0EUt-8fXpVd4E_8eP2pDOCMlBn8tGfVNVJzWQNoxW4EhbCSVYIMFQ-CIDpnnzYhsrpP1AYGBpEYtwB6iUBBWAvWuxO-UG1m1_A5IqcKxXs1K7esAgf41lf-65Dw9ol1kDdTgVI7USR3VbzpFKGT7tGvlryAq1Pbl3mzh6R-rkBcRixRCY/s471/440px-Penelope_Lively-2.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyf9CeGUzhNd0EUt-8fXpVd4E_8eP2pDOCMlBn8tGfVNVJzWQNoxW4EhbCSVYIMFQ-CIDpnnzYhsrpP1AYGBpEYtwB6iUBBWAvWuxO-UG1m1_A5IqcKxXs1K7esAgf41lf-65Dw9ol1kDdTgVI7USR3VbzpFKGT7tGvlryAq1Pbl3mzh6R-rkBcRixRCY/s320/440px-Penelope_Lively-2.JPG" width="299" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">strictly non-fiction or veer over into bio-fiction. A rule of thumb is to be more focused on the creativity of your work than what category it falls into.</span><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Penelope Lively’s distinctive memoir, <i>Making it Up</i>, addresses truth and imagination head-on by taking specific moments from her life and rewriting. </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">In the chapter Imjin River, she writes about </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">her husband, Jack Lively, in this speculative way:</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i><span> </span>I might never have known him. We might never have met. There might never have been our children, and theirs, and the forty-one years of love and life and shared experiences, and those long hard months at the end. </i></span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">What follows supposes what so nearly happened; the fate of a young man who is a shadow of Jack for whom events ran differently.</span></i></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">The definitions of ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ are, therefore, subtle and flexible, and can be exploited to the writer’s benefit.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b><br /> Exercise: What Happens to Childhood Memories?</b></span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">STAGE ONE</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIERnd0sqW6C7nwzvqeRocYAbF2w0QlHFZt6UQDdMD1q6lFhcNSCAfCVAYXSUB6r8xh6xcEu1UVDhRxb8-KR0bhGMKGjzuvbwNefJ1RsvYhAj4gdLKOfAnD9oQBprA8xH1j2qAMtxZBBiiDTRhv0d26oGffu0YqxM1adczAt50le2u1vOgqq3tTnxPvS8/s600/children%20reading.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="437" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIERnd0sqW6C7nwzvqeRocYAbF2w0QlHFZt6UQDdMD1q6lFhcNSCAfCVAYXSUB6r8xh6xcEu1UVDhRxb8-KR0bhGMKGjzuvbwNefJ1RsvYhAj4gdLKOfAnD9oQBprA8xH1j2qAMtxZBBiiDTRhv0d26oGffu0YqxM1adczAt50le2u1vOgqq3tTnxPvS8/s320/children%20reading.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Think back to your childhood. Choose a memory – one that’s fuzzy, rather than one that’s </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">crystal clear in your mind. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Recount the incident on paper, just as you remember it. Talk to yourself as you write...<i>. I can’t remember </i></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">what they said now, but what I can recall is that at the time of listening...</i><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Don’t worry at all about how creatively you write this for the moment – the key thing at this stage of this exercise is accuracy of memory.</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Write between 200 and 800 words, then read through what you’ve written and change anything that you now remember more clearly. Take out anything that you feel isn't a true memory.</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">STAGE TWO</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Now rewrite these bald facts as a very short story or extract from an unwritten fiction. </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Use freewriting. In other words, don’t spend hours working on plot and character. You already have sufficient for the purpose of this set of exercises.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Three useful tips:</span><br /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">• ‘Dip down’ into a specific scene.</span><br /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">• Concentrate on the scene, not the facts surrounding it </span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">• Let the facts just be your starting point. Have as much fun as you like in making things </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">up. Twist the facts to suit yourself or stick to </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">them entirely if you wish</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;"> Aim for up to 800 words.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;"> STAGE THREE</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Allow several days for the previous exercise to ‘settle’. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">When you’re ready to resume, re-read both the factual account and the ‘mini short story’ and think about how you would fuse the two to create a piece of imaginative non-fiction.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Consider using these elements from the factual account:</span><br /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">• the immediacy of the memories</span><br /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">• your thoughts on those memories as you jotted them down</span><br /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">• the surrounding facts – what you later discovered about the even, perhaps online, or through </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">photographs</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Consider using these elements of writing fiction:</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;">Interior monologue • dialogue • scenes • detailed imagery </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">• changes in the actual sequence one events to add tension.</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">This time, rather than write fiction, as before, create a new piece of imaginative non-fiction that will fill in the ‘fuzzy bits’ that you don’t actually recall from the event. These won’t necessarily be the absolute truth, but will have a sense of truthfulness. Write to any length you prefer.</span></span></div><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Exercises like these can help you understand the difference between truth (and truthiness!) and creativity in writing non-fiction It can also help you continue to find your own distinctive writer’s voice.</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"></p><p data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;"><br /></p><div><br /></div><p data-reader-unique-id="55" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><br /></p>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-49367846593542885622023-07-28T04:48:00.001-07:002023-07-28T04:48:07.289-07:00Symbolism in Literature: The Rose<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252324; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252324; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWN7h6EBMvBM6C6bJWvYZCaWJrW0TlCEGJCxtXhhZsPKUG5HG8IdCohRUktRVWp8FjEZvb94O2XJ6WK_1TYLfPQjPXOKnY4GlrVu619kQCVpo2KuN9XluKTOj9Z8XXdspJ1lFQYryLbq2NoIMoj4m49kKdcJvqLU-qDLQmi7FTgFJ1WwuxZ7GzLKJBNbA/s2448/4BA0B7B5-AD11-4934-B1E4-7139222D95AA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWN7h6EBMvBM6C6bJWvYZCaWJrW0TlCEGJCxtXhhZsPKUG5HG8IdCohRUktRVWp8FjEZvb94O2XJ6WK_1TYLfPQjPXOKnY4GlrVu619kQCVpo2KuN9XluKTOj9Z8XXdspJ1lFQYryLbq2NoIMoj4m49kKdcJvqLU-qDLQmi7FTgFJ1WwuxZ7GzLKJBNbA/s320/4BA0B7B5-AD11-4934-B1E4-7139222D95AA.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252324; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36); color: #252324; font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #252324; font-size: large;"><span>Roses are 'the queen of flowers', so it is not surprising that they feature widely and richly in literature. </span></span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36); color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Each colour of the rose means something special, and this is often highlighted in the pages of romantic fiction;</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> Red - Love, Respect, Courage, Blood</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> Yellow - Joy, Gladness, Freedom</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> Pink/Peach - Gratitude, Appreciation, Admiration or Sympathy</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> White - Reverence, Purity, Secrecy</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> Black - Strength, Power, Danger, Death</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> Two Roses - Engagement</span></span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252324; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(37, 35, 36);"> Red and White Roses Together - Unity</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Roses can be found in literature everywhere and in all eras. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It is in Greek myth that the association with both love and blood began. Adonis died in Aphrodite’s arms and the first red roses were said to spring up from his blood soaking into the earth. Even today, the idea of the rose as a gift on Valentine's Day clearly symbolises its powerful association with love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Roses can also symbolise mystery and magic. In <i>The Golden Ass,</i> the ancient Roman novel by Lucius Apuleius, the goddess Isis instructs the main character, who has been unluckily transformed into a donkey, to eat rose petals from a crown of roses worn by a priest to regain his humanity (it takes him the entire novel to succeed in this!). In <i>Romeo and Juliet'</i>, Juliet wishes that Romeo was loved by her family as a person and not treated as an enemy.<i> What’s in a name? That which we call a rose; By any other name, would smell as sweet</i>.’ </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>The Rose Garden</i> by Susanna Kearsley explores the different stages of love and how they can change with time. The rose, a symbol of everlasting love, is the perfect flower for a story filled with romance and secrecy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Of course, the rose </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">is everywhere in poetry. Who cannot quote Robert Burns:</span></p><div class="code-block code-block-9" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; margin: 8px 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><amp-ad data-multi-size-validation="false" data-multi-size="300x250,336x280,300x50,320x100,320x50,1x1" data-slot="/18190176,22570125456/AdThrive_Content_9/5cd4333495adbd7574c9094c" height="fluid" json="{"targeting":{"siteId":"5cd4333495adbd7574c9094c","siteName":"Interesting Literature","amp_type":"rtc", "decref":"240", "location":"Content","sequence":9,"refresh":"false","amp":"true"}}" layout="fluid" rtc-config="{
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}}" style="box-sizing: border-box;" type="doubleclick" width="336"></amp-ad></span></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm4CXJiH3KE5JE4uE_Aaayg7VWAizfciaghDm8I7V3MlGTuKcmIOpNw9QapecBLu-qLG6njE_YYzEfC6yhiiflYqfsTM-Qv1cwOkq9H04DVCWZMFDKcmSo44cl-2LJIvqIO8FDF_Nn2_M12rxTsQetiQEJTgENvjF73-nq2LCAGg_FMA55L6Q6N3gNmJY/s4032/9BD66D61-0B9C-4440-9B0A-F3C78FD8A97A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm4CXJiH3KE5JE4uE_Aaayg7VWAizfciaghDm8I7V3MlGTuKcmIOpNw9QapecBLu-qLG6njE_YYzEfC6yhiiflYqfsTM-Qv1cwOkq9H04DVCWZMFDKcmSo44cl-2LJIvqIO8FDF_Nn2_M12rxTsQetiQEJTgENvjF73-nq2LCAGg_FMA55L6Q6N3gNmJY/s320/9BD66D61-0B9C-4440-9B0A-F3C78FD8A97A.jpeg" width="240" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>O my Luve’s like a red, red rose<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />That’s newly sprung in June;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />O my Luve’s like the melodie<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />That’s sweetly play’d in tune.</i></span><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Or William Blake's ‘The Sick Rose’:</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>O Rose thou art sick.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The invisible worm,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />That flies in the night<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In the howling storm:<br /></i></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Has found out thy bed<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Of crimson joy:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And his dark secret love<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Does thy life destroy.</i></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Perhaps less known is Emily Dickinson's poem:</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Nobody knows this little Rose—</span><br data-reader-unique-id="91" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">It might a pilgrim be</span><br data-reader-unique-id="92" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Did I not take it from the ways</span><br data-reader-unique-id="93" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">And lift it up to thee.</span><br data-reader-unique-id="94" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Only a Bee will miss it—</span><br data-reader-unique-id="95" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Only a Butterfly,</span><br data-reader-unique-id="96" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Hastening from far journey—</span><br data-reader-unique-id="97" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">On its breast to lie—</span><br data-reader-unique-id="98" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Only a Bird will wonder—</span><br data-reader-unique-id="99" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Only a Breeze will sigh—</span><br data-reader-unique-id="100" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">Ah Little Rose—how easy</span><br data-reader-unique-id="101" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">For such as thee to die!</span></i></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxGgfbA0Kt0C2GgetuV2iraNB0O0ekjdQPucKppLy777vIR8IIXTIlPG9TzJ6IQEPi4_oqSqPuzh3vPeqMdrFOGGkq5QRTM_39-s6GFLkbmnfzvrhHbz84VwmqQ2drNzOG0qRT_kCjA0kcYVzwHYszKqB0ZTZCB5PDA8VWWFkCkRR7BI1dQXSi32v1-o/s500/41kpox0ROHL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxGgfbA0Kt0C2GgetuV2iraNB0O0ekjdQPucKppLy777vIR8IIXTIlPG9TzJ6IQEPi4_oqSqPuzh3vPeqMdrFOGGkq5QRTM_39-s6GFLkbmnfzvrhHbz84VwmqQ2drNzOG0qRT_kCjA0kcYVzwHYszKqB0ZTZCB5PDA8VWWFkCkRR7BI1dQXSi32v1-o/s320/41kpox0ROHL.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A recent book covering the symbology of this wonderful flower is:</span><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;"> Sacred Rose: The Soul’s Path to Beauty and Wisdom</i><span style="font-family: arial;">, by Mara Freeman</span><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;">.</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> Filled with magnificent colour illustrations, </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;"><i>Sacred Rose</i>is a work of scholarship. Freeman’s careful research is combined with an attractive writing style that is never difficult to read. Throughout the book, we journey through historical fact, world literature, sacred religious texts, legend and myth to find roses at the very heart of humankind’s longing to experience the mysteries.</span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbmY5zqFsM_wIwHk3l1vAvIIag3lEQUXigQjjd6BmW6U7K69-MBQiz6nTtwZ-BAnj-5YnUTAPUiKBr1J6Cl32t3TluZi9JI92MSN-PukoqHtICx8k2TiazxhnkU0rD57PJMvLujIdHiT8ym9W8349tF1QRKafduvSOTb9kvFi6_0x9cTWzx_x7VIaFwU/s320/mara-freeman-new2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="294" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mara Freeman</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;">Freeman begins with the connection between roses and goddesses, especially Isis, Aphrodite and Venus. She then examines the relationship the medieval church had with the rose, especially though Mary, the Mother of Christ, who is often portrayed in a rose garden. She offers refreshing insights into the Rosary and the amazing rose windows in cathedrals across Christendom. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Looking across the ancient world, Freeman compares the rose to the many-petaled lotus,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">explores its hermetic connections, its honouring in the Arabic world, both Islamic and Zoroastrian, and the links with the Rosicrucians and the Tarot. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Freeman uses poetry to illustrate this. From Danté’s ‘celestial rose’, to the 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi, to Yeats and Elliot, she demonstrates how the rose symbolises a portal leading us closer to the mysteries of life. </span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The core message of the book is how the reader can enter the ‘language of the rose’– how the Mystic Rose…<i>also blooms within the individual soul</i>. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Freeman sets out methods of attaining this beauty and peace, including the use of rose essences and by creating a sacred space which would include the perfection of a plucked rose, and through meditations set out in the book. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s not hard to love roses – they abound in my garden, making them a common theme. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;">Using the symbolism of the rose can enhance the very aroma of </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;"> your writing. Using t</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;">he</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> powerful symbol of the rose can be likened to how a tight rose bud allows its many petals to spread open into a perfect sacred geometry. So use the rose symbol with care and attention; using it in an indifferent or offhanded way will cause its value to dissipate. The rose, although ubiquitous, is priceless, and its symbols are deep, compelling and affecting. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ81DYsxt7y42g2PyfjJM_FyWSQ-XZDmov3IM_sXVqKpGp15vM3gEwOR6D1PkF-qY3aFsNL4jvhQTasROfHUMUDsk9EJTujzLMHhALVRAiMzZKZmGPyRW_d0gb7IGHkhAtzls02E47xigsAiZ2lm3WluajDzRLUhdMw5vXDPAPUswKYmqkl-Wkete6wW0/s2654/5719A7F3-0E56-496E-A8A9-160B8ABC99F0_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2159" data-original-width="2654" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ81DYsxt7y42g2PyfjJM_FyWSQ-XZDmov3IM_sXVqKpGp15vM3gEwOR6D1PkF-qY3aFsNL4jvhQTasROfHUMUDsk9EJTujzLMHhALVRAiMzZKZmGPyRW_d0gb7IGHkhAtzls02E47xigsAiZ2lm3WluajDzRLUhdMw5vXDPAPUswKYmqkl-Wkete6wW0/s320/5719A7F3-0E56-496E-A8A9-160B8ABC99F0_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;">
</p><div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both;"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1em;"><div class="sd-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-52813884284195078812023-07-10T11:57:00.004-07:002023-07-18T02:10:04.735-07:00How They Got Published – The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 21.5px;">In this occasional series, "</span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 21.5px;"><i>How They Got Published – Stories of Writing Success</i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 21.5px;">", we look at how writers got their very first contract; the story of how that happened. Many writers are so very willing to share their advice with other hopeful writers. This week, I'm </span><span style="font-size: 21.5px;">looking</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 21.5px;"> at the massive best-seller, </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 21.5px;"><i>The Girl with the Louding Voice</i> by Abi Daré</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: medium;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-D7ipUKmAIvBEI_eq5USribzfOgMeJ8tiTrwwgUmDwQzAi4uWZ5OoDHJw7jIp3YgUL-5JYrE8W61SyVo-4hNgsMdzmV909lB9QqSfEMMxH_bIi-tjd3UpthuRndDf02yBXZZS6GwEPSXOkTgPaon4pnzACq_k_DJOEvJstgFPEOqNQABDkKkq2Drsi_E/s727/th-15.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="474" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-D7ipUKmAIvBEI_eq5USribzfOgMeJ8tiTrwwgUmDwQzAi4uWZ5OoDHJw7jIp3YgUL-5JYrE8W61SyVo-4hNgsMdzmV909lB9QqSfEMMxH_bIi-tjd3UpthuRndDf02yBXZZS6GwEPSXOkTgPaon4pnzACq_k_DJOEvJstgFPEOqNQABDkKkq2Drsi_E/w261-h400/th-15.jpeg" width="261" /></a></div>Like many writers, Abi Daré had been writing for over a decade before she decided to pursue an MA in Creative Writing. She had degrees in law (University of Wolverhampton) and project management (Glasgow Caledonia) but decided to add another degree to her CV because she longed to finish a “publishable” book and experiece a community of like minds that validated her as a writer. </span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;">She wrote the first draft of</span> <span style="background-color: white;"><i>The Girl With The Louding Voice</i> in eight months during the MA course, and quickly entered it into the Bath Novel Awards for unpublished manuscripts. Having won the competition and secured an agent she began revising the book –– that took about three years. The novel was finally published after a bidding war in 2020 and soon gained critical acclaim.</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Girl With the Louding Voice </i>is set in Nigeria, Daré’s home country, and focuses on 14-year-old Adunni as she is taken out of school by her poverty-stricken, widowed father and sold to become the third wife of a local man. When Adunni runs away to Lagos, dangers await her. She effectively becomes a slave to a wealthy family. But Adunni dreams of continuing her education and finding a voice to stand up for herself and girls like her.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkezvm8Q8tV-OPhodhahR4stG7J1NzJ_L0-z-JvW-rlaBXie5BVKiAWc3bU7XaaIZszo0PDZQERxLZo-jS6j5HA5Opu2O8mCfdC_bf8X2mwAawyT086hLZ2qVlM_WiSbrMR4iN1YS81pTxZfbK5QGjq2qCaw7b_Z6Py4FSsTxIn333FDZywlqMf84IdE/s474/th-14.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="474" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkezvm8Q8tV-OPhodhahR4stG7J1NzJ_L0-z-JvW-rlaBXie5BVKiAWc3bU7XaaIZszo0PDZQERxLZo-jS6j5HA5Opu2O8mCfdC_bf8X2mwAawyT086hLZ2qVlM_WiSbrMR4iN1YS81pTxZfbK5QGjq2qCaw7b_Z6Py4FSsTxIn333FDZywlqMf84IdE/s320/th-14.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-size: large;">One of the most resonant areas of the novel are the voices of other young, poor girls, and it was interesting see their various opinions of what is happening to them. Early on, we meet Enitan, Adunni’s best friend. Her approach to marriage is at odds with Adunni’s; she loves make up and hair-do’s, and is excited about this development in her friend’s life. Later, as Adunni moves into her husband’s compound, she meets Kiki, his daughter by his first wife, who is also 14 and about to be married. She is sanguine about this – men have everything, she explains to Adunni. They own everything. They have all the power. Kiki also wants to continue at school and become a dress designer and she plans to sweet talk her husband into paying up. If men have all the power, she argues, then the best thing for a girl is to grab a man.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just a few years older than Adunni is the second wife, who is pregnant. Her story is harrowing, and her demise cuts short Adunni’s life in the compound. She runs away in fear of her life, and finds herself in Lagos, working for Big Madam for no wage. Here, the investigation by Daré into the superstitions around pregnancy continue when we meet Ms Tia, a neighbour of Big Madam, who recognises the qualities and spirit in Adunni and helps her prepare to take a scholarship to a prestigious school. She has so far avoided getting pregnant, but begins to decide she would like to have a child with her husband. She agrees to undergo a shocking ritual to begin the process. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As the story of all these women progress, Adunni also begins to investigate the mystery of the previous maid; Rebecca disappeared after being made pregnant by Big Madam’s wastrel husband. As Adunni wonders: “Why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?”</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWuJzQCcieo_OjxhEwRu1F7oY0pmeoSL8PcPlqotFEc4tz-o9LYAW6Jr_5-7Kriu79aNYNVVj2wWuXEZ37rGUju5x3dNw_V689OuYFonzVM0qBTSK-Fq-kQI-xKB5_Tj1EOXtO9yNJrAnEXeoNzGqCJEJ3gcigt8prqB5PpQTU7kWRNB9tlBFNJQ5ac74/s474/th-16.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWuJzQCcieo_OjxhEwRu1F7oY0pmeoSL8PcPlqotFEc4tz-o9LYAW6Jr_5-7Kriu79aNYNVVj2wWuXEZ37rGUju5x3dNw_V689OuYFonzVM0qBTSK-Fq-kQI-xKB5_Tj1EOXtO9yNJrAnEXeoNzGqCJEJ3gcigt8prqB5PpQTU7kWRNB9tlBFNJQ5ac74/s320/th-16.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The twists and turns are held together with a clever control of language by Daré. The story is told in the first person by Adunni, who’s voice uses a country dialect. Meanwhile this is countered by the characters in Lagos, who speak very standard English. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Daré talks about the development of this voice to Aramide Akintimehin, writing for the Assembly Website. <i>‘I started the first draft about a week before I was due to submit about 3,000 words to my dissertation supervisor. I wrote the first sentence in my character’s voice and did not stop writing until I had the required 3,000 words. When I went to see him a week later for his review and assessment, I was pleasantly surprised when he told me that he loved it… I felt that I needed to break [Adunni’s] English down and break myself down in the process to understand her, so that she could be understood by anyone else who’s reading it…</i><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I wanted it to be nonstandard English…</i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial;">Later in the book Adunni comes to the realisation that, just because the rich Lagos women speak better</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: Arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">English than she does, they are not better people. Daré </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">wanted to make this point strongly in the novel </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> – ‘</span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial;">it’s just a language. It’s not a measure of intelligence.’</i><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial;">I wanted to explore the amount of talent and dreams and intelligence that we kill and waste when we don’t allow these girls to go to school, when we hire these young girls and get them to work. I wanted to show that this was a girl that needs to be up at 4 a.m. in the morning. She’s intelligent, and if she was given a chance, and other young girls in the world, they will shine and they will thrive.’</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial;"> </span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">The inspiration for Abi Daré’s first book struck when one of her daughters, then 8, didn’t feel like unloading the dishwasher. Daré told her that there were girls her age in Nigeria who did housework for a living. This conversation gave Daré a new perspective on something that was common among middle-class families like the one in which she was raised: employing young girls as so-called housemaids.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Daré admitted that for years she wrote quietly, and had moments where she felt like giving up. Taking the MA in Creative Writing helped her gain the confidence to complete this debut novel, get it published and continue writing. She says; <i>I just wanted to create a character that shows that a girl can be a fighter.… I wanted her to be a role model. So if you create a character and you want that character to be a role model, she has to be able to stand up for something. If you don’t stand up for something, you fall for everything. And so that’s why I wanted to create this character that young girls could look up to her, older women, even I looked up to Adunni when I was writing the book.</i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>If you would like to read all the blogposts in this series, <a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/search?q=label%3A%22How+They+Got+Published++–+Stories+of+Writing+Success.%22+How+they+got+published+–+stories+of+writing+success">click here</a></b></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #2d2f30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #2d2f30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 20px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #2d2f30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-72002277523779691852023-06-23T03:02:00.001-07:002023-06-23T03:02:18.739-07:00STARTING TO WRITE; Get Close to your Narrator though Internal Monologue <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifZ3OjaIYkSrBXyYNbju_NW84YZbKfEH451HFV83CgLwzjk8j-pEPvnbnXzo9Xcktx9PhxAVyBZVcPXOiPOGqlrorB87q1TVFZeT2TPzeikdNUE9-QJrX7HOMpJCdS17UPgNlwU4mu_Sr-tUFInP_WVKYAZIhgZehvi3B5nyCGZscwBh9guPZ13xSr/s1600/IMG_0013.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifZ3OjaIYkSrBXyYNbju_NW84YZbKfEH451HFV83CgLwzjk8j-pEPvnbnXzo9Xcktx9PhxAVyBZVcPXOiPOGqlrorB87q1TVFZeT2TPzeikdNUE9-QJrX7HOMpJCdS17UPgNlwU4mu_Sr-tUFInP_WVKYAZIhgZehvi3B5nyCGZscwBh9guPZ13xSr/s320/IMG_0013.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Starting your first fiction? <span style="font-family: times;">Getting close you your main character is a crucial part of writing any story, of any length. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Readers want to connect with the protagonist. This doesn't mean they have to like them –– rather, understand their motivation. And this doesn't mean sympathy ––rather, they need a certain element of empathy with them. They want to be able to see how things are in their shoes, to identify with some of their responses or situations. </span><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiinNU0y4oNa7Gxyy0MNTIff0GeSWRJWubUGPZEqiLAU14mHLAm-V9QzfJ3N8k41dC86OZ7Gph6rADISngBDSo_6V03FucS2debAzYTYoweH1ErYBKVSf0sEM4VUFfSXl51dwZUxRJL2YOktQvBvm_Plxd7jeBpB4l41OnmNsq6KPWv94UlhgWsm4NU-SI/s498/image11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="498" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiinNU0y4oNa7Gxyy0MNTIff0GeSWRJWubUGPZEqiLAU14mHLAm-V9QzfJ3N8k41dC86OZ7Gph6rADISngBDSo_6V03FucS2debAzYTYoweH1ErYBKVSf0sEM4VUFfSXl51dwZUxRJL2YOktQvBvm_Plxd7jeBpB4l41OnmNsq6KPWv94UlhgWsm4NU-SI/s320/image11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The first thing a writers considers in the point of view they are going to use to write about this main character. If you are not sure how to tackle this technique, do read these two blogpost before you carry on with this one –– about <a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2013/06/point-of-view-returning-to-forbidden.html">POINT OF VIEW</a> and about the more tricky <a href=" https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-omnsicient-point-of-view-can-you-be.html">OMNISCIENT POV</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But now, you have chosen the perfect point of view for your narrator's voice and you are seeing each scene – all the action and description – through that point of view. You are also going to 'see' inside your narrator, using that POV. You must allow the reader to see what the narrator is thinking, although it is up to you, the creator, to decide just how much of the narrator's thoughts they will be privy to. Without this look inside, narration is bland and emotionless. We read what is happening (action) what people are saying (dialogue) and what things around the setting look like (description) but with 'seeing' inside the narrator's head, none of that will engage the reader properly.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVEYVbQXD8YOoMEDaCvku3rWk4W9iPHYa2DbdMgMDZkIyuf5y--2hP7SLi8m-lf8-65Vm4wS5NcdrifXienUD1FrX9Qt0AWPkPPYOew808VjrMq4KeXT0M-qeEKd3FB3NEY3jv8ywAKyBa695HsHr8r3KzN4zyPvduuA2vdesXvfrfSfvravABcpWYIw/s600/image13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="600" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVEYVbQXD8YOoMEDaCvku3rWk4W9iPHYa2DbdMgMDZkIyuf5y--2hP7SLi8m-lf8-65Vm4wS5NcdrifXienUD1FrX9Qt0AWPkPPYOew808VjrMq4KeXT0M-qeEKd3FB3NEY3jv8ywAKyBa695HsHr8r3KzN4zyPvduuA2vdesXvfrfSfvravABcpWYIw/s320/image13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">I</span><b style="font-family: times;">nterior (or internal) monologue</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">Seeing into the narrator's head is called interior (or internal) monologue<b>. </b>It is used to create engaging narration, as the Masterclass website points out. “<i>Internal monologue…is a literary device that allows the reader to observe the inner thoughts of characters in a narrative.”</i> When internal monologue is used, the scene is described through the perspective and voice of the character, making it emotional and personal. In the real world, we all have our</span><span style="font-family: times; text-indent: 47.20000076293945px;"> own voice which comes out in the way we talk. This is seen specifically through the words and phrases we use and the things we talk about. Each character should have a clear voice, just like real people, and this voice is both the one they will use in dialogue, and the one they will use in interior monologue </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">A Little </span><span style="font-family: times;">Exercise</span></span></b></div><div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: large; white-space: pre;"> Take a look at something you've already written in a narrator's voice. Are you missing out on seeing what that narratwhat</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">what that narrator is thinking? If so, the result won't help the reader get that connection they need. Take that piece you've just read and try to redraft it, so that the character is thinking, and the reader is seeing what they think. Doing this help you read an</span><span style="font-family: times;"> intimate point of view which increases empathy and identity for the reader. Now see if you can blur the line between your description and r interior monologue, so that you move effortlessly from seeing the world through your character’s eyes to seeing the world (including action and description) through your character’s mind and back again, as my character, Sabbie Dare, does here; </span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p><blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">'Your life is not at risk. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought it was.'</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span> </span>It was the ‘I’ that made me stop. I reconsidered Ivan’s comment about police arriving in pairs. Why was this man alone? 'I want to see your ID again.'</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqcRd-bfw2uGPNS0ziH71DMT27405vR8zKj7sxYt55D6_xb40MsnwCSPw_MmLjMiTVBAC5p62ZdwzkiZoQNKFPU-5aRZJo2BvT8w2vrJ7feiJjABAJGAXWdcdO8wEwgM-pAObwd3xKzWP8fYclmS6iqOd8UzsevsT0Abq5XQxzJUaiLMBynMZEUXI9N0/s2048/In%20the%20Moors-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1328" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqcRd-bfw2uGPNS0ziH71DMT27405vR8zKj7sxYt55D6_xb40MsnwCSPw_MmLjMiTVBAC5p62ZdwzkiZoQNKFPU-5aRZJo2BvT8w2vrJ7feiJjABAJGAXWdcdO8wEwgM-pAObwd3xKzWP8fYclmS6iqOd8UzsevsT0Abq5XQxzJUaiLMBynMZEUXI9N0/s320/In%20the%20Moors-1.jpg" width="208" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span> </span>He slid it over the coffee table. I wouldn’t know a fake police badge if it had ‘Counterfeit’ stamped over it, but I rested my hand on the plastic coat and closed my eyes, to see what drifted into my mind. I gained a sensation; a recognition of strength and self-possession. Hidden underneath was a split-second flash of utter fatigue, the sort one associates with huge amounts of health-abuse. But that might be me, stereotyping the guy. Maybe he was a teetotaler.</span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> 'You’re smart, Sabbie,' said DS Buckley. 'I’m here on a bit of a hunch. The man we’re interviewing is a puzzle, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to solve it.'</span></p></blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span><i> In the Moors </i>Llewellyn International, Midnight Ink <br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><b>Interior Monologue and POV</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> In <i>The Art of Fiction. </i> John Gardner explains how the close third person (sometimes called 'limited' or 'subjective' 3rd Person POV) is essentially the same as the first person except that each <span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">‘</span>I<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ </span>is changed to <span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">‘</span>she<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ or 'he' or 'they'. This is almost the truth, but not quite, and is part of the joy of choosing the right POV in the first place. I chose the write <i>In the Moors </i></span><i> </i>in the first person as I did want to drill right down into Sabbie's mind with not the tiniest bit of distance because she uses shamanic techniques, and I was sure she would convince the reader of her use of this technique the better is she spoke directly to them. But there is no doubt that Gardner can be right; think back to the last book you read in a close 3rd Person POV. Did the narrator fully engage? Did you identify, even empathise with them? In that case, the writer managed that clever trick of persuading you to believe in their character, even the they are writing <i>about</i> them, rather than <i>being</i> them. That is…<i>she </i></span><i style="font-family: times;">closed her eyes, to see what drifted into her mind… </i><span style="font-family: times;">.rather than....<i>I closed my eyes, to see what drifted into my mind…</i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrpzsUWOWIJKMpgkrAxQgoe5Oi3I2S4RevyBXZds0mv49ViqMIy-q_3uhnCQogyOu_WcUfnvp0dFfFlcHhjvV71LaJaPzuGNgfnGJ9sm1XmISZE0myWgM0XRlZjiA0yvyglnA93zwOIFeOnBgGzpwgcgVMA0vQZL_6kl75d-Rhal_H16KcqnIRX7AiYA/s1280/DSC00619.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrpzsUWOWIJKMpgkrAxQgoe5Oi3I2S4RevyBXZds0mv49ViqMIy-q_3uhnCQogyOu_WcUfnvp0dFfFlcHhjvV71LaJaPzuGNgfnGJ9sm1XmISZE0myWgM0XRlZjiA0yvyglnA93zwOIFeOnBgGzpwgcgVMA0vQZL_6kl75d-Rhal_H16KcqnIRX7AiYA/s320/DSC00619.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">Direct and Indirect I</span><span style="font-family: times;">nterior Monologue</span></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Direct interior monologue tells you the exact thoughts of the character, using exactly the words he is thinking. If, when reading fiction, you see a short burst of italics, you'll know the writer is using a direct interior monologue, although that is their choice, you don't have to do it. However, spotting these italics can really help you understand what is going on with this writer and emulate the technique yourself. Whether this is in italics or not it should be perfectly clear that these are the verbatim words going through the POV character’s mind.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUpsufVCfkMNRjZXqp2HzSSPdSFMjZvAGkujFfHLiirqpItp1RdFS8b8bZZlivOBjKRpCxA5vsDYcQAzWPmNPuXYBpRiJHM5hYUEqgxiuSQ6VMMLsIxkUCurrpPZ1smTzoprhrdaBt9ImdIRekGg8QxLNpThrM7e4AUH0KkTLJm-jdm5VkI0qtzwffBqc/s300/fi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="250" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUpsufVCfkMNRjZXqp2HzSSPdSFMjZvAGkujFfHLiirqpItp1RdFS8b8bZZlivOBjKRpCxA5vsDYcQAzWPmNPuXYBpRiJHM5hYUEqgxiuSQ6VMMLsIxkUCurrpPZ1smTzoprhrdaBt9ImdIRekGg8QxLNpThrM7e4AUH0KkTLJm-jdm5VkI0qtzwffBqc/w167-h200/fi.jpg" width="167" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Indirect interior monologue tells the approximate thoughts of the character, without giving the exact words he’s thinking. So far as I know, nobody ever writes these using italics.</span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Most novelists use both direct and indirect interior monologue, mixing them well, because it just feels better when you do so.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Here's some indirect monologue from In The Moors:</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><i> </i>Maybe it was just my lack of breakfast, but I was glad of this reprieve. I needed to think everything through; Cliff’s story, Rey and Ivan, dreams and hens. But instead, I thought about Josh Sutton.</span></p><div></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">And here's some direct (in italics): </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span> </span>I wasn’t ready to consider Ivan anything more than a casual date. We were as different as a ladybird is from a greenfly. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> <i> </i><i> So long as I was the ladybird.</i></span></p><div></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Another Little Exercise </span></b></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">If you are not getting any, or sufficient interior monologue into your fiction, think about any if the following suggestions; </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Focus on the POV character, ask yourself what are they thinking and feeling</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now decide if sharing this with your reader will increase connectivity, without spoiling any secrets you want to keep</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Try sharing thoughts on the page</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Read through your writing. Use a highlighter to highlight the Narrative Action, Dialogue and Description. If you can see any Interior Monologue, highlight that in a different colour. Action and Dialogue should show what characters are doing or saying. The Interior Monologue should show what the POV character is thinking or feeling.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">It should also describe, so that we see Description through their eyes. That makes description far more effective. </span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><b>Head-Hopping and Moving POV</b></span></div><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;">Stories do not have to stay in one point of view. Sensible authors, though do stick with one narrator </span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;">throughout an entire scene, even <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaJOFEOtuhVZaaaWF7700F5uZFWES1VT6LpoWTAgwufelq2lbfpdTkOt8GbnMlz_kMzLokQH-L9dByJJDo0ZYNSWVwK1zh4f3ZJ0SYjx0yS6pBY4hzDI0AajR5kycxaxmUGxXnhQM-3yKAFG1-FKpOktSVOQLBGk10tCSsRx-EW4YD7nIHpiCpH1XGZTY/s474/th-10.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="474" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaJOFEOtuhVZaaaWF7700F5uZFWES1VT6LpoWTAgwufelq2lbfpdTkOt8GbnMlz_kMzLokQH-L9dByJJDo0ZYNSWVwK1zh4f3ZJ0SYjx0yS6pBY4hzDI0AajR5kycxaxmUGxXnhQM-3yKAFG1-FKpOktSVOQLBGk10tCSsRx-EW4YD7nIHpiCpH1XGZTY/s320/th-10.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>better, chapter. One of the great exponents of this is George R R Martin, who's "Game of Thrones" series is written chapter by chapter, character by character, building up a tremendous </span></span></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;">empathy with almost all the Stark family, with Tyrion Lannister, and with Daenerys Targaryen in particular. These are the characters who are likely to build up the most empty and connection with the reader and we see almost all the other characters via their interior thoughts on them.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;">However, moving POV is not the same as head-hopping. If your readers are having to bounce from one character’s head to another in the same scene, you will fail them. After all, you want to </span></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">give your reader a powerful experience, and you'll do that best by putting your reader inside the skin of one character at a time. The reader sees only what that character sees. Hears what she hears. Smells what she smells. Feels what she feels. Your reader becomes that character for the scene. If you want to get int</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;">o another character's head you wait for a new scene, or chapter, that way they are</span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;"> never confused. Head-hopping is often accidental for newer writers, </span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;">Look what </span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;">has happened to In the Moors when I head-hop:</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div><blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">'Your life is not at risk,' said DS Buckley, hoping what he was saying was true. 'I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought it was.'</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span> </span>It was the ‘I’ that made me stop. I reconsidered Ivan’s comment about police arriving in pairs. Why was this man alone? 'I want to see your ID again.'</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large; text-align: left;">He slid it over the coffee table, the feel of the plastic cold on his fingers. I wouldn’t know a fake police badge if it had ‘Counterfeit’ stamped over it, but I rested my hand on the plastic coat and closed my eyes, to see what drifted into my mind. I gained a sensation; a recognition of strength and self-possession. Hidden underneath was a split-second flash of utter fatigue, the sort one associates with huge amounts of health-abuse. But that might be me, stereotyping the guy. </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"> 'You’re smart, Sabbie.' Buckley meant it – he was attracted to this girl. 'I’m here on a bit of a hunch. The man we’re interviewing is a puzzle, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to solve it.'</span></div></blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"><b>Nonfiction</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;">Interior monologue can be used in nonfiction as well, but if you are writing something factual (your autobiography, or your travels, for instance) you must make sure that internal thoughts can be backed up by facts. Although, when writing biographical fiction, it is fine to get into a real </span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: times;"><span>character's head and suppose, or imagine, or deduce that's what he or she would be thinking. </span></span></span></div><p data-reader-unique-id="39" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Tom Wolfe explains that i</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">n his bo</span><span style="font-family: times;">ok </span><em data-reader-unique-id="40" style="font-family: times; max-width: 100%;">The Right Stuff, </em><span style="font-family: times;">his </span><span style="font-family: times;">style was developed to grab the readers' attention, to absorb</span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> them. ... He wanted to get into the heads of his characters, even if this was nonfiction. And so, at an astronauts' press conference, he quotes a reporter's question on who was confident about coming back from space. He describes the astronauts looking at one another and hoisting their hands in the air. Then, he's into their heads:</span></p><blockquote data-reader-unique-id="42" style="border-left-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 3px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 6px; max-width: 100%; padding-left: 16px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> It really made you feel like an idiot, raising your hand this way. If you didn't think you were 'coming back,' then you would really have to be a fool or a nut to have volunteered at all. ...</span></blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We will return to the subject of getting in the (right!) character's head in the next STARTING TO WRITE blogpost, when I look at psychic distance. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p></p></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-81031693904331928682023-06-11T08:56:00.006-07:002023-07-18T02:24:38.859-07:00Symbolism in Writing - The Sun<p style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJg26tlDU-EyLgGjT91FBi5oigNR5_U3ROs2x9kFG-yqKle2fbgxLPLC39Jv_WOPEpwuYRh_Bnn0wpZchI7w1X_DT-PKCzwO9d8iEU08imHH0OihUFrjiRLy1oFDBKPHebV6AqtrkpciBBwCukdRrtGDIOFyXn8O7o_lSD7yJCfTbNKwElwgbtBiPc/s436/91Gh066AVDL._AC_UY436_QL65_-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="274" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJg26tlDU-EyLgGjT91FBi5oigNR5_U3ROs2x9kFG-yqKle2fbgxLPLC39Jv_WOPEpwuYRh_Bnn0wpZchI7w1X_DT-PKCzwO9d8iEU08imHH0OihUFrjiRLy1oFDBKPHebV6AqtrkpciBBwCukdRrtGDIOFyXn8O7o_lSD7yJCfTbNKwElwgbtBiPc/w251-h400/91Gh066AVDL._AC_UY436_QL65_-2.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;">As a writer, it's easy to forget that the sun is a strong and useful literary symbol. There it is, up there in the sky, and indeed at the moment perhaps shinning a tad too brightly for comfort in some places. I'm a druid, so at this time of year, </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">coming<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> up to the Midsummer </span>Solstice<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">, the sun means a lot to me and my life. I am</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> in awe of the incredible strength of the sun and the divine powers that create life.</span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">T</span><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">his year (2023) the </span>solstice<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> falls in the afternoon of 21st of June I'll be celebrating the</span></span></span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> growth and life that the summer sun brings.</span></span><div><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"><br /></span></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFRyG2C21yhi1pwajCq46pr3EAjFLvvRpfIpUZe_nNlqRzIgyy9_ML-ECDyyLf2ORcBCf3b8coeByrXPFjmAtM-moTax2GvQSypKj9V4SUYzP7EwV0jwJgS9vnhwU3Ml4J0JaXFXTUtx7_wZkmXtV8Lysavj4ElJG8fxFVL3yY9WdFwqB1MO5ifkV/s1600/Feb05%5E01.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1077" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFRyG2C21yhi1pwajCq46pr3EAjFLvvRpfIpUZe_nNlqRzIgyy9_ML-ECDyyLf2ORcBCf3b8coeByrXPFjmAtM-moTax2GvQSypKj9V4SUYzP7EwV0jwJgS9vnhwU3Ml4J0JaXFXTUtx7_wZkmXtV8Lysavj4ElJG8fxFVL3yY9WdFwqB1MO5ifkV/s320/Feb05%5E01.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haleakelã in Hawaii as the sun rises over the volcano</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;">People for millennia have celebrated the sybolism of our sun – our own bright star, as it shines its light onto the Earth. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d;">Because the sun gives us life, growth, brightness and warmth, of course it might be worshiped. </span><span style="color: black;">Over the last few weeks in the UK, the sun has shone above us, strongly and brightly, reminding us of the glories of summer and brightening our world with the colour of flowers. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d;">The power of the sun at Midsummer is at its most potent, and its ability to make crops grow, is all around us; the earth is fertile with the bounty of life, wildflowers are on every verge, and flower borders are redolent with colour. This imbues us with new hope.</span><br />
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s not surprising to find the sun in literature, where it can be a symbol of hope, life, power, growth, health, passion and the higher self, as well as a link to the cycle of life. All this is used as a representation in fiction and poetry especially. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6Mb_DEB4WUM7WKSJ-GVNe1ruPvlWnKKY1Z02kkTSl20G_Q79uMXoX3vlWxtLbmsfpPgz9-g0M5e8qwMhV8vuWyk5_e_b8cVx1J75aN6fcsKTSxojtw54Xxg1PU51_vZiJaqkfk4On_P0YS0wsnRChkZQ4XytwR5nk1vs82WwbLEdN1WRSMD9f0nU/s1200/imrs.php.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="1200" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6Mb_DEB4WUM7WKSJ-GVNe1ruPvlWnKKY1Z02kkTSl20G_Q79uMXoX3vlWxtLbmsfpPgz9-g0M5e8qwMhV8vuWyk5_e_b8cVx1J75aN6fcsKTSxojtw54Xxg1PU51_vZiJaqkfk4On_P0YS0wsnRChkZQ4XytwR5nk1vs82WwbLEdN1WRSMD9f0nU/s320/imrs.php.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>In the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro,</span><b style="font-family: arial;">Clara and the Sun, </b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">the sun plays a god-like role. Ishiguro allows it to symbolise the emotional power of having faith in something bigger than oneself. The protagonist, Klara, is an Artificial Friend – a humanoid machine bought Josie's parents to help her loneliness. Josie responded badly to being ‘lifted’ and is often seriously ill with something that may have killed her sister. Klara is solar-powered, so the sun actually does provide nourishment to her—she is sluggish when she doesn’t get enough sunlight. She tries to communicate with the Sun in her mind, as if it is a deity that can read her thoughts. Perhaps because of this, Klara seems to overestimate the effect the Sun has on humans. Josie makes a miraculous recovery on a sunny morning after Klara has pleaded with the Sun to spare her. In the book, as in previous millennia of humanity, the Sun symbolises the power of believing in something bigger than oneself. And yet, none of the humans around Klara think about the Sun at all. As a result, the novel represents how </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">people in the futuristic world Ishiguro created</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> have become out of touch with the natural world. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29);"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">Although the sun is often</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;"> seen as a guiding light in the dark or as hope in times of despair, in Albert </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">Camus' famous and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">unconventional</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">novel,</span><b style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;"> The Stranger</b><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">, the sun represents </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">the bright light of the sun which </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">clouds the </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">thoughts and judgment</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;"> of the protagonist,</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">Meursault</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">. The sun is personified to represent society, which </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29); color: #1d1d1d;">throughout the story frustrates, angers and eventually takes control overs life.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="color: #1d1d1d;"><br /></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d;"> </span><b style="color: #1d1d1d;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="color: #1d1d1d;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9cmzM3nE0KC8XZbueYL4hLOx4o2HMqpiXmFFPwThid9nEaEt5eUPub5zxc8-WiopeXAYn0qSE3UsaEbNOcHZCHCRqRxl3SxMRAHw29IXnTwoyc8kTbq0FYWPpcBIWP7DENvzZd57bgTsnQ5JGayb1S2LRNe30HgxWtorOjMtJ1av9YhC1e9pb4Dxy/s196/content-2.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="128" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9cmzM3nE0KC8XZbueYL4hLOx4o2HMqpiXmFFPwThid9nEaEt5eUPub5zxc8-WiopeXAYn0qSE3UsaEbNOcHZCHCRqRxl3SxMRAHw29IXnTwoyc8kTbq0FYWPpcBIWP7DENvzZd57bgTsnQ5JGayb1S2LRNe30HgxWtorOjMtJ1av9YhC1e9pb4Dxy/w209-h320/content-2.jpeg" width="209" /></a></b></div><b style="color: #1d1d1d;">The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row </b><span style="color: #1d1d1d;">is a memoir by Anthony Ray Hinton recounting his wrongful conviction of capital murder and the death sentence that resulted from the conviction. Hinton's sentence resulted in thirty years of solitary confinement at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama as he awaited death by electric chair. In the memoir, Hinton recounts both his time in prison and his time as a child and young man. Hinton's mother raised Hinton and his nine older siblings by herself while confronting poverty and racism in rural Alabama. </span><span style="color: #1d1d1d;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 29, 29);">In <i>The Sun Does Shine,</i> the sun symbolizes Ray’s persistent hope for a better life. In maintaining that the sun will never refuse to shine for him, Ray implies that he will always keep up hope, even in his darkest days, because that hope is critical for his survival on death row. </span></span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><b>All Summer in a Day</b> by American writer Ray Bradbury is a short story first published in a Sci Fi magazine in 1954</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #151515;">The story is about a class of students who live on the planet Venus</span><span style="color: #151515;">, where </span><span><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">the sun</span></span></span><span style="color: #151515;"> is only visible for one hour every seven years. </span><span style="color: #151515;">Margot </span><span style="color: #151515;">is the only one who remembers the sun from her early childhood on Earth. She describes the sun to the other children as being like a "penny" or "fire in the stove". The other children, refuse to believe her and lock Margot in a closet down a tunnel just before their</span><span style="color: #151515;"> teacher arrives to take them outside to enjoy their one hour of sunshine. In their astonishment and joy, they all forget about Margot and gleefully rush to play outside. When i</span><span style="color: #151515;">t begins to rain again, the children realise they won't see the sun again for another seven years. They let her out of the closet and stand frozen, ashamed over what they have done now that they finally understand what she had been missing.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;">One of my favourite poets, Mary Oliver, looked at the symbology of the sun in a poem of the same name; </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><i><span style="color: #151515;"> </span><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">Have you ever seen </span></span></i></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>anything </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>in your life </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>more wonderful </i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #151515;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVeCid21jmnpUXIB9t2oQbvIczVxDq33WJrLYFimVnxvCwzI_nbMJxF8IoHJMwQb-E7TDluGnJqC1WS2FjtKwMCOuVlhY2M938o25ls4SUsjjC-LsBsKAjEq2XNiX2hXqQFSCOfJWFtQcKTQ3bWQ_LICd0_tgEyahyrWeuWhg3bNYqT_Ho6LREa7E/s400/Mary_Oliver.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="249" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVeCid21jmnpUXIB9t2oQbvIczVxDq33WJrLYFimVnxvCwzI_nbMJxF8IoHJMwQb-E7TDluGnJqC1WS2FjtKwMCOuVlhY2M938o25ls4SUsjjC-LsBsKAjEq2XNiX2hXqQFSCOfJWFtQcKTQ3bWQ_LICd0_tgEyahyrWeuWhg3bNYqT_Ho6LREa7E/s320/Mary_Oliver.jpg" width="199" /></a></i></span></div><span style="color: #151515;"><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>than the way the sun, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>every evening, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>relaxed and easy, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>floats toward the horizon </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>and into the clouds or the hills, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>or the rumpled sea, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>and is gone-- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>and how it slides again </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>out of the blackness, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>every morning, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>on the other side of the world, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>like a red flower </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>streaming upward on its heavenly oils, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>say, on a morning in early summer, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>at its perfect imperial distance-- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>and have you ever felt for anything </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>such wild love-- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>do you think there is anywhere, in any language, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>a word billowing enough </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>for the pleasure </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>that fills you, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>as the sun </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>reaches out, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>as it warms you </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>as you stand there, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>empty-handed-- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>or have you too </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>turned from this world-- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>or have you too </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>gone crazy </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>for power, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;">You can learn more about these vivid descriptions and powerful images which invite us to reflect on our relationship with the sun at this webpage; </span><a href="https://poeminspiration.com/unlocking-the-meaning-behind-mary-olivers-the-sun-poem/">https://poeminspiration.com/unlocking-the-meaning-behind-mary-olivers-the-sun-poem/</a><span style="color: #151515;">.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;">In <b>Count that Day Lost</b>, by George Eliot, the sun is the primary image in the poem. Eliot begins the poem with the idea that at the end of day, if a person has been kind just once, that is a day well spent. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>If you sit down at set of sun </i></span></span></p></span><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>And count the acts that you have done, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>And, counting, find </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>One self-denying deed, one word </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>That eased the heart of him who heard, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>One glance most kind </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>That fell like sunshine where it went -- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>Then you may count that day well spent. </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i><br /></i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>But if, through all the livelong day, </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay -- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>If, through it all </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>You've nothing done that you can trace </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>That brought the sunshine to one face-- </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>No act most small </i></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>That helped some soul and nothing cost -- </i></span></span></p><p style="orphans: auto; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #151515;"><i>Then count that day as worse than lost.</i></span></span></span></p><p style="orphans: auto; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #151515;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span></p><p style="orphans: auto; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #151515;">Finally, there is </span></span></span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbG8NwiI7mcHbyIB7lLD3zF-j3WG06YaUig_d8D2TaIKt0O-8XyEmmjc3rgkAsIflJRP-EXo_vtLWIGl3ruZGzOqquect93_xPpPk6oY_bTYk922ggxn9G9LLmbYZiw3WmoHdK7F6vIaE1SaAjCM5duiJDebYk9j8H5R3eZIFVW1moNAzN6aypynWU/s639/The_Sun_Also_Rises_(1st_ed._cover).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbG8NwiI7mcHbyIB7lLD3zF-j3WG06YaUig_d8D2TaIKt0O-8XyEmmjc3rgkAsIflJRP-EXo_vtLWIGl3ruZGzOqquect93_xPpPk6oY_bTYk922ggxn9G9LLmbYZiw3WmoHdK7F6vIaE1SaAjCM5duiJDebYk9j8H5R3eZIFVW1moNAzN6aypynWU/s320/The_Sun_Also_Rises_(1st_ed._cover).jpg" width="220" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Sun Also Rises </b> Ernest Hemingway's first novel. It is said that he meant this to be a piece of nonfiction portraying his friends, American and British expatriates, who travelled along the Camino de Santiago from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. The title is from </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">a longer quotation from the Bible – </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><i>One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.</i></span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> Hemingway suggested though, that the book was not so much about a generation being lost, but that "the earth abideth forever." He thought the characters in </span><i data-reader-unique-id="261" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">The Sun Also Rises </i><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">may have been "battered" but were not lost.</span><p></p><p style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">Although the sun may be thought of as a cliché when using it as a writer, there is plenty of </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">flexibility in this symbol. Thinking about what it offers a writer as representation can help you create imagery that really stays with the reader. </span></span></p><p style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"><b>To read more blogposts about symbolism in literature, <a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/search?q=symbolism+in+literature">click here</a></b></span></span></p><p style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"><br /></span></span></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; direction: ltr; line-height: 14.666667938232422px; margin: 0px 0px 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><br /></p></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-69479101976250185892023-06-01T01:04:00.003-07:002023-06-04T03:22:54.476-07:00How to Write about Your Own Life<p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Lifewriting is a fairly modern term for some forms of creative non-fiction, although writing about your own life, and the things that touch it, has is actually one of the oldest genres known to reading man. </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Even now, it grows all the time on the web, especially</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span> in the form of blogposts continually expanding the genre and (hopefully) enhancing its quality. </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiW_iYNJ6Vh897XUj3pdhUQ19B4fFaRPyVwsUFILZ_VblQ2doibSHT4i1uud-hew6PIHMQNQvnb-szBicnkTIEHq2-S6FZvynNc1jfh41ESkEJiCbkiwCAMb0zuA8Y0MSZb89u6-QTF5_fUhOrZigRN5MY6323e1SZUNBRL2TZdBlRuAuamigQduqm/s600/236927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="457" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiW_iYNJ6Vh897XUj3pdhUQ19B4fFaRPyVwsUFILZ_VblQ2doibSHT4i1uud-hew6PIHMQNQvnb-szBicnkTIEHq2-S6FZvynNc1jfh41ESkEJiCbkiwCAMb0zuA8Y0MSZb89u6-QTF5_fUhOrZigRN5MY6323e1SZUNBRL2TZdBlRuAuamigQduqm/s320/236927.jpg" width="244" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">With this expansion comes all the many </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">sub-divisions. People used to just talk about 'biography', 'autobiography' and the travel writer', but n</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">on-fiction, in its broadest sense, includes all writing that is not entirely of the imagination. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Lifewriting is factual writing with literary form, flowing out of a desire to create writing that can speak to the heart, as well as the head. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The story of the writer’s life can take many shapes and forms, from a simple diary, usually written every day or so, to a full-length recollection of an entire life and times.</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Writing about your own life can be extremely liberating; it can develop your voice, add to range and depth and free up new ideas. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: times;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Try k</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">e</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">eping a journal for seven consecutive days. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Use freewriting to enter your daily routine, <i>(<a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2015/04/go-with-flowwriting-advice-from-oca.html">you can find out about it if you click on this link)</a> </i>your thoughts on your relationships with the people round you and what‘s happening in the outside world. If you can, continue to keep this journal as you go through the course. It will help generate ideas for your life writing.</span></span></li></ul><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB9dr256fKzH68g1qte7UBqTS8IhpYb3R8zM-QddYXG19HVCkXRHpGHtHguqmRHTsE47JJqJtjdKFnbn_I9KFyCSIfh_dhGEWuy-7Zp70f6c80FGEM3QZcObkjG1f17apImi0j7uZ49ggenmeh0z_IEZwxcCq7nBrB-Knnv8Bu3kmRqRriUfU70Yc6/s471/440px-Penelope_Lively.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="440" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB9dr256fKzH68g1qte7UBqTS8IhpYb3R8zM-QddYXG19HVCkXRHpGHtHguqmRHTsE47JJqJtjdKFnbn_I9KFyCSIfh_dhGEWuy-7Zp70f6c80FGEM3QZcObkjG1f17apImi0j7uZ49ggenmeh0z_IEZwxcCq7nBrB-Knnv8Bu3kmRqRriUfU70Yc6/w187-h200/440px-Penelope_Lively.JPG" width="187" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;">Penelope Lively</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In a chapter entitled </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">‘</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The Children in the Sampler</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">from her b</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">ook</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> A House Unlocked</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">, the novelist Penelope Lively uses the furniture and artefacts from the house she loved as a child to tak</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">e the reader on a journey of social history, widening each chapter into a personal essay. In this extract, she tells us of the London evacuees who stayed in the Somerset house:</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span> </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span> </span><i>Sitting on the carpet in the Golsonscott drawing-room, I heard a thin dry man<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span>s voice coming from the wireless and wondered why we all had to sit in silence and why everyone looked so solemn.</i></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span> </span>At Wiliton station, four miles away, the war had begun two days before. Four hundred school children and their teachers arrived, allocated to the Watchet area; a similar number went to Minehead...</i></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span> </span>My grandmother took it on the chin and set about reorganizing the house. The old nursery and night rooms were made over to the party, along with the attic rooms that had formerly been servants<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ </span>quarters. The evacuees ate in the servants<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ </span>sitting-room next to the kitchen. At night the children must have lain staring up at the night-nursery ceiling on which Margaret Tarrant fairies flew around a midnight blue sky spangled with stars. The children came from Stepney, a borough where around 200,000 people lived at an average density of twelve per dwelling. From there to Golsoncott. I assume that they did the normal and natural thing – howled for their mothers and wet their beds...</i></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span> </span>A woman such as Joyce<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span>s mother may well have had too many children because advice on birth control was not readily available. She was very likely anaemic – out of a sample of 1,250 women questioned by the Women<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span>s Health Enquiry Committee of 1933, 558 had been diagnosed as anaemic...anyone who has been temporarily anaemic knows what it feels like – continuous lassitude, being out of breath if you climb the stairs or walk uphill, permanent fatigue. Before the war, huge numbers of working-class women felt like that all the time. Joyce<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span>s mother may have suffered from headaches, constipation and haemorrhoids, rheumatism, carious teeth, gynaecological problems, varicose veins, ulcerated legs, phlebitis – conditions all found to have a high incidence among this sample of women. She was lucky if she sat down for half an hour between rising at 6.30 a.m. and winding up at 9 p.m.</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NOW79Qt1uSBYyK_mX-RXF0ejWa8Vj-rWL6klDB_Botg4Iv0-7XBlQWlX1MBq6PsPGZ7ZvMk_UZy6rz-DFBD-utwySzp3bHXeb4sRf_2KNHYWs0wsRKIGn813ZaGE-v-tLQ2ruXz5AP0X7lR8DrmXrPym-RI_a79rhAuJ2VjQucFUVKfouJiLkPfL/s600/1112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="547" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NOW79Qt1uSBYyK_mX-RXF0ejWa8Vj-rWL6klDB_Botg4Iv0-7XBlQWlX1MBq6PsPGZ7ZvMk_UZy6rz-DFBD-utwySzp3bHXeb4sRf_2KNHYWs0wsRKIGn813ZaGE-v-tLQ2ruXz5AP0X7lR8DrmXrPym-RI_a79rhAuJ2VjQucFUVKfouJiLkPfL/s320/1112.jpg" width="292" /></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Look at how Lively used her own memories to expand her story. Try this technique to free up your imagination and tap into the deepest levels of your thought processes. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Choose a topic, and w</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">rite freely about some event that you remember being caught up in. It doesn</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">t have to be a </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">‘</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">great event</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ – </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">you could use the memory of being in a New Year</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">s crowd or attending a wedding. Try to create a piece that picks up the atmosphere of your event and your feelings about it.</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Allow the words to freewrite themselves onto the page – try not to think at all about what you</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">re going to say next.</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When you come to a natural end, read your work through. Sort out the free flow of your thoughts, working at balancing logical facts with the emotion of the piece.</span></li><li>If any of the exercises stimulate painful or conflicting thoughts or memories, take a break. Bear in mind, though, that these sorts of memories will often produce the most powerful writing.</li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Put the original draft away and begin a </span>little<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> research on the event itself, both that personal experience and events like this; their history and meaning. Go back to the draft and see in you can widen and refresh the piece without it ever looking as if you've 'seeded' the information you've gained into it. Wilton is a past master of doing this, but you can learn from the masters. </span></li></ul><p></p><div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br />The style and structure of life writing can be as experimental and literary as you please. Acclaimed works include Lorna Sage’s</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> Bad Blood</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> (2001), J.M. Coetzee’s </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Boyhood</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> (1997) and </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Things M</i><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">y Mother Never Told Me </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">by Blake Morrison (2002).</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi41GA7ZH5L2S-sVrvDq5m8m7wuv5eUeiFNVPLhZWEWnehMFhNIy2G8aAEJnhDnEcw6G_RwhTB-PC1OVo-rVVOMpuckSCLP-iwgWASvuDnJc7hE36gUWskLD-RaULe-KC_0aH8OVP6dP3vZRv2Kpr5FCG5BkuXk5UTKG1p-Jmgd4VQYRHFogQzVryeb/s170/th%3Fid=OIP.n2DbTyw0SPabNKMeKm4e0gHaLW&w=110&h=170&rs=1&qlt=80&pid=3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="110" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi41GA7ZH5L2S-sVrvDq5m8m7wuv5eUeiFNVPLhZWEWnehMFhNIy2G8aAEJnhDnEcw6G_RwhTB-PC1OVo-rVVOMpuckSCLP-iwgWASvuDnJc7hE36gUWskLD-RaULe-KC_0aH8OVP6dP3vZRv2Kpr5FCG5BkuXk5UTKG1p-Jmgd4VQYRHFogQzVryeb/w207-h320/th%3Fid=OIP.n2DbTyw0SPabNKMeKm4e0gHaLW&w=110&h=170&rs=1&qlt=80&pid=3.jpg" width="207" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Andy Miller was embarrassed about all the great books he hadn't read, so he set out to bring reading into his day-to-day life. His </span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;">decided that he hadn't read anywhere near the number of great books that he habitually claimed to have read and needed to redress the balance. A heroic stance was adopted: "to integrate books – to reintegrate them – into an ordinary day-to-day existence". A List of Betterment was drawn up, a dosage worked out (50 pages a day) and soon his long commute to work was spent wrestling not with sudoku but Bukowski, Tolstoy and Lampedusa.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The late Hilary Mantel's autobiography</span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> Giving up the Ghost</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> details her fight with chronic endometriosis among other life events. It is a great start if you'd like to read how other writers have examined and detailed their lives. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i><span> </span>Boys are what I have to fight at school. If you can’t join them, beat them. I am out of the babies’ class and released from the stinking stone pen beside the latrines, out into the broad playground under the dripping trees. I come home and say, ‘Grandad, a big boy hit me.’ He says, ‘Lovie, now I’ll teach you how to fight.’ He teaches me fair tactics, nothing low. But when the next fight comes I walk away with a different result. It’s too easy! Punch to solar plexus, big boy folds. His head is within range. ‘As you please, now,’ Grandad says, ‘keep it easy, no need to make a fist. Try a big slap across the chops.’ I do it. Tears spring from the eye of the big boy. He reels, clutching his diaphragm, away from the railings. Oh Miss, she hit me, she hit me!</i></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i><span> </span>I am amazed: less by my performance, than by his; his alarming wails, his bawls. I don’t want to do this again unless I have to, I decide. In only a year I will have to go to confession and learn to examine my conscience. What I am experiencing is the beginning of compunction; but is it the awakening of a sense of sin, or is it the</i></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><i>beginning of femininity? Do boys have compunction? I don’t think so. Knight errant? They have compunction for all the weak and oppressed. Shame is somewhere among my feelings about this incident. I don’t know who it belongs to: to me, or the boy I’ve beaten, or some ghostly, fading boy I still carry inside.</i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj79ZWGAt9fVT4Tks9ZlDTPblf4LyWeY03eLpaLaERLgz9EO6OSmtFj7rRXy8kIjN8t2l-KpMGQsPqmrReZaqkZlHIzWjlp8s0on3z4GXKujHhSfeZYeCuGoM-zX_nGLDnHNas3Q7jegyJVhINlqRqZB9ZdC1XfKP21f2moF0gqaHIBhrUB8IRbpKlK/s436/91iO66kW4yL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="284" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj79ZWGAt9fVT4Tks9ZlDTPblf4LyWeY03eLpaLaERLgz9EO6OSmtFj7rRXy8kIjN8t2l-KpMGQsPqmrReZaqkZlHIzWjlp8s0on3z4GXKujHhSfeZYeCuGoM-zX_nGLDnHNas3Q7jegyJVhINlqRqZB9ZdC1XfKP21f2moF0gqaHIBhrUB8IRbpKlK/s320/91iO66kW4yL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" width="208" /></a></div> <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Some autobiographies explore a remarkable experience. This might be a single incident or period in a person’s life, for example the moment they achieved their life’s ambition, or their part in a catastrophe.<i> </i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><i>My Life in Orange</i> by Tim Guest is a first-hand account of a child growing up in the Osho movement, whose members dye their clothes orange:</span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <i> </i><i>The evidence has taken me years to gather together. I can look at these artifacts now and see myself; but in the late 1980s, as a teenager living with my mother in North London, after the communes ended, I had no evidence of our history. In a small fire out in our back garden my mother burned her photos, her orange clothes, her mala necklace with its 108 sandalwood beads and locket with a picture of Bhagwan. Despite my pleas to let me sell it and keep the money, she even burned the bright gold rim she had paid a commune jeweller to fix around her mala locket in the later, more style-conscious commune years. A week after the fire, I borrowed a pair of pliers, prised the silver rim off my own mala and threw the beads away.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Think about the milestones in your life. These do not have to be world-shattering to make </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">effective writing. Rather they will be events that are important – memorable – to you. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Go for moments, encounters, events, experiences that still raise emotions in you when you think about them. </span></span></li><li><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">Note down at least half a dozen of these, perhaps in rough chronological order</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">Now adjust the order, putting the events that still raise the strongest emotions at the top.</span></li><li><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">Choose one of these milestones and freewrite about it for 15 minutes. Try to:</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">• write from the heart, from your own point of view</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">• include relevant imagery in any of the five senses</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">• engage the reader in how your emotions are re-emerging – and how they felt then</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">• slow down time as you describe the past, getting close up.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times;">Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion or perceptions.</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-family: times;">Return to your list and choose further options if this exercise is pertinent to your personal life writing.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglCX_sPnJAaWUyqJuXZkYw62SYuPxUMPJ4bdFxJQ6n4w_wRCSH_vPhakwHk66xlh4S7Lqf6ACaKzXocKXn_AUoUcUQAIREIMXJ-t4xQ71ZSnr-qwcekuV24n9GcSLmX0dtGYh-FOkPgEpa9l65nAvQ8fMVD5IegNNZTbvS6ACD6OnPVk6nZJgHIu7K/s474/th-9.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="474" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglCX_sPnJAaWUyqJuXZkYw62SYuPxUMPJ4bdFxJQ6n4w_wRCSH_vPhakwHk66xlh4S7Lqf6ACaKzXocKXn_AUoUcUQAIREIMXJ-t4xQ71ZSnr-qwcekuV24n9GcSLmX0dtGYh-FOkPgEpa9l65nAvQ8fMVD5IegNNZTbvS6ACD6OnPVk6nZJgHIu7K/s320/th-9.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></span></li></ul><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div><br /></div>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Do post your thoughts on your own writing here, and let me know what you thought of my exercises, too. </p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-80561811671941002762023-05-05T02:12:00.004-07:002023-06-04T03:23:27.559-07:00The Bad Guys -- Do Novels Need Villians and Antagonists?<p> </p><h1 class="title" data-reader-unique-id="titleElement" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 1.95552em; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="6" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">I've just had this email from a student;</span><span style="font-size: 18px;"> </span></h1><h1 class="title" data-reader-unique-id="titleElement" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 1.95552em; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdm5sBzvRi6yDtJJTgnZjqGwLnY1z7CtZP8Q2j9IgQYaGU69e1ESLvbc1xwiGmY3iwJpR6kOcjSlAqwIQyYAIzCEnprPBYZXqnCqraVVkDls1RFuI9ryZocf657SjB6BwIaf60QplOXC_dA4iMlXzJG1-VVQggEQFcHnoRhY8Aq_aMT4RjBYGEd2he/s284/images-15.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdm5sBzvRi6yDtJJTgnZjqGwLnY1z7CtZP8Q2j9IgQYaGU69e1ESLvbc1xwiGmY3iwJpR6kOcjSlAqwIQyYAIzCEnprPBYZXqnCqraVVkDls1RFuI9ryZocf657SjB6BwIaf60QplOXC_dA4iMlXzJG1-VVQggEQFcHnoRhY8Aq_aMT4RjBYGEd2he/s1600/images-15.jpeg" width="284" /></a></div><i data-reader-unique-id="7" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"> I realised I had only thought of all my characters internal conflicts; however, I have not thought of a definite villain, and I am unsure of whether I want to include one after reading </i><span data-reader-unique-id="7" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">The Gloaming </span><i data-reader-unique-id="7" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">by Kirsty Logan. In </i><span data-reader-unique-id="7" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">The Gloaming, </span><i data-reader-unique-id="7" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;">there is not one major external conflict that influences every character. Rather, it is a retelling of life and its unexpected twists. The book made me think of how I want to present the story; do I want there to be a villain to defeat? Or am I satisfied with writing only about their internal conflicts, and their battle with the storm?</i><p data-reader-unique-id="20" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="" class="clear" data-reader-unique-id="21" decoding="async" height="307" sizes="(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px" src="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/220px-OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest-Nina-Milton.jpg" srcset="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/220px-OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest-Nina-Milton.jpg 220w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/220px-OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest-Nina-Milton-215x300.jpg 215w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/220px-OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest-Nina-Milton-107x150.jpg 107w" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="220" /></p></h1><p data-reader-unique-id="9" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="10" style="max-width: 100%;">Not all stories have a bad guy or gal. Conflict, and the thwarting of desire, can come from many other sources. In fact, having a villain at all could be thought of as an artefact of certain genres; action, crime, romance and adventure, for instance, although for the purpose of this blogpost, I’m casting my net more widely. Some of the greatest literature features ‘the villain’, Shakespeare being master of the purposefully evil human intent on destruction and full of hate, and Dickens taking up that mantle willingly, creating iconic villains such as Uriah Heep.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="11" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="12" style="max-width: 100%;">I asked my student why she was considering the idea of an specific antagonist. Maybe it’s because everyone loves a villain. Characters like Hannibal Lector (from Thomas Harris’ series of thrillers) Nurse Ratched (</span><i data-reader-unique-id="13" style="max-width: 100%;">One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, </i><span data-reader-unique-id="15" style="max-width: 100%;">Ken Kesey)</span><span data-reader-unique-id="16" style="max-width: 100%;">, or Stephen King’s Annie Wilkes (</span><i data-reader-unique-id="17" style="max-width: 100%;">Misery</i><span data-reader-unique-id="19" style="max-width: 100%;">), have gone down in history to the point their names are synonymous with cannibalism, bad nursing, and fandom obsession. It’s got to be fun to include a villain in your fiction, right? </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="22" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="23" style="max-width: 100%;">I wanted to suggest she gives this idea the wide, long view. A villain is only one type of antagonist, after all. Sometimes the protagonist in a story is faced with something that is not even human, such as natural or inanimate forces and events that take on the villain’s role. In </span><i data-reader-unique-id="24" style="max-width: 100%;">The Handmaid’s Tale, </i><span data-reader-unique-id="26" style="max-width: 100%;">Margaret Atwood isn’t pointing to one individual who is villainous. It’s the state itself, the Republic of Gilead, which sprang from the ideas of well-meaning people to become a monster in itself. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="27" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="28" style="max-width: 100%;">Of course my student doesn’t have to have a villain in their story…but does she need any type of antagonist at all? There are two kinds of antagonist often overlooked, when talking about ‘the bad gal or guy’. Creators of conflict can be antagonistic. Such conflict-generating antagonists are characters with goals and desires in direct conflict with the protagonist. Look at Javert, the police inspector in Victor Hugo’s </span><i data-reader-unique-id="29" style="max-width: 100%;">Les Misérables</i><span data-reader-unique-id="31" style="max-width: 100%;">. Javert’s lack of empathy with any criminal leads him to ceaselessly search for Valjean.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="32" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><br /></p><p data-reader-unique-id="34" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="" class="clear" data-reader-unique-id="35" decoding="async" height="385" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Show_LesMiserables.png" srcset="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Show_LesMiserables.png 600w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Show_LesMiserables-300x193.png 300w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Show_LesMiserables-150x96.png 150w" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></p><p data-reader-unique-id="36" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="37" style="max-width: 100%;">Another kind of antagonist is the protagonist themselves. We all know someone who is their ‘own worst enemy’. Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s </span><i data-reader-unique-id="38" style="max-width: 100%;">The Catcher in the Rye</i><span data-reader-unique-id="40" style="max-width: 100%;">. is such a one. Holden comes into conflict with almost everyone he knows, because the antagonising conflict is based in his own obsessions and insecurities. In </span><i data-reader-unique-id="41" style="max-width: 100%;">Atonement </i><span data-reader-unique-id="43" style="max-width: 100%;">by Ian McEwan, Briony holds such a degree of guilt internally that her entire life becomes wrapped up in atoning for it.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="44" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="45" style="max-width: 100%;"> If you’ve decided to seat the conflict of your story within the protagonist, rather than an external villainous force, a strong backstory</span><span data-reader-unique-id="48" style="max-width: 100%;"> will be imperative for fuelling that inner conflict. It also becomes tricky to create defined moments of conflict and the solution often lies giving your protagonist a distinct trait, such as anxiety, anger-management or dissatisfaction with their life. You’ll need a incentivising goal</span> <span data-reader-unique-id="49" style="max-width: 100%;">for the protagonist, which is fully hindered by their internal struggle.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="50" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="51" style="max-width: 100%;">Antagonists are often forgotten at the character sketch stage. Villains may remain shadowy on the page for very good reasons, and this is often the excuse a writer gives themselves. However, for a bad guy or gal to be plausible, you need to know them inside-out, especially their motivation and their history. Don’t just expect the reader to assume that the antagonist is evil – end of story. The writer needs to justify them, and know them inside-out, especially their motivation and their history. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="52" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="53" style="max-width: 100%;">Some stories focus on conflicting protagonists. Here we encounter two characters, both taking the protagonist role, each with personally relevant but opposing, or incompatible, goals. Their conflicting struggle will cause them to want to defeat the other, with the reader as onlooker, enjoying the clash, but not specifically invited to root for one over the other. Recent examples are Amy and Nick Dunne in Gillian Flynn’s</span><i data-reader-unique-id="54" style="max-width: 100%;"> Gone Girl</i><span data-reader-unique-id="56" style="max-width: 100%;">, but we’ve seen conflicting protagonists as far back as </span><i data-reader-unique-id="57" style="max-width: 100%;">Pride and Prejudice. </i><span data-reader-unique-id="59" style="max-width: 100%;">Jane Austin shows us how to do this tricky conflict trick perfectly.</span> <span data-reader-unique-id="60" style="max-width: 100%;">Both main characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, have too much pride and too high a degree of prejudice, which almost prevents their happiness. Perhaps I’m stretching the description of ‘protagonist’ a little far by including Darcy here, but he is many a reader’s fantasy lover, after all. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="61" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="" class="clear" data-reader-unique-id="62" decoding="async" height="396" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px" src="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/5a87157ae4b038ee2d0a0daa.jpeg" srcset="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/5a87157ae4b038ee2d0a0daa.jpeg 326w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/5a87157ae4b038ee2d0a0daa-247x300.jpeg 247w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/5a87157ae4b038ee2d0a0daa-123x150.jpeg 123w" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="326" /></p><p data-reader-unique-id="63" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="64" style="max-width: 100%;">Conflicting protagonists can be wholly benign characters who make their own dramatic tension from almost nothing. In Daniel Wallace’s novel </span><i data-reader-unique-id="65" style="max-width: 100%;">Big Fish; A Novel of Mythic Proportions</i><span data-reader-unique-id="67" style="max-width: 100%;">, we meet Edward, who loves to spin a tale, and William, his son, who is often exasperated by what he desperately doesn’t want to think of as ‘Dad’s lies’.There is conflict between these two </span><i data-reader-unique-id="68" style="max-width: 100%;">because</i><span data-reader-unique-id="70" style="max-width: 100%;"> they love each other. If you haven’t read the book, you may have seen Tim Burton’s movie version, where William only comes to terms with these tall tales at his father’s funeral. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="71" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="" class="clear" data-reader-unique-id="72" decoding="async" height="499" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px" src="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/51udK4JUBjL._SX331_BO1204203200_-Nina-Milton.jpg" srcset="https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/51udK4JUBjL._SX331_BO1204203200_-Nina-Milton.jpg 333w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/51udK4JUBjL._SX331_BO1204203200_-Nina-Milton-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.oca.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/51udK4JUBjL._SX331_BO1204203200_-Nina-Milton-100x150.jpg 100w" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="333" /></p><p data-reader-unique-id="73" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="74" style="max-width: 100%;">It’s possible that what my student really needs, is not a villain, or any type of full-blown antagonist but a </span><i data-reader-unique-id="75" style="max-width: 100%;">contagonist</i><span data-reader-unique-id="77" style="max-width: 100%;">. This term was coined quite recently by Dramatica, </span><a data-reader-unique-id="78" href="https://dramatica.com/dictionary/contagonist" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://dramatica.com/dictionary/contagonist</a><span data-reader-unique-id="80" style="max-width: 100%;">, but of course the concept has been around since novels began. Dramatica says…</span><i data-reader-unique-id="81" style="max-width: 100%;">If Protagonist and Antagonist can archetypically be thought of as “Good” versus “Evil,” the Contagonist is “Temptation” to the Guardian’s “Conscience.” Because the Contagonist has a negative effect upon the Protagonist’s quest, it is often mistakenly thought to be the Antagonist. In truth, the Contagonist only serves to hinder the Protagonist in his quest, throwing obstacles in front of him as an excuse to lure him away from the road he must take in order to achieve success. The Antagonist is a completely different character, diametrically opposed to the Protagonist’s successful achievement of the goal.</i></p><p data-reader-unique-id="83" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="84" style="max-width: 100%;">In </span><i data-reader-unique-id="85" style="max-width: 100%;">Enduring Love</i><span data-reader-unique-id="87" style="max-width: 100%;"> by Ian McEwan, Joe, the central character, and his wife Clarissa, become involved with a hot air balloon rescue with four others. One of these, Jed Parry, is so affected by the event that it changes all three lives. Jed offers the tension needed for the story without being in any way villainous. So if there is someone in the background of your prototype story who represents temptation and hinderance, a character who throws damaging stumbling blocks in the protagonist’s way, luring them from any quest or</span> <span data-reader-unique-id="88" style="max-width: 100%;">goal they’re aiming towards, you might put dramatic tension in a contagonist’s hands. This character may be benign in aspiration, but would thwart the protagonist, often without knowing they have done so, and certainly without meaning to do so. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="89" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="90" style="max-width: 100%;">What about the idea that fiction can survive without active opposition or hostility from any quarter, human, or not? Can a writer completely do without an antagonist? Even the most worthy literature falls very flat without dramatic tension, and that does have to spring from some kind of conflict, which is usually described as the antagonist, whether this is a supernatural entity, an internal struggle, a jealous lover, or tsunami. Remember the first principle of writing; </span><i data-reader-unique-id="91" style="max-width: 100%;">no conflict, no story.</i></p><p data-reader-unique-id="93" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="94" style="max-width: 100%;">If you’re not sure about the conflict levels in your story, ask yourself if your protagonist’s goal will seem too easily achieved if you keep the narrative arc as it stands at the moment. If the answer is ‘yes’, you may very well need an additional antagonist – something, someone, </span><i data-reader-unique-id="95" style="max-width: 100%;">somewhat…</i><span data-reader-unique-id="97" style="max-width: 100%;">to force your protagonist to struggle further before they can thrive.</span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="98" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="99" style="max-width: 100%;">So</span> <span data-reader-unique-id="100" style="max-width: 100%;">thank you, Henrietta, for your wonderfully reflective comment which has allowed us to wander among some pretty dark characters without harm to ourselves. </span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="101" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span data-reader-unique-id="102" style="max-width: 100%;">Villains, eh? What would we do without them? </span></p><div><span data-reader-unique-id="102" style="max-width: 100%;"><br /></span></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-74376744815093174002023-04-12T02:10:00.016-07:002023-04-12T02:15:14.014-07:00 Who Owns Books? A look at the history of publishing <p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwWQsNvGqxH10whUZNSCwyZb6yS2pGQ2thLVYVP_kZS94dRH785KEVEJVDtffihgvzeqpRLIAYtbRfdrij0me8UQBzAH77xxAHOQ5D8DY1HmFMqlUtINHkgcIbfZcyyGJEJnLV74eeFJx-d1hNkt_cY59VSx2LAB5sxGsLnpKklBzuiKVif8HJV0bX/s185/776e699169bdb79a09c2678b055c34ee88355a1e.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="136" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwWQsNvGqxH10whUZNSCwyZb6yS2pGQ2thLVYVP_kZS94dRH785KEVEJVDtffihgvzeqpRLIAYtbRfdrij0me8UQBzAH77xxAHOQ5D8DY1HmFMqlUtINHkgcIbfZcyyGJEJnLV74eeFJx-d1hNkt_cY59VSx2LAB5sxGsLnpKklBzuiKVif8HJV0bX/s1600/776e699169bdb79a09c2678b055c34ee88355a1e.jpg" width="136" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In 1476 Caxton established the first printing press in England and set about printing Chaucer's <i>Canterbury Tales</i>, and Malory's <i>Le Morte d’Arthur </i>among other books. He was publisher, printer and bookseller combined. Once he had a handwritten copy of something, he owned it, never mind who actually wrote it. Quite often, the writers was already dead; but it didn't concern Caxton if they were still alive. He'd done all the work to make this a printed book, which looked comely and was easy to read, display, and store. </span><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcLItoaGX02pwed0Z24OyyXT8-P9m389WTp_x8M6PbQUgJNsVLsKKztUOrVIcOn25_6VHuXh_SCHJoKjNxce9ukb0zN5MJbroFuDXrvgTPWlKXDhwoLss9GRAxFE01zU7tHjsQoJFRzS37PpTzvTxw6behns0NnDVaAACubETfbIdgwcgoE1uwyHB/s608/Gutenberg1%20title%20page%20c%209%20d%204.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="608" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcLItoaGX02pwed0Z24OyyXT8-P9m389WTp_x8M6PbQUgJNsVLsKKztUOrVIcOn25_6VHuXh_SCHJoKjNxce9ukb0zN5MJbroFuDXrvgTPWlKXDhwoLss9GRAxFE01zU7tHjsQoJFRzS37PpTzvTxw6behns0NnDVaAACubETfbIdgwcgoE1uwyHB/s320/Gutenberg1%20title%20page%20c%209%20d%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Gutenberg Bible</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He hadn't even invented the process; that was Johann Gutenberg who printed with moveable type in 1450s in</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Mainz, Germany.This new print technology involved setting pages of type from individually cast metal letter forms that were then run off on a hand press, and this idea was taken up by Caxton in Britain.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;">He printed more than 100 books in his lifetime, books which were known for their craftsmanship and careful editing. He was also the translator of many of the books he published, using his knowledge of French, Latin and Dutch. He died in 1492.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For over 200 years things continued in that vein. The books a printer took off their press belonged to them for sale. The argument ran that the printer had bought the paper, and the ink, and owned the press, ergo, they owned the writing. R</span><span style="font-family: arial;">estrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers who were given the exclusive power to print and sell —and the responsibility to censor—literary works.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> <br /></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlyoWXNstM8pwzdB6b54TLM_Zyr9h62Q4kAybMBstkU1GgyTvT1U1rzoPNUn0Hfok9h5nbWhXYNwE72lZEBSzTK0eBU9CzMOM8NhgTL0ykky981yW4ju7PR2kuYJZ4O-YcYC4wjgLUQHdvKLEDINOv-7Qx3Ku60Ww1n3qWaqPK3ZV3dK5wanqQHreY/s553/440px-John-milton.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="440" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlyoWXNstM8pwzdB6b54TLM_Zyr9h62Q4kAybMBstkU1GgyTvT1U1rzoPNUn0Hfok9h5nbWhXYNwE72lZEBSzTK0eBU9CzMOM8NhgTL0ykky981yW4ju7PR2kuYJZ4O-YcYC4wjgLUQHdvKLEDINOv-7Qx3Ku60Ww1n3qWaqPK3ZV3dK5wanqQHreY/w159-h200/440px-John-milton.jpg" width="159" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">John Milton</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;">In 1694, </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">p</span>arliament refused to renew the Licensing Act, ending the Stationers' monopoly</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;">, censorship and failure to protect authors</span><span>. For the next 16 years, the lively debate over 'who owned books' raged. </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">John Milton</span></span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> wrote about</span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b;"> his experiences with The Stationer's Company, accusing Parliament of being deceived Finally </span><span>Parliament put out the ‘Statute of Anne’ in 1710. Here are the opening words:</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.</span></i></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 25px;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I. Whereas printers, booksellers, and other persons have of late frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing, or causing to be printed, reprinted, and published, books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families: for preventing therefore such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books; may it please your Majesty, that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the </span></i></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ggyJ7coUQZG85G09m9knDrtoFVIybl4dYpA7uJFjPm-m8eSF-9OAumUMAxX46tE6T6Z9lh01FZwI5V-C_nbdLpvTqlE5GyCpq13_M9moHGK1iB71FswaT_jAcIwB01jH4bIrErqKrvcwFqw7hJn4_ViNUGwBiNvuysJx9KksZOz12j7_WGifCDLc/s727/440px-Dahl,_Michael_-_Queen_Anne_-_NPG_6187.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ggyJ7coUQZG85G09m9knDrtoFVIybl4dYpA7uJFjPm-m8eSF-9OAumUMAxX46tE6T6Z9lh01FZwI5V-C_nbdLpvTqlE5GyCpq13_M9moHGK1iB71FswaT_jAcIwB01jH4bIrErqKrvcwFqw7hJn4_ViNUGwBiNvuysJx9KksZOz12j7_WGifCDLc/s320/440px-Dahl,_Michael_-_Queen_Anne_-_NPG_6187.jpg" width="194" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Queen Anne</td></tr></tbody></table><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />Queen's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same;</span></i><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 25px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>II. That from and after the tenth day of April, one thousand seven hundred and ten, the author of any book or books already printed, who hath not transferred to any other the copy or copies of such book or books, share or shares thereof, or the bookseller or booksellers, printer or printers, or other person or persons, who hath or have purchased or acquired the copy or copies of any book or books, in order to print or reprint the same, shall have the sole right and liberty of printing such book and books for the term of one and twenty years…</i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 25px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 25px;"><a href="goog_1025580302"><br /></a></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 25px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/anne_1710.asp)">To read the Statute of Anne, click here.</a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 25px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i></i><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This began the acknowledgement of an author’s ‘intellectual property’ of their writing. As soon as you have written your work – even before it reaches editor – you own its copyright. This has been extended from twenty-one years, in 1710, until, in UK and EU law today, to seventy years after your death. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT60I4zIweYk_fpTEgtmeQAoHIzwsv9MQWyLWj4fvf3JZ9eL7aEcjgdxZbuFs6Tj09MlzSdG0nwym8Qlnb6JSvhnVU1nOLqOoYkMq_UNwOrzgr5Q7ce-WWScNMfX3lPTa7kcNZ5hDoh63XPPj1jVw0iWnHBws5bekGIZccmNxQ6G5D1zVjLL3Raw8n/s386/DaVinciCode.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="258" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT60I4zIweYk_fpTEgtmeQAoHIzwsv9MQWyLWj4fvf3JZ9eL7aEcjgdxZbuFs6Tj09MlzSdG0nwym8Qlnb6JSvhnVU1nOLqOoYkMq_UNwOrzgr5Q7ce-WWScNMfX3lPTa7kcNZ5hDoh63XPPj1jVw0iWnHBws5bekGIZccmNxQ6G5D1zVjLL3Raw8n/w134-h200/DaVinciCode.jpg" width="134" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Statute of Anne states that y</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ou may not publish, or profit from, copyright material belonging to any other writer. This is a complicated area covered by different regulations – plagiarism, trading-off, unauthorised infringement of copyright, intellectual theft and so on. The rule here is simple – don’t try to pass off as your own something written by someone else. However, the Statute of Anne also established </span><span style="font-family: arial;">there is ‘no copyright in ideas’. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Novice writers often worry unduly about their own work being plagiarised. Although you can’t protect your ideas, it’s the way you write them that makes them distinctive. Even if you believe that your plot has been copied, go right ahead and write it anyway in your own unique voice. </span></span><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe4yref_nXaSwTD2mUQ3Dx9zzQiAZpk0neu6uzg8Q7QWBH4Ufk-tP6Sf1km6dMmN8McJLslJNqR6iaroaHZaSeQlXRBUm3OEC-0DiC9AzlmLrT-A9YcIZ8c0Ynmcpy5s8nw8p-0DyGV3F2EM84COy91tduNy3JEarIO5E8M7u91lCdB4yDHRAUqnP/s500/9780552121385-uk-300.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="297" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe4yref_nXaSwTD2mUQ3Dx9zzQiAZpk0neu6uzg8Q7QWBH4Ufk-tP6Sf1km6dMmN8McJLslJNqR6iaroaHZaSeQlXRBUm3OEC-0DiC9AzlmLrT-A9YcIZ8c0Ynmcpy5s8nw8p-0DyGV3F2EM84COy91tduNy3JEarIO5E8M7u91lCdB4yDHRAUqnP/w119-h200/9780552121385-uk-300.jpg" width="119" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">An excellent example of this being tried in the courts was the case in 2006 against Anchor, the publishers of <i>The Da Vinci Code</i> (Dan Brown, 2003). This was brought by the authors of <i>The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail</i>, published in 1982. Baigent and Leigh claimed that <i>The Da Vinci Code </i>was an infringement of their copyright as it<i> </i>borrowed a lot of its fictional content from their non-fictional, heavily researched work. The case failed; it was clear there was little copying of the actual text. But it’s possibly that Baigent and Leigh knew this; the action brought their book back into the public’s attention and increased its sales. On the other hand, in 2008, Author J.K. Rowling won a copyright infringement lawsuit against Steven Vander Ark’s <i>Harry Potter Lexicon.</i> Rowling was quoted as saying…<i>I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right. The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own…</i></span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href=" https://www.welt.de/english-news/article2416332/J-K-Rowling-wins-copyright-infringement-case.html "> <span> <span> </span></span>to read more about this case, click here</a></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Small Print </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The UK prides itself on the freedom of speech that we enjoy (although the US, for example, offers writers a great deal more freedom than British law does). The restrictions in Britain fall into a number of categories, most of which have little bearing on the sort of writing we’re thinking about here but, like plagiarism, there are some statutes that are relevant to the professional writer. Bear in mind, it’s publication rather than writing, that generally causes the problem.</span></p><ul><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Obscenity, blasphemy and racism. These laws are continually under review. If you think there’s any possibility that you’re contravening the law in these areas, seek advice. Start with your tutor</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">National security laws relate to D-notices and the Official Secrets Act. You will be well aware if your writing contravenes these.</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Special injunctions are court orders, issued by a judge in response to a direct application. These can forbid the publication of individual articles on specific subjects</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> General injunctions are permanent – for example those that prevent young criminals being named. There are also the uniquely British sub-judice rulings, which severely restrict what can be written about people charged with a criminal offence but awaiting trial, so that an unprejudiced jury can be selected</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Slander is saying untrue things about other people, which cause actual damage to their business or social standing. Slander only applies to the spoken word and therefore doesn’t need to worry you as a writer</span></li><li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Libel is writing (and publishing, including online publication) untrue statements that are potentially damaging to the business or social standing of a person – ‘defamatory’ is the technical term. Unlike slander, a person suing for libel does not have to prove that any damage has yet happened, only that the statements made are potentially damaging. This acknowledges the greater power of the written over the spoken word. However, there is no law against publishing damaging statements that are true. There’s also no law against publishing statements which are untrue but not damaging (unless fraud is involved, or a form of advertisement). You have to have tell a deliberate lie, or at the very least be negligent in checking the facts, to fall foul of this law. </span></li></ul><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Look at some early work by authors you admire, especially authors you think have influenced you to do this sort of writing. Examining their juvenilia will demonstrate how their own work has grown and developed. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It might be an interesting idea to ask yourself how valid your own voice is, and what for you is the difference between plagiarism and simply reflecting the writers you love. </span></div>
<ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Take a book by an author you admire and love to read. Read enough to immerse yourself in the writing style and the writer’s voice as well as the themes and forms that are characteristic of this author</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Put the book to one side and freewrite for twenty minutes. Allow yourself to emulate the writing you admire; this should be fairly easy if you’ve really immersed yourself in the writing</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Don’t copy any actual words from the book, but if you want to write similarly on a similar subject, feel free to do so. Put the writing aside for half an hour or so, then reread it</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Analyse the effect that this exercise had on your writing. Ask:</span></li>
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Did the immersion change your voice or style?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Did it ‘free up’ your pen?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Did the eventual piece resemble the voice of the original author?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To what extent? </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Is this writing plagiarism? </span></li>
</ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What you wrote will be your own work, albeit in the style of another, so the answer to the final question should be ‘no’</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Put the writing aside again, perhaps overnight</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Reread it, then put it to one side and try to write a similar piece in your own ‘voice’</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Analyse the result as you did before. Ask:</span></li>
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What changes did you observe?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Did your writing resemble the original or were you simply influenced by it?</span></li></ul></ul>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-77745089730504727232023-03-31T05:26:00.028-07:002023-03-31T05:31:12.666-07:00Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Joy - (Writers Writing about Writing). <p><br /><b style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: times; font-size: 16px;"></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3s-UzZgSuHvE2IurJJnYWoP60VhQNMxbcRWFN8WmW8Fl2m25wVrF0VDDBjh8f0Wg9DaORgf_1QqUFUrzdOqgO54ZXt2lwNsoQxyHQGR4IYZEuf4ypBdx12hAQm0OOMb6a-7YfT5I-2h_JhLS1Rc-G9cqU2bj-v7SInPF4M7xav0S6ld8zeruE2hK/s640/IMG_1408.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3s-UzZgSuHvE2IurJJnYWoP60VhQNMxbcRWFN8WmW8Fl2m25wVrF0VDDBjh8f0Wg9DaORgf_1QqUFUrzdOqgO54ZXt2lwNsoQxyHQGR4IYZEuf4ypBdx12hAQm0OOMb6a-7YfT5I-2h_JhLS1Rc-G9cqU2bj-v7SInPF4M7xav0S6ld8zeruE2hK/s320/IMG_1408.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> My copy of Virginia Woolf’s A WRITER'S DIARY</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large;">In this occasional series,<i> A Writer's Joy (Writers Writing about Writing)</i>, I want to look at how writers use their notebooks and diaries to record their thoughts, reflections and ideas on writing. A wealth of interest and knowledge from down the ages can be found in these pages, often unpublished, but nevertheless facilitating and enlightening. </span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">My copy of Virginia Woolf’s </span><b style="font-size: large;">A WRITER'S DIARY</b><span style="font-size: medium;"> seems to be a first edition of 1953 from The Hogarth Press. It has that smell of an old book about it – a mix of tobacco, spores and midnight oil. The original owner of the book has written her name in on the first page in slanting black ink...</span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large;">Marjory Todd</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large;">...and dated it 1/1/54,suggesting that this was a Christmas present. Dipping into it on occasion, as I do, reminds me of something Virginia wrote...</span><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large;">What a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me! I went in and found the table laden with books. I looked in and sniffed them all. I could not resist carrying this one off and broaching it. I think I could happily live here and read forever..</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large;">.Virginia Woolf’s diaries were kept over a period of twenty-seven years and after her death, her husband, Leonard, gathered extracts from them together. He went through 30 handwritten volumes and selected passages that related only to her writing life. They take us from 1919, when she was 36, to 1941. The last entry, just 20 days before she walked into the River Ouse with an overcoat filled with stones, finishes...</span><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large;">I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down. </i></span><p></p><ul style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; line-height: 1.4; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"></ul><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMWEHs8TUgtS6swnUdfrFmEL2Id1yyCYpfubbxW1W7_GJg7oFa_91gejj87Ez4AZ8jyiGhC36AaMoOO8lak3ChNEEzMZKBAua6igDtYB4gtqZbAVkw4XM58UaZ0z_dFj6LDXxGzEMbk888K_T1fDXBZvgZU09y_IE7_Whq9zCE3JkAIuhzdgMiZRGS/s306/220px-VirginiaWoolf.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="220" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMWEHs8TUgtS6swnUdfrFmEL2Id1yyCYpfubbxW1W7_GJg7oFa_91gejj87Ez4AZ8jyiGhC36AaMoOO8lak3ChNEEzMZKBAua6igDtYB4gtqZbAVkw4XM58UaZ0z_dFj6LDXxGzEMbk888K_T1fDXBZvgZU09y_IE7_Whq9zCE3JkAIuhzdgMiZRGS/s1600/220px-VirginiaWoolf.jpg" width="220" /></a></div></span><span style="color: #272727; font-kerning: none;"><i> </i>It has been suggested that Leonard kept the more intimate areas of Virginia’s diary from publication because she wrote of their relationship, her sexuality and the state of her mental health. But he maintained in his lifetime that the abridgement was far more to do with concentrating on the entries that demonstrated her art and intellect as a writer so that her reputation could be restored. It seems remarkable to me that this might need to be done, but in fact through the 50’s and 60‘s Woolf was not widely read and no university taught her work. She had lost her rating as a writer in the vanguard of modernism and English literature. And so the published diary accompanied her return to recognition; in the 80’s the full diaries were published for the first time and she become reinstated as a great writer.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i> </i>Woolf teaches the 21C writer through humility and humanity. She feels ‘like us’; we can empathize on the depressions and mood swings of a writer’s life...<i>I’m a deal happier at 38 than I was at 28; and happier today than I was yesterday having this afternoon arrived at some idea of a new form for a new novel...</i>(January 26th 1920)..<i>the creative power that bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in...</i>(May 11th 1920) <i>I expect I could have screwed Jacob up tighter if I had foreseen, but I had to make my path as I went...</i>(October 29th 1922 – all referring to <i>Jacob’s Room</i>).<i> </i>Sometimes she witnessess and records things that feel historic...<i>It is a decaying village (</i>Rodmell) <i>which loses its boys to the town. Not a boy of them, said the Rev. Mr. Hawkesford, is being taught the plough. Rich people wanting weekend cottages buy up the old peasants' houses for fabulous sums...</i>(September 25th 1927)</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1U_2_K7HFMocLaM5swFZgc2UGW-9gOtzNOPnFZfHBA1EVE83kfWxs7U8GltG6Auf7xm4CV4semwPZzc3mpJVb8qudJPVX83aSK5zqef4bTNIREEM9iYEM5Ae7euE1YxAC7tjVb-u8iQJpv_PfQuq6UVxWLX6n7o4W0CN6OujStbb1tIVsWa_0FNA/s285/The_Hours_novella.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="188" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1U_2_K7HFMocLaM5swFZgc2UGW-9gOtzNOPnFZfHBA1EVE83kfWxs7U8GltG6Auf7xm4CV4semwPZzc3mpJVb8qudJPVX83aSK5zqef4bTNIREEM9iYEM5Ae7euE1YxAC7tjVb-u8iQJpv_PfQuq6UVxWLX6n7o4W0CN6OujStbb1tIVsWa_0FNA/s1600/The_Hours_novella.jpg" width="188" /></a></div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> Although she is modest in her own appraisal of her writing, clues to the homilies <br />people have recently paid to Wolfe can be spotted. I was gripped to read on June 19th 1923.<i>But now what do I feel about my writing?–this book, that is The Hours, if that’s its name? </i>Finally, Woof called the book she was writing<i> Mrs Dalloway, </i>but that <i>The Hours </i>was the title Michael Cunningham chose for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about three generations of women affected by <i>Mrs Dalloway. </i></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 237); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #0000ed; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i> </i>Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I’m often amazed at how organized she was. On April 12 1919, she wrote...<i>Moll Flanders, which I finished yesterday in accordance with my time sheet...</i>Not everyone likes to be so regimented in their work, but any of my students who have suggested to me that they can’t get a routine going will know I do recommend using tick lists, time sheets, work diaries and pie charts to get motivated – I would certainly recommend reading <i>A Writer’s Diary </i>as a wonderful way to inspire your own writing, and one of my students has been doing just that...</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><i style="font-size: large;">I’ve had a Virginia Woolf splurge this month</i><span style="font-size: medium;">...she wrote to me... </span><i style="font-size: large;">I particularly liked Woolf’s discussions about using her notebook and especially her entry on 20 January 1919 which talks about her freewriting leading to “the diamonds of the dustheap”...</i><span style="font-size: medium;">She went on to say how the diary contained lots of very useful nuggets of advice on writing generally and this led to me reading</span><i style="font-size: large;"> To the Lighthouse</i><span style="font-size: medium;"> and </span><i style="font-size: large;">Orlando</i><span style="font-size: medium;">....</span><i style="font-size: large;">which has provided some helpful lessons in bending the boundaries of life writing and I was inspired by Woolf’s amusing observation that when the facts aren’t there, sometimes the writer has to make them up</i><span style="font-size: medium;">... Helen quotes Woolf in </span><i style="font-size: large;">Orlando</i><span style="font-size: medium;">...</span><i style="font-size: large;">We have done our best to piece out a meagre summary from the charred fragments that remain; but often it has been necessary to speculate, to surmise, and even to use the imagination...</i><span style="font-size: medium;">explaining how this affected her her own writing... </span><i style="font-size: large;">With this in mind, I have conflated a number of events to create a more focused story...</i><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><i><span style="font-size: medium;">bringing techniques from fiction, I’ve used some stream-of-consciousness to try to convey the strangeness I felt ... </span></i></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #272727; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">It has been said that writers are ‘born not made’, but they don’t come fully-formed from an egg – they have to practise their skills to hone them.As I write, my son is playing the same phrase from Chopin over and over again. Perhaps he’ll perfect it and move on before I brain him! But, like musicians, writers do have to practise ‘over and over’, and it really does get better as you do that. Recording the slow improvements you make will help you see real progress.</span></span></div><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"></b><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Keeping a diary, as Woolf did, or a notebook in which you only write <i>about </i>your own writing can feel perverse to some new writers; they ask why on earth, when they're so busy writing creatively, why they should stop to talk to themselves about the process. But doing so is invaluable - and reading it back to yourself from time to time will really inform and inspire you.<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wZ7i8Fspr7Y/U-dVLi_z2ZI/AAAAAAAABx0/bMqQivESvBM/s1600/securedownload.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wZ7i8Fspr7Y/U-dVLi_z2ZI/AAAAAAAABx0/bMqQivESvBM/s1600/securedownload.jpg" /></a></span></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The analysis you attempt will increase your ‘learning curve’ considerably – </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"> <span class="Apple-style-span">do this for a week or two and </span>you</span><span class="Apple-style-span"> will quickly see the affects for yourself once you’ve begun. Reflecting on the progress of your writing life is an important aspect of starting to write.</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Even though it’s possible you may think you have nothing to record at the moment, that simply isn't true. I'm not, after all, suggesting you fill this diary with notes that start <i>I got published today! </i>Instead I'm suggesting you look at the process you use to write.</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">At first, you might find it hard to know what to put down. Sectionalizing your analysis may help your understanding. Try writing about:</span></span></div><ul style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What works for you as a writer, and what you find difficult</span></span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Your journey through each session of writing.</span></span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Any advice you read or are given – what you understood and what you didn’t.</span></span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">How any witing exercises you try out went – also make a note of those you wish to extend or repeat</span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Why you’ve chosen certain genres and ways of writing, </span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What you think about your abilities – track their improvement</span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Explore various ‘parts’ of writing; your thoughts and your preferences on:</span></span></li><ul><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Wingdings; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000;">D</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">ialogue </span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Wingdings; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Description</span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Wingdings; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Narrative </span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Wingdings; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Characterization</span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Wingdings; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Structure and plot</span></span></li></ul><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Your understanding and clarification of concepts such as <b>Show, don’t Tell</b></span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Problems of drafting, redrafting, tightening</span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Discuss themes with yourself; look at how you can add symbolism to your work by exploring themes</span></span></li><li style="color: #333233; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000000; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Add commentaries on the books you have read</span></span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px Symbol; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">You can moan about the pitfalls of the writer’s life</span></span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">And of course you can note down anything that feels like progress.</span></span></li></ul><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhQ_HWSMVOvvN8yOds9-cimddLkTGgOPCb733L-IW8om_NiAqEPzKvaQHX2fF5yQY_SbjXvpv97e3Hm4Kj-LdhGyA6oW3PyuYa8rw0HSBJxjVczT__Fs6o94Ey4JebIgf68fKmRo4NN1BZfcr4vqJSRqIEZMWUqWB-LkkWtzF188GIc3sM1f455dbr/s800/710b6c420NL._AC_UL800_QL65_.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="565" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhQ_HWSMVOvvN8yOds9-cimddLkTGgOPCb733L-IW8om_NiAqEPzKvaQHX2fF5yQY_SbjXvpv97e3Hm4Kj-LdhGyA6oW3PyuYa8rw0HSBJxjVczT__Fs6o94Ey4JebIgf68fKmRo4NN1BZfcr4vqJSRqIEZMWUqWB-LkkWtzF188GIc3sM1f455dbr/s320/710b6c420NL._AC_UL800_QL65_.jpg" width="226" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Start this diary now! </td></tr></tbody></table>A writing diary help you <i>talk through </i>your writing. It’s important to help yourself to make sense how it works for you – how your thought processes relate to your growing battery of skills and understanding. When you put all this down in words it begins to be understood on an <i>intellectual</i> level…whereas, when writing, you may be learning more on an <i>intuitive</i> level. It’s like ‘synergy’ in medicine – the idea that two separate things work okay separately, but together they work many times better. </span></span>Grab any bit of paper (you can always paste it into a nice book you later buy) and try to answer some of the bullet points above. Don't think too much about what you write. You're writing this to yourself, for you and only you to read back later. Even as you write, you might notice how you're putting your thoughts in order through the things you're jotting down.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;">I will be recommending other writers writing about writing – aptly titled 'A Writer's Joy'. To find these posts search the Label for '</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><b>A Writer's Joy</b>.'</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;"><br /></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;">Meanwhile,</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;"> I can’t recommend Woolf’s diaries highly enough to any writer; it won’t matter one whit if you’ve not read anything else of her work...although reading the diary may entice you into the marvel of her novels. Perhaps we should end with Virginia's words; a marvellous description of the June 1927 eclipse of the sun...</span><i style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;">In our carriage were Vita, Harold, Quentin, Leonard and I. This is Hatfield, I daresay, I said. I was smoking a cigar...so we plunged through the midlands; made a very long stay at York. Then at 3 we got out our sandwhiches and I came in from the W.C to find Harold being rubbed clean of cream....We got out </i><span style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;">(at Barton Fell, Yorkshire) </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;">and found ourselves very high, on a moor, boggy, heathery, with butts for grouse shooting...We could see a gold spot where the sun was, but it was early yet. We had to wait, stamping to keep warm...Then, for a moment, we saw the sun, sweeping - it seemed to be sailing at a great pace and clear in a gap; we got out our smoked glasss; we saw it, crescent, burning red; next moment it had sailed fast into the cloud again; only the red streamers came from it; then only a golden haze, such as one has often seen. The moments were passing. We felt cheated; we looked at the sheep; they showed no fear; the setters were racing round; everyone was standing in long lines, rather dignified, looking out. I thought how we were very like old people, in the birth of the world - druids on Stonehenge. At the back of us were blue spaces in the cloud. These were still blue. But now, the colour going out. The clouds were turning pale; a reddish black colour. Down in the valley it was an extraordinary scrumble of red and black; there was the one light burning; all was cloud down there, and very beautiful, so delicately tinted. Nothing could be seen through the cloud. The 24 seconds were passing. Then one looked back again at the blue; rapidly, very very quickly, all the colours faded; it became darker and darker as at the beginning of a violent storm; the light sank; we kept saying this is the shadow; and we thought now it is over - this is the shadow; when suddenly the light went out. We had fallen. It was extinct. There was no colour. The earth was dead. That was the astonishing moment; and the next when as if a ball had rebounded the cloud took colour on itself again, only a sparky ethereal colour and so the light came back. I had very strongly the feeling as the light went out of some vast obeisance; something kneeling down and suddenly raised up when the colours came. They came back astonishingly lightly and quickly and beautifully in the valley and over the hills - at first with a miraculous glittering and ethereality, later normally almost, but with a great sense of relief. If was like a recovery.</i></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;"><br /></i></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzu16QSJXnUxeC9itnX5LijXwO-AR3mkLHRvwtmw7-kmaN_NIWulSgE6DxiPqeX_oMjgm9QmyuG2fSuk1fxkTPLdW1QK5E7gWQ9vq0lvSAO0OHxnhWLnwllmgn-_tgYUwFIyg3933XcEJxplp0hPwhedfMIG1yHLRvSXcLqxKYUeZP8xVFmOSF5mv/s600/7079.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzu16QSJXnUxeC9itnX5LijXwO-AR3mkLHRvwtmw7-kmaN_NIWulSgE6DxiPqeX_oMjgm9QmyuG2fSuk1fxkTPLdW1QK5E7gWQ9vq0lvSAO0OHxnhWLnwllmgn-_tgYUwFIyg3933XcEJxplp0hPwhedfMIG1yHLRvSXcLqxKYUeZP8xVFmOSF5mv/w400-h266/7079.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><i style="caret-color: rgb(39, 39, 39); color: #272727;"><br /></i></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div></span></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-15919237604601796832023-02-15T02:30:00.175-08:002023-07-18T02:25:07.193-07:00Symbolism in Writing – The Chair.<div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(84, 84, 84); font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxD-8fYtMNyM4wvfoWZCocts5SRO4DNhdICji0om4A9HNvF_xJVS9u-N2Mbw3lTyXuBEz5SQaHbkFm9WBSpRnp_buZ-T6EqmGUhGovHXFRxvvlTEsns30s7oupFP62kNFM5zxRQ-xMsOI9QDyZiUGpM87HZMz39j-km54F9iObdoaxB0Z9Lzwz43l/s640/IMG_1282.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxD-8fYtMNyM4wvfoWZCocts5SRO4DNhdICji0om4A9HNvF_xJVS9u-N2Mbw3lTyXuBEz5SQaHbkFm9WBSpRnp_buZ-T6EqmGUhGovHXFRxvvlTEsns30s7oupFP62kNFM5zxRQ-xMsOI9QDyZiUGpM87HZMz39j-km54F9iObdoaxB0Z9Lzwz43l/s320/IMG_1282.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">Using symbols to represent abstract ideas or qualities enhances the depths of your </span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>writing. Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, film scripts, plays, they all use symbolism because it offers a subtlety of meaning – a nuance – </span><span>creating<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> layers in your </span>work and giving<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> your writing a poetic feel. </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">The crucial words in the paragraph above are 'nuance' and 'subtlety'. To be effective, symbolism has to be implied; you </span>can't slam your<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> reader in the face with it. In fact, if you are hitting your reader over the head with symbolism, then you are probably using clichés. </span></span></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(84, 84, 84); font-size: large;">I've just read a couple of books that used the image of The Chair as a central symbolism, and this made me wonder – what comes into our heads when 'chair' is represented in story, and how long have writers been using it? </span></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(84, 84, 84);"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">In art, the chair often features, making its own point about life. </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">Vincent van Gogh's Chair (1888) </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">shows a </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"> </span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">simple, unpretentious</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;"> rustic chair, </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">wooden</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"> with a cane seat. It is clearly Vincent's chair; i</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">n the background is an onion box with his name, and a </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">pipe and a pouch of tobacco has left in waiting. </span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41QIT6dKIj_J_EoqlSJeOS9rp1fnYS8vfZjhxhz9gLJcAgHRAgmXpcdrjwAhSkwglR-quQCJ01OOGhlO8JwBA7BlIb2omrQiK1Fm9v3eW-Z7xs7Kwc0zByvol_L-jN5zK0hzZlkvNRJNAnbz0k1HEF6XM98rgW0ik2vXaSMweRbZtR76kzO1vwR1L/s693/Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_138.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="693" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41QIT6dKIj_J_EoqlSJeOS9rp1fnYS8vfZjhxhz9gLJcAgHRAgmXpcdrjwAhSkwglR-quQCJ01OOGhlO8JwBA7BlIb2omrQiK1Fm9v3eW-Z7xs7Kwc0zByvol_L-jN5zK0hzZlkvNRJNAnbz0k1HEF6XM98rgW0ik2vXaSMweRbZtR76kzO1vwR1L/w249-h320/Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_138.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><div class="comments" id="c4463822" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 40px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">In literature, an empty chair can signify a personal loss or absence of an important character or person. It can be the empty chair at a meal; the person dead or cold-shouldering the family. </span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In literature, an empty chair can signify a personal loss or absence of an important character or person. It can be the empty chair at a meal; the person dead or cold-shouldering the family. </span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><br /></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjekUzajZ8T4Fz5fPsgvlHZb2i8iv7DTCnpjNR6Kjs9zQ04FknBUQfTI4h05KlrotoBBCcR3GB7AdNFgiFJDCgDD7baGvethvz0B6YriwBtlCksllnI_9PpflU3MyjRGMogOzetprpXu0fDfoPV7sUOwyZDUuVQDAvnDeI7avbFcX3NAt1G2dWJ28HE/s394/The_Little_Red_Chairs_cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="252" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjekUzajZ8T4Fz5fPsgvlHZb2i8iv7DTCnpjNR6Kjs9zQ04FknBUQfTI4h05KlrotoBBCcR3GB7AdNFgiFJDCgDD7baGvethvz0B6YriwBtlCksllnI_9PpflU3MyjRGMogOzetprpXu0fDfoPV7sUOwyZDUuVQDAvnDeI7avbFcX3NAt1G2dWJ28HE/s320/The_Little_Red_Chairs_cover.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2TnBszF3DdkeGgWTUT-N-Qx41XIb1DpSpqvQl02AT7lI1I4Y5Ex8zA30nfvHlbFs7Cx3UAjLctfp5gYVwsYOshqRwcee_QL03VHUrd4RvQ1kbewwM0RKx7ojevoSXt4hIYPDbeyei3cAepv0u33yNRqP8hF_aTFpWy0FV7EHJ-84jivbJLRL7GAmB/s394/The_Little_Red_Chairs_cover.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The s</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">ilence of the empty chair is used to amazing effect in <i>The Little Red Chairs</i> by Edna O'Brien. It has wide-ranging themes, but the most clearly portrayed is that of exile; immigration and asylum. The chairs of the title were l</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">aid out in rows o</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">n the 6th of April 2012, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces. There were 11,541 along the 800 meters of the main street of Sarajevo -- one for every man, woman, and child killed during the siege of the city – many of them small, </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;"> representing the hundreds of children killed. This symbolic act is described at the beginning of this amazing novel, and then not mentioned again. </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">You can read a review of the book </span><a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-catch-up-of-fiction-today-7-novels.html" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">here</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;">.</span><br /></span><p data-reader-unique-id="5" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">In medieval times, chairs were an obvious indicator of a person’s wealth or craft. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">There is little mention of chairs in the Bible, or in Homer, and in some plays by Shakespeare almost no one ever sits down. But by the middle of the 19th century, it is a completely different story. Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy, Austin; they all have their chairs, mostly middle-class and often symbolising hearth, home and family.</span></span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="5" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">But then you can imagine an extravagant chair like a throne which symbolises status. Royalty traditionally are seated on chairs embellished with gold and gems, making the </span></span><span data-reader-unique-id="49" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">symbolism of the throne an ultimate status of superiority –</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="5" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIqN3KhOpZvZ7dvBgryqOP1chIdBUt0JjzV-klJEdR0Ak4CpfrHqrEDxoT1cVQDQ9uHScdKkOKz7NR8TT-jUa4xeMvRJv3pWTxtJp3zbUL4PVbhL1dlgOxjsQ_WZkWZMOjFTrH6KF0sSQUECPqe05kxpFDKM1kA-lXSgfCdGzyi5GPLRGZi2WPWso/s250/0007448031_thumbnail.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="163" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIqN3KhOpZvZ7dvBgryqOP1chIdBUt0JjzV-klJEdR0Ak4CpfrHqrEDxoT1cVQDQ9uHScdKkOKz7NR8TT-jUa4xeMvRJv3pWTxtJp3zbUL4PVbhL1dlgOxjsQ_WZkWZMOjFTrH6KF0sSQUECPqe05kxpFDKM1kA-lXSgfCdGzyi5GPLRGZi2WPWso/s1600/0007448031_thumbnail.jpg" width="163" /></a> a place to sit high above the mass of people and judge those below you in order to make decisions about your realm. As George RR Martin writes;</span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="5" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">‘<i>When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die:'</i></span></span></p><p data-reader-unique-id="5" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">Throughout his</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> series A Song of Ice and Fire, warring houses fight and plot for their moment on the </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">Iron Throne, which stands as a bloody</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"> a</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">nd brutal</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"> symbol of power</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: large;">.</span></p><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">As with power, bondage is unpleasantly linked to chairs. Think <i>Casino Royal</i>, if you can bear it. Or C S Lewis's </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i> The Silver Chair </i>(number six in the Narnia series), in which the children final find the missing Prince Rilian of Narnia – <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk6hAou0kupAWNLk8HIuzeRnqX1hy5Wv3u_ZCg-Layk-wRGmL8u9f51fbrk71AyljSIVqnOJbLRv4FLuNint4H7PdPrjNeokbgW9N-mkmaCPsX5y6EUjBVetFK742yHYaHUf3gA8Z-R6bD6bwF1u7SUXoo6oK_fyHjJGkZdQcAbE45Cy_dRitiTCus/s493/065e6b_1ef0fd81a4ce4f788d1e236bf2bc7d34~mv2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="431" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk6hAou0kupAWNLk8HIuzeRnqX1hy5Wv3u_ZCg-Layk-wRGmL8u9f51fbrk71AyljSIVqnOJbLRv4FLuNint4H7PdPrjNeokbgW9N-mkmaCPsX5y6EUjBVetFK742yHYaHUf3gA8Z-R6bD6bwF1u7SUXoo6oK_fyHjJGkZdQcAbE45Cy_dRitiTCus/s320/065e6b_1ef0fd81a4ce4f788d1e236bf2bc7d34~mv2.jpg" width="280" /></a></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">a wicked witch has been keeping him under a spell, binding him to a silver chair every night, sending him mad to prevent him breaking free. Chairs as prisons and</span></span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> the way one can become 'pinned' to them,</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> becomes a dark symbol. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="-apple-system-font" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="-apple-system-font"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27);">This symbol can also represent restlessness. During the </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mad Hatter's Tea Party, in<i> Alice in Wonderland</i>, everyone has to change seats (and change perspective), to the annoyance of Alice who finds herself sitting where there is little to eat or drink, while in</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <i>Madame Bovary</i>, Emma sits in the chair by the window every day, to watch life pass, and a</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial;">lso to see Leon, who never turns his head to return the gaze, even though he is familiar with the house. </span></span></div><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4W5cst6S-XmmdLlLd_Dd5FSTeg2duEokxUjle8NEkcSFbzXZmXQg5SY2Ef14n4vsswIDgiRlhVZEaX7rypzP4SLCBq81vA5RVnnZyW-0mR2QCIg-BB0Z6j7p_lCIEAJLXQFjP_DZ5YUUk3actFhiM6uS3H21IK-KuFpWi0lXCVdHd-11s3GDRCb3d/s407/TwelveChairsVHS.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="245" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4W5cst6S-XmmdLlLd_Dd5FSTeg2duEokxUjle8NEkcSFbzXZmXQg5SY2Ef14n4vsswIDgiRlhVZEaX7rypzP4SLCBq81vA5RVnnZyW-0mR2QCIg-BB0Z6j7p_lCIEAJLXQFjP_DZ5YUUk3actFhiM6uS3H21IK-KuFpWi0lXCVdHd-11s3GDRCb3d/s320/TwelveChairsVHS.png" width="193" /></a></div><span face="Source Sans Pro, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This restlessness is also used to effect by Yevgeny Petrov in his USSR era satirical novel <i>The Twelve Chairs</i>. Bender is an unemployed con artist who joins forces with a former nobleman who hid a cache of missing jewels in twelve chairs during the revolution. These chairs have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities, and the search takes the nobleman and Bender from Moscow to Georgia to the Trans-caucasus mountains. In 1970 Mel Brooks directed the film of the same name, described as 'one of the funniest film in years'.</span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span face="Source Sans Pro, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Chairs can represent laziness in a big way, especially the easy chair. With sitting being called 'the new smoking', in that a sedentary lifestyle is known to be bad for the health, the easy chair can become a symbol for that 'drug of choice'. In film, perhaps the iconic chair is that of the computer whizz kid, always in the middle of a bag of crisps as he hacks (pr prevents the hack) that will change the world from his enormous black swivel chair, complete with computerisation, in which he is fully enveloped. </span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span face="Source Sans Pro, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Or if you like the idea take a look at <i>The Couch Potato </i>by Jory John and Pete Oswald, which is a picture book for small children.</span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguTRFbuDuOhrJAex-Nopct1LtLlH_aDD-PnHjwww9ZR-vFcn65jsupIIqZTjbnE0iuRCJepI2171NfNgRoGUCRyjCRRCbwq3Sv1gLBdUETG1exEKBdb2FrIAG05kpwVEeyIhvL-XBuJRiQFYbSIpqopWDpQkt9FEGGWFm9UpPM-0vClZtVGK7WMuC-/s400/51475358.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguTRFbuDuOhrJAex-Nopct1LtLlH_aDD-PnHjwww9ZR-vFcn65jsupIIqZTjbnE0iuRCJepI2171NfNgRoGUCRyjCRRCbwq3Sv1gLBdUETG1exEKBdb2FrIAG05kpwVEeyIhvL-XBuJRiQFYbSIpqopWDpQkt9FEGGWFm9UpPM-0vClZtVGK7WMuC-/s320/51475358.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>The Couch Potato has everything he needs within reach of his sunken couch cushion. But when the electricity goes out, Couch Potato is forced to peel himself away from the comforts of his living room and venture outside. And when he does, he realises fresh air and sunshine could be just the things he needs...</span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />So chairs are fair game as symbols, and there are just so many other ways emotions and storylines can be represented by them. It may be simply describing the chair and thus describing the seated character. Or, like O'Brien and </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial;">Petrov,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> it may a symbol of something deeply important to society.</span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><b style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -webkit-standard; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">To read more blogposts about symbolism in literature, <a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/search?q=symbolism+in+literature">click here</a></b><br /><br /><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span></span><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span></span><br /><span class="smallcopy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; transition: background-color 0.5s ease 0s, color 0.5s ease 0s, border-color 0.5s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span><div style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #999999; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></div></span></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-28054261129218131602023-01-15T07:56:00.049-08:002023-01-15T08:10:24.689-08:00Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMKs1kn6JzTYYMa70MSs-dtdr6A70mXGLD6CdggCL2TEV-_5rDBcXGxtYRv_X47NdCrRYygiEW-gDGXeH8JwuG2jK_c0hAs3tzwKLsItonJ3Yfis-aILYfELLOxtMH4Wg_QaVMhV7MRk1puVFlLFpWBU2jTaVgtbS25cPUCnwZTvbClr0mYruDSBCQ/s715/th-2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="474" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMKs1kn6JzTYYMa70MSs-dtdr6A70mXGLD6CdggCL2TEV-_5rDBcXGxtYRv_X47NdCrRYygiEW-gDGXeH8JwuG2jK_c0hAs3tzwKLsItonJ3Yfis-aILYfELLOxtMH4Wg_QaVMhV7MRk1puVFlLFpWBU2jTaVgtbS25cPUCnwZTvbClr0mYruDSBCQ/w265-h400/th-2.jpeg" width="265" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />It’s not often I get to the end a book and burst into tears. So what made me cry, and cry again, as I turned the last few pages of Cloud Cuckoo Land? </span><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I think it’s to do with tension released. We’ve walked dangerous pathways with the five main characters in this book by Anthony Doerr (author of<i> All the Light we Cannot See</i>) – a tightrope journey over ravines full of spikes – and the knowledge that all of them, in their way, will reach an amazing, a perfect conclusion to their journeys led me to gush with tears of joy and sadness. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Guardian describes this book as ‘a deep lungful of fresh air’ and the Washington Post as ‘a love letter to books’. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We all know what we mean by this fantasy place; it's</span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"> an over-optimistic, idealistic state of mind where everything appears to be perfect. Someone in cloud cuckoo land believes that impossibly good </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21); color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">things </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">might happen and seems unaware of realities.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYHEjdPZmJKFLDnSRCsSM7jIHRhJiLMks6l9dy8ov5lg97WAcKM-E3Vvr_Sd9FtuLX5F4_Ywf6zDSiL-3y4-TbLaiK3DPO44Vfju-akAJAEItP7QdFpmmr_gGq5kaFPHKJwqsqueZRsxICoO5Bhv4N6gB7fspnXaYbI4JddQ2j2Lu7-iA8BIVfcH7T/s474/th-4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="474" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYHEjdPZmJKFLDnSRCsSM7jIHRhJiLMks6l9dy8ov5lg97WAcKM-E3Vvr_Sd9FtuLX5F4_Ywf6zDSiL-3y4-TbLaiK3DPO44Vfju-akAJAEItP7QdFpmmr_gGq5kaFPHKJwqsqueZRsxICoO5Bhv4N6gB7fspnXaYbI4JddQ2j2Lu7-iA8BIVfcH7T/s320/th-4.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The story starts with </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">a Greek play by </span></span></span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Aristophanes, <i>The Birds, </i>first performed in 414 BCE, in which Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian, persuades the world's birds to create a new city in the sky to be named Νεφελοκοκκυγία (Nephelokokkygia) or Cloud Cuckoo Land. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;"> We then move onto </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i>The Wonders Beyond Thule,</i> wri</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">tten in Greek by Antonius Diogenes in the second </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">century</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> BCE. Finally t</span></span></span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">here is also a link to </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><i>The Golden Ass, </i>by </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Apuleius, written in Latin in the second century CE, in which a traveling man, hoping to experience being in the body of a bird, takes a witch's potion and turns into a donkey</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">. </span></span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">And so the overlaps, the convolutions, the 'stealing of stories' adds to the complexities of this story, and echoed through the real history, real early literature. </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Doerr </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">capitalises</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> on this to create a complicated and wide-reaching novel that touches on </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">precisely</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> what being human is all about.</span></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">Anna and Omeir are teenagers living in the 15th-century. Omeir is a farm worker with a cleft lip. His two beloved oxen, Moonlight and Tree, are dragooned by the Sultan</span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><span>, Mehmed the Conqueror</span>. His </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">great army is on its way to lay siege</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;"> to Constantinople, where Anna lives, an orphan with a dying sister who spends long days doing needlework for the church. Someone teaches Anna to read Greek, and so, when a </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">manuscript </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">written more than a thousand years earlier</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">comes into her hands (she is stealing from a water-logged tower library to help pay for her sister to have quack treatment) she is able to decipher it as the fantasy of </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">Cloud Cuckoo Land</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">. After her sister dies, Ann flees the city as it falls, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21); color: #151515; font-family: arial;">taking the precious, seemingly magical, book with her. She </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">meets Omeir, also fleeing from conscription after the death of his oxen. They return to Omeir’s farm where they live out their lives together. </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Zeno, a veteran of the Korean war, learned ancient Greek from Max, a fellow prisoner of war, a man he falls deeply, unrequitedly, in love with. After Alex’s death, he learns that</span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515;"> Cloud Cuckoo Land</i><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, discovered in Italy, is being put up, codex by codex, on the internet. He begins to translate it into English. By 2020, we find him, now an elderly man, putting on a play based on the book, working with </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">enthusiastic</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> local children</span></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the same place and time – </span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">Lakeport, Idaho, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">2020 – we meet Seymour, a teenager bullied and distressed by his neuro-diversity, He has become obsessed with the losses of the natural world to climate change and is groomed by an internet climate terrorist. He enters the library where Zeno is holding his dress rehearsal for <i>Cloud </i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>Cuckoo</i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i> Land</i>, bringing a backpack full of explosives and with him.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Konstance is equally young as Anna, Omeir and Seymour. She is a passenger on the Argos, a spaceship which left the Earth 65 years before with the parents and grandparents of its passengers. They are headed to a new, healthy planet, to form a new colony after global devastation has </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">decimated</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the Earth. Konstance spends a lot of time in the library that exists digitally inside Sybil, the computer. By walking a treadmill, clearly designed to keep the passengers active, she can walk an updated 'Google Earth' which not only takes you around the world, but through the ages. It is now </span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21); color: #151515; font-family: arial;">2146, and Konstance </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">is now the only person still alive on board the Argos and </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #151515; font-family: arial;">there</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;"> are hundreds of years travel ahead. How will she survive?</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWd3aFIp-cfzwslPM5p8S4m9VKw5Gcq5E5pnmfamlU0M2qh1Ya5VH6NVeWIvilCxM0IB1GgVOchwtz16asOo82er15kWw6dckeWg_QD8h_8Cn6UMjDhXeaTZYRyq3FRwVrZju-cLzLycqcHgLgqabedDXu4Sg5yX07Qoe3Prwc5hpOrspB7sx1INb/s474/th-3.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWd3aFIp-cfzwslPM5p8S4m9VKw5Gcq5E5pnmfamlU0M2qh1Ya5VH6NVeWIvilCxM0IB1GgVOchwtz16asOo82er15kWw6dckeWg_QD8h_8Cn6UMjDhXeaTZYRyq3FRwVrZju-cLzLycqcHgLgqabedDXu4Sg5yX07Qoe3Prwc5hpOrspB7sx1INb/s320/th-3.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #151515;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Reading this almost 600 page-long novel is sometimes a bit of a push. There are times when I was so terrified for the characters I hardly wanted to read on. And there are times when I wondered if Doerr actually knew where he was heading; would all these disparate stories really come together as one? There are a lot of characters and plot to keep tabs on, and if you decide to embark on this novel you </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">might</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> find this webpage of use; </span></span></span><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><a href="https://www.marmaladeandmustardseed.com/bookguidesblog/cloud-cuckoo-land">https://www.marmaladeandmustardseed.com/bookguidesblog/cloud-cuckoo-land</a></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">Diogenes</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;"> Cloud Cuckoo Land </i><span style="color: #151515; font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">is the golden thread that stops the reader from becoming lost in this </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">labyrinthine</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> story. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Written in ancient times, s</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">tolen from a ruined library in Constantinople, hidden in a hollow tree until Anna’s death, as I read I kept wondering how the ancient book would turn up in Italy, in ‘a place books can be safely kept’…another library…rediscovered and digitally </span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(21, 21, 21); color: #151515; font-family: arial;">distributed, ready for Zeno to translate</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #151515; font-family: arial;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6vaUWy_x8mBQfg11Yoq04eDe5FZvEcqTNQQ_7oyBQqX9EiciLSGefVmKUQu4eQerzJH1ws1jdZTW_xb_c5EvUw0b-8LIWNfSKsz7O7SdyDYAm0rMqak0GkeOZfJYTIy2q9U-bz9nYFYFUkKi0l6NtBsuA9cFRWUbKBDzWqOFaJHNXnYHUcFNq5rFs/s1550/2637.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6vaUWy_x8mBQfg11Yoq04eDe5FZvEcqTNQQ_7oyBQqX9EiciLSGefVmKUQu4eQerzJH1ws1jdZTW_xb_c5EvUw0b-8LIWNfSKsz7O7SdyDYAm0rMqak0GkeOZfJYTIy2q9U-bz9nYFYFUkKi0l6NtBsuA9cFRWUbKBDzWqOFaJHNXnYHUcFNq5rFs/s320/2637.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Years later, Seymour will help create Konstance’s treadmill library for the Argo. Employed first in prison and then in the lab, he uses secret codes to hide disturbing truths. Kostance discovers she is the great grand daughter of one of of the 6th-graders who are working with Zeno on his play… and other things, which may save her life.</span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Throughout the story, Diogenes<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span>s book heals, keeps safe and bring joy to those that are sick, lost and troubled. And as the story ends, and the clever twists fall into place one after the other, my tears burst through with the delight of it all.</span></p>
<br /><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Anthony Doerr. Photograph: Deborah Hardee/The Observer</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #151515; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #1f1f1f; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></p>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-865769198805101632023-01-05T08:22:00.006-08:002023-06-23T03:06:34.283-07:00STARTING TO WRITE: The Secret Rules of Writing Golden Dialogue<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Want to write better, snappier, clearer, more empathetic…in fact…<span style="color: #ffa400;">golden</span> dialogue? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">There are rules that help you succeed. They're not exactly 'secret' but certainly they can only be found 'under the counter'. Here they are.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Handled with energy, dialogue can turn a good story into a winning story.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Readers like a lot of dialogue because it spaces out the words on the page, easing the reader’s eye, but it is also one of the best ways of creating living characters. Dialogue is crucial to modern writing and can be as fast-paced and exciting as action.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Perhaps a definition of what dialogue is might get us started. <b>Dialogue</b> always takes place between at least 2 characters, just as real conversations involve at least 2 people. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If you are a little uncertain that the dialogue you write enables your characters to build their personalities and engage with their readers, you might try the series of exercise we are going to look at in this blog and take note of the Seven Golden Rules we're going to examine. </span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BbKtlQSBpt_qPzjxOmWdp57bXboAFwz03dNBpQqE_64GLKGFG9JliRUVgEMJZq7GnZnOGD2zo78V2TSO-hno2WcuKY88NLkjo4xU0d8uwFodr44ql4EB_nlz5-ppnjLyGH3bBme6zvUFcWxZ131gaC8CyMlcxjCsKcKArrtsZgpBFyi3b5Fz86t6/s440/1012.png_300.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="440" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BbKtlQSBpt_qPzjxOmWdp57bXboAFwz03dNBpQqE_64GLKGFG9JliRUVgEMJZq7GnZnOGD2zo78V2TSO-hno2WcuKY88NLkjo4xU0d8uwFodr44ql4EB_nlz5-ppnjLyGH3bBme6zvUFcWxZ131gaC8CyMlcxjCsKcKArrtsZgpBFyi3b5Fz86t6/s320/1012.png_300.png" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />The First Golden Rule:</span></b><div><b style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Dialogue must never be written for its own sake</span></i></b><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is one rule that will help you construct conversations you can be proud of: </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">To prevent your characters unwittingly breaking this rule is simple. Always be sure that any conversation you create has </span><i style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">at least</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">one</b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"> of the following functions:</span></p><ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Impart information </span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>enrich the characterization</span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>move the plot along </span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>develop the characters further within the story </span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>further the complexities of the plot </span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>crank up the pace,</span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>enhance the theme or core truth </span></li><li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>reflect relationship changes and emotions</span></li></ul>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Kitchen Table Exercise one</span></i></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Take your notebook to a specific location of your choice where people move or linger, such as a gallery, a country park, a shopping mall. Sit with your notebook closed and observe the way people use the area, listening to snippets of conversation, but also inventing the ‘follow ons’ you don’t actually hear. Think about body language especially, and also reactions to the place. Try to see the place through the eyes of the people there. Start making jotted snatches of dialogue scenes, using what you see and what you hear about you.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="860" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNDSUYd_nAu2j8eETtxAA9HUTMkmRlT2LJMeG8z6jC1YUYLOGyVq8-nj0lh1K94VeyQB9yFinF1-lUSQs7W7Zpgoc3PfMwxzbZM-5cBbzxh2XW6QiwWfwRLS-eMKSZo0n_C6DXxytA_9n_xw6PDtySiLrq0cVFq5kva4KQISiGSV_Uq0pMXHnohMI/w200-h180/351-3511930_teaching-resources-activities-games-clipart-numbers-for-teachers.png" style="font-family: arial;" width="200" /></span><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Golden Rule two: </span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>For dialogue to feel natural, it can’t ever be natural. </i></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Real conversation is dull and repetitive. People stutter, or forget a word. They don’t quite catch what others say, interrupt themselves with inconsequential, often illogical comments, and go off the point, changing subjects, becoming irrelevant. Real people trip over their words and produce poor syntax that sounds unintentionally comic. In fact real speech is 80% inconsequential; humdrum data of living, and at least 10% more is in shorthand, because we know the other person so well, we don’t need to use full speech to get in tune with them – it’s how we human’s mostly communicate. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Having listened to people chatting in the mall, you will now be aware that</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> prose dialogue cannot be transcribed directly from real speech – the writer must edit it. As well as smoothing over the verbose cracks, this editing should smooth the ride by breaking up longer speeches with description, action and observation.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To put this succinctly, for dialogue to <i>feel natural</i>, it can’t ever <i>be natural</i>. This is something that is learnt as one reads, writes and listens, and the more dialogue one writes, the easier it becomes. Try listening to conversations then transposing them into dialogue to help enhance this skill.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Start a new piece of dialogue between two characters you're working with, or would like to create. But instead of setting it out in the normal format for dialogue, set it out as a script. To create a strong rhythm, emulating the simple A, B, pattern for your two speakers. This can be very liberating, and should at least persuade you to create a scene, with dialogue, if you find yourself generally writing exposition. It will also encourage the dialogue writer who is having trouble with Rule Two to get into a good A B tempo. Make sure you are naturally changing the line length of each speaker at will</span><span style="color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">__________________________________________________</span></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj15lbIsT0GGSsPetiaq43DBgjVFfDtcb6mnFWJZEOLgEi17NeuUfBX1l3zAKwLTSq8UX7CWHvDyrSG07CayrfD2o5sdhOM2GGFQ_Scbohy8aH-TGUVTiG-C0Rd1dLpbYKRkcQ5tkUYbekiy-OFhNXCjwL7R6UYrKnz_Lb6czghg4zGBR29duCvOiG1/s1732/5wAkTG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1732" data-original-width="1732" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj15lbIsT0GGSsPetiaq43DBgjVFfDtcb6mnFWJZEOLgEi17NeuUfBX1l3zAKwLTSq8UX7CWHvDyrSG07CayrfD2o5sdhOM2GGFQ_Scbohy8aH-TGUVTiG-C0Rd1dLpbYKRkcQ5tkUYbekiy-OFhNXCjwL7R6UYrKnz_Lb6czghg4zGBR29duCvOiG1/w200-h200/5wAkTG.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><b>Golden Rule Three;</b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Dialogue should be pertinent to the character’s personality</i></b>.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Don’t allow the character to talk with your voice; they need their own. Don’t allow all the characters to sound the same; this is an ‘early’ mistake and one that can be spotted by reading your work aloud. Try to ‘get into the shoes’ of the person speaking, so that it’s their words on the page…<i>not the writer’s. </i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: left;">Allow various characters to have differing speech patterns, but do not go overboard with this; it can lead to reader irritation. Be particularly careful about accent or dialect; use one small thing that can exemplify the speech pattern and leave it at that. Keep well clear of phonic representation. If you read Christopher Brookmyre’s crime fiction, you will see a master of this skill at work, but his passages of lowland Scottish dialect are often difficult to follow.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: left;"><br /></span></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Kitchen Table Exercise Three</span></i></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;">Place a character you’re working with, or <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">hoping</span> to work with, in a situation where they have to talk. Think about how they would react. Not how you'd react, but them. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;">See things through your character’s eyes. You don’t need to link this with any writing you’re doing at the moment. This time, use what you’re seeing and hearing alongside what you are imagining. Now is your chance to allow your character to speak as this individual might. Think about this person before you start, and all the way through writing the piece. Allow them to speak to another character, or in some other way, if it helps.</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 197); color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 197); color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 197); color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 197); color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 197); color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______</span><span style="color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______________</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Golden Rule Four: </b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><i>Be careful how you impart information</i></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9b-ob4jjJPaacbo9jSlKo0klY0J9gwp-yIYvBVm2uc-97Op8w3Z7rkPIttnJ63W0GduwW5Ksfy6Q3VVGpkd91A_OSVrm5aKhiol2SNpLLrbrPYtLL32AORIInJ39l5r8Ef_QepWxq9roCLm1B55nGLSVNr6qIXUxMb7uuTRefLiage1rHssK3LnWh/s227/3f8ff193fd7478b812c8580424f2e01a.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="195" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9b-ob4jjJPaacbo9jSlKo0klY0J9gwp-yIYvBVm2uc-97Op8w3Z7rkPIttnJ63W0GduwW5Ksfy6Q3VVGpkd91A_OSVrm5aKhiol2SNpLLrbrPYtLL32AORIInJ39l5r8Ef_QepWxq9roCLm1B55nGLSVNr6qIXUxMb7uuTRefLiage1rHssK3LnWh/w172-h200/3f8ff193fd7478b812c8580424f2e01a.png" width="172" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Although Golden Rule One states that dialogue can be used to impart information, keep that fact hidden, otherwise speech will sound ‘stagey. Staged dialogue is speech where we overhear characters telling us something the writer wants the reader to know, but the characters already know, usually in creaking speeches...</span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘How are you Mary?’ asked Sue. </span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘Well,’ said Mary. ‘Since the death of John, six months ago, I’ve been very depressed.’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">How do you overcome these problems? One way is to use interior monologue:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘How are you Mary?’ Sue knew that Mary had been depressed since John’s death, but</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">even so, she was hoping for more than a grim sigh in answer to her question. </span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘No better, to be honest with you,’ said Mary.</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Another is to wrack your brains for a more ‘natural’ approach:</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> ‘How are you Mary?’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> ‘No better.’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> ‘What is it now...six months?’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> ‘Yes. But it’s like John’s about to walk in the door any moment.’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Another approach I recommend is not to worry too much about imparting this sort of information in the first place. Readers like mystery, even if the story isn’t actually genre mystery. They like to be teased, so long as the mystery is solved somewhere along the line:</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘How are you Mary?’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘No better.</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘What’s it now? Six months?’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Sue gave a grim sigh. ‘Feels like six years sometimes and six hours at others.’</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here's another place stagy dialogue rears its head:</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘As you already know, Henry, the polyribodigestive test tube results are outstanding. And you also know that we’ve found a guinea pig for the transplant experiment among the staff - at least, when we say guinea pig, of course, we mean flunky.’ Henry’s assistant leered at him...</span></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Kitchen Table Exercise Four</span></i></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Search through previous pieces of your writing to find some dialogue that now, you might consider 'staged'. Try rewriting it. By treating characters and their dialogue as if the story grew organically out of the world they inhabit, you will find yourself naturally only giving your reader only just enough information detail. ‘Just enough’ can be interpreted as ‘far less than you first imagine they’ll need’. For a start, you don’t want to write down to them, or treat them as fools. But also, they will be quite happy to read along, delighting in finding the details are revealed bit by bit, in just the same way as the example of Mary’s bereavement. </span></p><div><br /></div><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwhsxY6-Gskiay-pyvEuogKIBtsqOfiUEH3LzjP7dV-79pky9MJFQPFv1-SpZ28Zbgm0h1vwuIvqwuQgl8DW04IaIIjlxaJxnAQiAHcdoTj0iF17Upasi0zbgpxb3MwcoiEp9P_Eo57wc2upS0vBjl305iF01ZPR7nLu57L9VaW6Z9AVyREHm55og/s1036/168-1682475_miscellaneous-numbers-gold-number-5-png-transparent-png.png.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="840" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwhsxY6-Gskiay-pyvEuogKIBtsqOfiUEH3LzjP7dV-79pky9MJFQPFv1-SpZ28Zbgm0h1vwuIvqwuQgl8DW04IaIIjlxaJxnAQiAHcdoTj0iF17Upasi0zbgpxb3MwcoiEp9P_Eo57wc2upS0vBjl305iF01ZPR7nLu57L9VaW6Z9AVyREHm55og/w162-h200/168-1682475_miscellaneous-numbers-gold-number-5-png-transparent-png.png.jpeg" width="162" /></a><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Golden Rule Number Five </span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Who Should be Talking?</i></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It is a standard guideline, especially for short stories, that a conversation should not be reported directly on a page unless a key (focus) character is in it – in other words, characters your story cannot do without. Clearly, both the protagonist and the antagonist are essential characters, but it is up the writer to decide which other characters are key. In actually deciding this, it is quite a good idea to pose the question the opposite way round; which of your characters could actually carry dialogue as the main character in that scene? Crucially, the template is that no scene, no conversation, should take place without one or more facets of the First Golden Rule; and if only minor characters are in that conversation, that is unlikely to be so to any degree.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); color: blue;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Kitchen Table Exercise Five</span></i></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Take any piece of writing you are working on, or any you have completed. Look through it, to check to see who is driving any dialogue and whether they are an essential character. If you find any dubious conversations, ask yourself; does this work? Do I need to re-evaluate the need for this conversation? Is the dialogue going to hold a reader? Does it follow Golden Rule One?</span></span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 197); color: #0000c5; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">______________________</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zU9bTqJgHUAATO--nrMNMkC-w2mJ-G7X_h9M4tX43Lh8TVGjpHlQ9qfyrZ4pAHVP8z4_jcesme8phOuhRYJs3lP8M1eRxuCr8AP2AneJQ_2xblGiP7nwEhfFjH3wYQDQSsDy3k1lXDT0-4RTePhSWs3knNok25HDk3CzOyWsWsNigOu9KKA3wA99/s1080/floral-numbers-colorful-flowers-number-6-vector-14029583.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="832" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zU9bTqJgHUAATO--nrMNMkC-w2mJ-G7X_h9M4tX43Lh8TVGjpHlQ9qfyrZ4pAHVP8z4_jcesme8phOuhRYJs3lP8M1eRxuCr8AP2AneJQ_2xblGiP7nwEhfFjH3wYQDQSsDy3k1lXDT0-4RTePhSWs3knNok25HDk3CzOyWsWsNigOu9KKA3wA99/s320/floral-numbers-colorful-flowers-number-6-vector-14029583.jpg" width="247" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />Golden Rule Six:</b></span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>How speech tabs should be used</i></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Careful handling in the use of ‘tabs’ – the ‘he/she saids’ of dialogue – will really help your dialogue to have a great rhythm and flow. .</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Tags</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> are the verbal additions that describe who/how the dialogue functions. They are sometimes very hard to get just right. The secret is to use ‘said’ as much as you possibly can. This is because it is almost invisible and readers skip over it. It is a functional necessity that does its job like a postman...never really seen. </span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If you can get rid of a tag altogether, that often creates fast-past dialogue – very useful if the scene is also fast-paced. Also try to break up the tabs by using actions to get a good rhythmic flow… <i>‘It think it’s time,’ Simon took a sip of his espresso, ‘to talk about the contract.’ </i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">By sticking to ‘said’, you will avoid overuse of other tag verbs (</span><i style="font-family: arial;">muttered, added, chattered, </i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">etc).The less you use, the smoother and more readable will your work be; even the most common tags (</span><i style="font-family: arial;">asked, called</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">,</span><i style="font-family: arial;"> whispered</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> etc), should be cherry-picked; try not to have more than a couple in </span><i style="font-family: arial;">any</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> patch of dialogue. Some verbs should never be used because they don’t function well as tags at all – </span><i style="font-family: arial;">laughed </i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">is the most common of those...it is almost impossible to laugh and talk at the same time. </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Chuckle </i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">and</span><i style="font-family: arial;"> smiled</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> can be ‘got away with’ but constantly check that certain characters don’t spend all their time smiling as they speak, for instance. Oh, and don't ruin all that good 'tab' work by adding an adverb. Don't tell us the character said something 'bravely'; show us that bravery through the words they use. </span></p>
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<p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Kitchen Table Exercise Six</span></i></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;">Spend ten minutes </span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">writing</span> a new conversation between two old characters. Perhaps these characters have never met in your previous fiction, or maybe they are already aware of each other. Whichever scenario you chose, make sure this is new dialogue. Free write the conversation first. Then read through it. How did you use speech tabs? Are you already an old hand at getting the dialogue <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">rhythm</span> right with a varied amount of tabs, no tabs, action instead of tabs? Do you mostly stick to 'said'?</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Golden Rule Seven:</b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7l6xv4AUfwm8ctasA8XYmp1ckFgbGjtXArsKuSKwjBM-r5qM0em5OusW_sTVxAQj4OvnO9dybmPo0GhNmDfbpQ5wExEwQnB1Vka7b4-8wUgfUJaTmx0dSKtd6UNf112Ab9hewSnclK5iJGZt0Fpser3Zyo1SBNkZCoRtY6cILpe48eYc3Fzkj8vqS/s350/number7colorful_5m81.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="246" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7l6xv4AUfwm8ctasA8XYmp1ckFgbGjtXArsKuSKwjBM-r5qM0em5OusW_sTVxAQj4OvnO9dybmPo0GhNmDfbpQ5wExEwQnB1Vka7b4-8wUgfUJaTmx0dSKtd6UNf112Ab9hewSnclK5iJGZt0Fpser3Zyo1SBNkZCoRtY6cILpe48eYc3Fzkj8vqS/w141-h200/number7colorful_5m81.png" width="141" /></a></p><b><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Dialogue should be </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">brief and clear. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">fascinating and </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">multi-tasked. </span></i></b><p></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><b style="font-family: arial;">Brief and clear</b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">. Make sure you keep in control of what comes out of character’s mouths. As it progresses, dialogue must take the reader by the hand, and lead their thoughts in the direction you the writer want them to go. This is why it must never ramble away from the point it’s trying to make, even in an attempt to enhance any of the golden rule. Keep conversation tightly on the subject in hand</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At almost no stage of your writing should any character speak for more than three or four lines. That is not to say that this character might have a longer speech to give, and yes, they can give it, but they should be interrupted in various ways. Try to allow the dialogue to be visual so we can see the characters as they speak, breaking up the speech patterns with action, interior thought processes, description of character, etc. But it must never ‘feel’ broken up. To achieve this, create a rhythm to the dialogue sections, a feel that has a lyrical sensation. Avoid repeated beginnings, and break down repetitive ‘tab’ patterns that might annoy a reader. </span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Fascinating. </b>Even if the personality you’ve given your character is dull, their speech should not be. If your reader wants to listen to inane speech, they can tune into a TV chat show! Real conversation is pedestrian or repetitive at times because we have to think on our feet while talking. But characters should stand out on the page, and in the same way their dialogue should be larger (although never more grandiose), than real conversation. Characters (or rather their writer) have the luxury of something the rest of us do not have – the chance to think through what they say and say exactly what they mean (presuming they<i> intend </i>to say what they mean...). Polish and buff their speech to create fascinating dialogue.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Multi-tasked</b>. </span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Multi-tasking in dialogue writing is the major area where real conversation alters significantly from dialogue in fiction. It should constantly be focused on that first golden rule – all dialogue should further the story in at least one way from that list – if you can make that two, or three, you are beginning to understand how to multi-task your dialogue. Don’t just let conversations enrich developing characters, make it move the plot along and further its complexities at the same time. And although not every conversation is going to crank up the pace or enhance the theme of the story, make sure some dialogue achieves this – especially towards the end of a short story and at least half way through a novel. Part of this ‘cranking up’ may also reflect emotions, etc into good measure.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: blue;">Kitchen Table <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Exercise</span> Seven. </span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue;">Tap into your </span><b style="color: blue;">writer’s imagination</b><span style="color: blue;"> by imagining <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">dialogue</span> when you're not at your writing stations Tune in to your character’s conversations. You may find what they say when they think you are out of earshot will surprise you and add richness to your story</span></span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhY052TWVPc2cocHY9nUi02OAJRoG0Z0jZawtGal-AK8tQa2xGw0R9p5Ct0ZEOkIT9q-aoTAeZ2wI76dyL8shbCIjFMlj6vNO5HKjKXADbOf2z2foxdbMzrERDa-4QQ9cWidzmg9_zEekv_cHvXYtro-CKxtx0mP8ru9OGGSPMvO9nlnzUjRYmtTT/s960/10805803_10152510865583339_4256869333906974724_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhY052TWVPc2cocHY9nUi02OAJRoG0Z0jZawtGal-AK8tQa2xGw0R9p5Ct0ZEOkIT9q-aoTAeZ2wI76dyL8shbCIjFMlj6vNO5HKjKXADbOf2z2foxdbMzrERDa-4QQ9cWidzmg9_zEekv_cHvXYtro-CKxtx0mP8ru9OGGSPMvO9nlnzUjRYmtTT/s320/10805803_10152510865583339_4256869333906974724_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />While you are still learning your writing trade, it does not harm to check the golden rules each time you’ve created dialogue, especially when this is a longer chunk of conversation between characters, because this can feel a very complex aspect of writing creatively. </b></span><p></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But remember, your first draft does not have to be perfect. You can continue to experiment with dialogue, change it and allow it to grow.</b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p>
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<p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div><br /></div></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-82211446285184227192022-12-31T07:09:00.006-08:002023-01-15T07:57:55.754-08:00Would a Publisher want Your Creative Non-Fiction?<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFem9NwVoM0WHEJwdphwG9aNw0_2mhGSqEdGJRQke6GDFUOsmL-NdA80t0H7B_LEKwXoay2GSKtzMBn2dnvkTDJ3AaqoGzoj_a75FvkUxFFQ2ABKJuZAuCp-iS5SvCl5PelXlLSwg-TcasqS6ZnhqI1vrDpIYSq6wMGRh-uL_jle0t5LQ1VLj470l/s498/image11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="498" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFem9NwVoM0WHEJwdphwG9aNw0_2mhGSqEdGJRQke6GDFUOsmL-NdA80t0H7B_LEKwXoay2GSKtzMBn2dnvkTDJ3AaqoGzoj_a75FvkUxFFQ2ABKJuZAuCp-iS5SvCl5PelXlLSwg-TcasqS6ZnhqI1vrDpIYSq6wMGRh-uL_jle0t5LQ1VLj470l/w400-h340/image11.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br />So, you're writing something that is non-fiction, and you're beginning to think that a publisher might be interested.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLowhXjRoGECTbpSvg1pupsPhOZtc47GgU4uhw24HxWk41vOZ_pomkCtXdh9ZWPzVRsOfdkQPflAnQD7Q4_PmjUSY09dWZV6IQu5nedBxMTK1M0aXwe60NEyop5Itqhq7MmqXwVF9DpMS6DGndk4nUe8vuVpZjIb7QZ18hwXFG2ldevUT4vtyX_iED/s1600/IMG_0009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLowhXjRoGECTbpSvg1pupsPhOZtc47GgU4uhw24HxWk41vOZ_pomkCtXdh9ZWPzVRsOfdkQPflAnQD7Q4_PmjUSY09dWZV6IQu5nedBxMTK1M0aXwe60NEyop5Itqhq7MmqXwVF9DpMS6DGndk4nUe8vuVpZjIb7QZ18hwXFG2ldevUT4vtyX_iED/s320/IMG_0009.jpg" width="240" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><br />How does that work?</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If your writing project is creative non-fiction you can get ahead of novel writers! A proposal, rather than a synopsis, is how you direct yourself at a prospective publisher, and you can send this in as soon as you're sure of your subject.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">It may feel a little premature to be thinking about writing your proposal before you’ve completed your book. But established writers of non-fiction write their proposals almost before they’ve written anything else; for them, this part of the process falls alongside imagining and planning their new work. They may do some research and complete a couple of sample chapters to accompany the proposal, but acceptance of the proposal by their publishing house will initiate the work that needs to be done, not complete it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Writers of fiction work in a diametrically opposite way; even established novelists accept that a synopsis is only as complete as the book itself. A novel may transform at any stage of its development, but non-fiction usually has a basic statement of intent that can be identified early on in the process. Most pieces of creative non-fiction, therefore, need a written proposal ahead of submitting the work itself for mainstream publication. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>How it worked for Kate Williams</b></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixGjvXqadt-pAwNZtwalwhTrKoiBrTvN6w0Mg1ExfljjfvMj0tZAPjiLztA1YB7Dq9kea0My1nLu-LmaX9m09YbsPKJFqs6OOvgrFnMD7t1KqBcwwuthVsvTThwvHUulpfwrXv7Ca_xkQEXDnjvmKL86xb92UgrnwAP0ZRRrfLD27b21L0fNs4uoK/s191/content.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="128" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixGjvXqadt-pAwNZtwalwhTrKoiBrTvN6w0Mg1ExfljjfvMj0tZAPjiLztA1YB7Dq9kea0My1nLu-LmaX9m09YbsPKJFqs6OOvgrFnMD7t1KqBcwwuthVsvTThwvHUulpfwrXv7Ca_xkQEXDnjvmKL86xb92UgrnwAP0ZRRrfLD27b21L0fNs4uoK/w268-h400/content.jpeg" width="268" /></b></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The historian and writer Kate Williams’ first biography grew out of a dissertation study into Emma Hamilton, before she'd even finished the degree she was studying. <i>The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton</i> (2006) <i>began when Williams was sifting through old letters in the British Library. "</i></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">...a book started to form in my mind…</span><span style="font-family: arial;">I sat on my idea for Emma throughout the autumn, convinced that I would never be allowed to write a biography – I was too young, not sufficiently well-connected. Just before Christmas I plucked up the courage to send a few words about myself, Emma and the material I’d found to an agent who represented a friend of a friend. To my shock, he replied almost immediately. If I wrote a proposal, he said, he’d sell it for me...</span></span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>In a windswept Little Chef in North Wales, on the way to collect my grandfather for Christmas, I told my father that I had a chance of becoming an author. He didn’t believe me. I barely believed it myself. </i></span><i style="font-family: arial;">(Emma and I, Williams, Mslexia, issue 32, 2007)</i></span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>What should a book proposal look like?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Its elements will vary according to the type of book and the type of publisher, but it will generally follow the following suggestions:</span></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">• </span><span style="font-family: arial;">It should be double-spaced and clearly laid out</span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivUyBqqKOC0s4GO6lcIXBoM6EY2AQIv9PwHYZ_kepAzxpIfCFk3H9HbgHkUugRYHRRZAhRqGRGyNxMvFQD7J_wXE51LVlFnIhZvDV41PjzXA-_qHrCvCVwlruj3CH54tkD9OfsVX0_XmEY4VJ9CvhH_3wZZnZneM5q_zKrocdNmtVorGQQDPRCr7hP/s2048/IMG_0350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivUyBqqKOC0s4GO6lcIXBoM6EY2AQIv9PwHYZ_kepAzxpIfCFk3H9HbgHkUugRYHRRZAhRqGRGyNxMvFQD7J_wXE51LVlFnIhZvDV41PjzXA-_qHrCvCVwlruj3CH54tkD9OfsVX0_XmEY4VJ9CvhH_3wZZnZneM5q_zKrocdNmtVorGQQDPRCr7hP/s320/IMG_0350.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">• </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Title page</span><p></p><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Contents of proposal</span></li></ul></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Introduction</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Market (predicted readership, competition, useful statistics)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• CV (especially why you’re qualified to write this book)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Format (overview, style, structure, organisation, rough word count)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Chapter-by-chapter summary in a logical order</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Sample chapter(s) if requested</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Promotional suggestions</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Resources needed for completion</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• A lively overview of the proposal – end on an upbeat note.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>For example...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhql7iXMa__zBfz6VCo-4jJl4rir_UuaMjnT9gjWB2XNbr57WEcsvGJ4D-6ArRaBgPc1ok7RMoBQW1oARFsFJE6zaVYh0SetlZKeUNYoPxHdDak7bUZI0Bv-vBO3uyIq_oHTvM-wM13nOf0I_HY20rEuCD6x1dKq_L8yjEz8Pa60uRbwi8jT-WQgrgg/s1280/DSC00619.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhql7iXMa__zBfz6VCo-4jJl4rir_UuaMjnT9gjWB2XNbr57WEcsvGJ4D-6ArRaBgPc1ok7RMoBQW1oARFsFJE6zaVYh0SetlZKeUNYoPxHdDak7bUZI0Bv-vBO3uyIq_oHTvM-wM13nOf0I_HY20rEuCD6x1dKq_L8yjEz8Pa60uRbwi8jT-WQgrgg/s320/DSC00619.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Sarah Booksmith has decided to write about her work with a London charity for the homeless called The Place. What she's planning isn’t entirely memoir, nor is it ‘biography’ in the accepted sense, and it also addresses wider social issues. She's started typing things out and she now has about 20,000<br /> words and a provisional title<i> Home is the Place.</i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">She's arrived at this title by taking into consideration the idea that a catchy title for creative non-fiction should possibly use a quotation (perhaps from the book or a more famous quote) or a pun to catch the eye of the browsing buyer, or have some sort of interesting ambiguity about it. <i>Home is the Place</i> contains a saying, a pun (home<i> is </i>a place!) and is quite ambiguous; what does this writer mean by this?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As a novice in this field, Sarah Booksmith wants to practise the art of writing a proposal before she gets much further, to consolidate some important issues, to help her further research and to test the publication waters. She's asking: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">What is my book about? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Who will read it? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">How long is it? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Have I found the perfect way to address my subject?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>In the same way, you will need to research your proposal as you researched the book idea itself. Try;</b></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEoBiuAIsgugv05VLrfNTgjtBhXLzALirNr9Zokj_-lMy6c3ZW6xKp7uUqAHNGvUKdbQ2hviz1jcgTOXd40hJeueq2cf6zqBvZPMqpnLkjirhe34qHYC6CTQG8CHz73RgvyGmND-qCdPjAdFdVR8VjvL7fz-kiJxvUyNlQAZcUdZN-qoA2blcBwdz/s2048/bekki%20blogpost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEoBiuAIsgugv05VLrfNTgjtBhXLzALirNr9Zokj_-lMy6c3ZW6xKp7uUqAHNGvUKdbQ2hviz1jcgTOXd40hJeueq2cf6zqBvZPMqpnLkjirhe34qHYC6CTQG8CHz73RgvyGmND-qCdPjAdFdVR8VjvL7fz-kiJxvUyNlQAZcUdZN-qoA2blcBwdz/s320/bekki%20blogpost.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>• </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> Checking out the competition by browsing bookshelves and Googling the subject matter. Browse what Amazon has to offer. Don’t be disheartened if you discover similar books in the market place – but you may need to re-examine your approach. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> If there are several recent books on your subject matter, ask yourself whether you’re jumping on a bandwagon. Fads fade so quickly your book may feel out of date even before its proposal is ready.</span><span style="font-family: arial;">Compiling a few statistics about your book, its subject matter and its readership.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Quizing your local bookseller and librarian about your book – its theme, subject matter, structure and size. Would their customers buy or borrow it? Has the subject been covered recently in a similar way? Choose a quiet time of day to do this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Attending a writers’ conference. </span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ijLi-_rnPElJlKHRgdJcYBUdVuSz7BIXqNwCyUnoWodBWyPUc36RmWLFNedzV0WLEAupMBQqyxWxeR43zxzpNNh-dfOiYLX_a5doq9X1N7HawV4Kkp67LXD_sICuwj9ViLMiE_Bcwq_h2Jd8BCf8YSRyN4syQEO2AsmXN7D_-MkDajrY8Lf2vo6N/s1600/IMG_0833.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ijLi-_rnPElJlKHRgdJcYBUdVuSz7BIXqNwCyUnoWodBWyPUc36RmWLFNedzV0WLEAupMBQqyxWxeR43zxzpNNh-dfOiYLX_a5doq9X1N7HawV4Kkp67LXD_sICuwj9ViLMiE_Bcwq_h2Jd8BCf8YSRyN4syQEO2AsmXN7D_-MkDajrY8Lf2vo6N/w200-h150/IMG_0833.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">You’ll get the opportunity to talk to agents, editors and other writers in your genre about your book. Take your proposal with you, plus notes that will help focus your questions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Contacting publishers by phone. Without being pushy or irritating, ask their ‘front desk’ what they look for in a proposal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Stop there, and ask yourself, h</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ow did that research go? Also ask yourself; </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• Does your CV looks a little thin in terms of your knowledge of the subject? Consider taking some relevant instruction – for instance, an intensive course – or shadowing an expert. Include this as evidence of credibility in a proposal.</span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7-7WJCcs2i35eevRlHKO-kY1v3nA8zu6kA2kDMSS0vDAF5SD-m8AsiydAlPPwnbJpbCG8Vlr6OOUaeIc7qsZWvWXDvuBrVVxIKDC9F2QPKXnCKZIZIqhhqQyeAWgenAlZexDDDCnec-K5_yj_BNYRtcWSry8UIcCmUF5PiEZcxe0X_thDlkrOZT3/s569/Diana%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="553" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7-7WJCcs2i35eevRlHKO-kY1v3nA8zu6kA2kDMSS0vDAF5SD-m8AsiydAlPPwnbJpbCG8Vlr6OOUaeIc7qsZWvWXDvuBrVVxIKDC9F2QPKXnCKZIZIqhhqQyeAWgenAlZexDDDCnec-K5_yj_BNYRtcWSry8UIcCmUF5PiEZcxe0X_thDlkrOZT3/w194-h200/Diana%201.jpg" width="194" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">• Do you have any writing history to your credit? Examine the possibility of writing articles, letters to the editor, guest blog posts or other publishable material to build up your writing credentials. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Also st</span><span style="font-family: arial;">art thinking about promoting your published work. Consider any of these:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">• create a website or blog</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• create a mailing list</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• offer to take a workshop or give a talk (e.g. My Travels in Nepal) on your subject • offer to be interviewed by the local press or radio.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Spend a bit of time looking carefully at a published non-fiction book – perhaps one that you’ve read for your creative reading commentary – and thinking about what that writer’s proposal might have looked like. Then, if you feel ready, have a go at writing a proposal for your own life writing by attempting the following three exercises.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Writing your proposal - one</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">First:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> make sure you have a working</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> title</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">outline the ideas you're writing about</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">create a ‘blurb’</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Create a sales pitch for your life writing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Imagine that you’re at a writers’ conference. Someone has asked you what your book is about. Talk them through it, trying to convince. How would you describe it? You’re trying to be a credible advocate for your own writing so you must hold the listener’s interest. Record your sales pitch in your writing diary – maybe even learn it by heart.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Create a sound bite.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A sound bite is shorter than a sales pitch. Imagine you’ve got thirty seconds – and just a few words – to sum up the entire book. The sound bite is a verbal blurb that will get to the nub of the book quickly.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Try these out on your friends – see if they, at least, like the sound of your book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Go right on to the end of the final proposal and write</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> a memorable overview to complete your proposal.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">But don’t simply repeat the introduction. Your overview is your chance to tie everything together and let your personality come to the fore. Remember, this is your final chance to leave a good impression on the reader.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> Writing a proposal Two</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The body of the proposal contains the more difficult task of formulating a chapter summary. Start by listing your chapters </span><span style="font-family: arial;">and their titles (if you have them).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Try to take an objective view of your list. Are the chapters in a logical order? Have you repeated or missed anything? Will you need to group chapters into parts or divide chapters into subsections? If so, think about titles for these.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Take a fresh look at length. Sometimes, it’s only when the chapters are listed in this way that it becomes clear how long the book will be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Take each chapter title in turn and formulate an outline for each one. Aim to sum up each chapter within a short paragraph. Now take this paragraph and reduce it to one line, using the skills you gained composing your sales pitch and sound bite.</span><span style="font-family: arial;">Save all this for future use, but don’t think of it as set in stone. If you need to make changes later, go ahead.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Practise writing out this section of your proposal.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> It should look something like the start of Sarah Booksmith's chapter analysis in her proposal:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sarah Booksmith </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i> Proposal for</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i> Home is the Place </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Part One</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Begins with the scene of my own abandonment when my father left my mother and her three children. I was seven and the eldest. I pushed this memory to the back of my mind, but now explore it, then widen the debate.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Shows me at a low ebb in my young adult life. I don’t want to go for the interview at The Place. I want to pursue my intention to be a stand-up comedian, but I need the money.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>I settle into the routine at The Place and get extremely fond of several of the clients. I have my first taste of investing emotion and effort into a person, only to have these rejected.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>At this time in London, the plans for the massive protest over the poll tax were in the air and a lot of people at The Place – workers and clients – were involved. Until </i></span><i style="font-family: arial;"><span>then, I hadn’t even thought about protesting.</span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Jane comes to work at The Place. She is like no one I have ever encountered. Naturally, I fall wildly in love with her.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Continue with your own proposal, perhaps in this personal vein, or in a slightly more technical or formal style if it suits your writing better. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>The Covering Letter</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Send a covering letter with your proposal. Although this might seem like repeating yourself, it’s imperative that you do this. This will probably be your first contact with the publishing firm or agency. Even if you’ve been lucky enough previously to meet and talk to a representative, you should still write a covering letter, mentioning this previous encounter (see below). Your letter should include:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• your ‘sound bite’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• a brief resumé of your CV (who you are)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• any previous point of contact with the publisher</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">• title and genre of the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Format your covering letter as a one-page business letter, professional-looking and single-spaced.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Alternatively, you can write a query letter</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A query letter, on the other hand, should arrive on an editor or agent’s desk alone. Don’t send </span><span style="font-family: arial;">it with a proposal, the point being that this </span><span style="font-family: arial;">letter enquires about the possibility of your sending a proposal at a later date. For this reason, it can </span><span style="font-family: arial;">be slightly more quirky and personalised than </span><span style="font-family: arial;">a covering letter. Allow your writing personality </span><span style="font-family: arial;">to emerge. However, your letter should still look professional, laid out in single-spacing and as brief as possible – no more than two pages.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This is Sarah’s query letter.</span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Anne Ortha</span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Director </span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> Quick Fix Literary Agency Chance Street</span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">London.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Date</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Dear Ms Ortha</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Home is the Place</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I’d like to thank you in advance for reading this letter.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I am writing a book that details the life and times of a small London charity, The Place. I worked at The Place for almost ten years and I continue to be involved in their work as a Trustee.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Home is the Place is narrative non-fiction. It charts the story of the charity; the story of some of the homeless people it works with; the story of homelessness and its wider implications in London in the last thirty years; and, as narrator, it also involves some of my own story.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now is the time for an overview of this subject. I believe I can deliver this with passion and precision.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As a writer I have credits in publications such as Metro and Free Tonight. I have also written for The Place on a number of occasions. Please don’t hesitate to ask for any of these pieces. I have a recent MA in Social Studies in which my dissertation was a broad examination of homelessness in London.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I have prepared a Proposal and would be grateful if you would consider reading it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I’ve enjoyed several books from your imprint and feel Home is the Place would fit well within it. I look forward to hearing from you,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Yours sincerely,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span> <span> </span></span>Sarah Booksmith, MA</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Draw up a timetable</b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ryheJ5OHegDYf1rTdTW2jBoI8fiQ80KPjb-balfbiZnHz1sxsmL05cl5F1wFK9TVu8uLFDBnXOxLIh_KJAFOnewsHU5FtXp_W6Nkz7JqxMO-6ufoaYzElXhXzSnh2cc4AEB1IMUExTkQHGlIxcoV1OM_rQ3vDIUOzrTlew5_a3sKnnUs3RQOkLGh/s600/16853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ryheJ5OHegDYf1rTdTW2jBoI8fiQ80KPjb-balfbiZnHz1sxsmL05cl5F1wFK9TVu8uLFDBnXOxLIh_KJAFOnewsHU5FtXp_W6Nkz7JqxMO-6ufoaYzElXhXzSnh2cc4AEB1IMUExTkQHGlIxcoV1OM_rQ3vDIUOzrTlew5_a3sKnnUs3RQOkLGh/s320/16853.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Don</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">t use your research on the subject while you are drafting a proposal as an excuse to put off getting started or moving </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">forward with the book</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">. You may not discover areas you</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">ll need to delve into until your writing is well under way so</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial;"> write while you</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial;">re creating your proposal, and be influenced and informed by the </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial;">research</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial;"> for the proposal. </span></span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Take this opportunity to draw up a timetable of research work. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Try putting specific research time aside – for instance, one evening a week to read and surf the net and one afternoon a week for visits to libraries, record offices, etc. Get going on this regime as soon as you can.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Having got a </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">proposal underway, in the next blog on this subject, we'll look at just how research can help without getting out of hand or delaying the writing!</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><br /></p>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-29301715333120880792022-11-01T23:47:00.074-07:002022-11-02T00:22:02.269-07:00Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait and the story of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"<p data-reader-unique-id="7" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,</span></i></p><p data-reader-unique-id="9" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; max-width: 100%; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Looking as if she were alive.</span></i></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRjR86Ik1Ov6Oysuk2eHXu-bqP7ej5uL-imYujhePBQCa0N1V4OV0bH04zdeVcqwcMzHkY17AG5JoUeHPFMUMNEomgCOz_WeEDvJPbtGRYpolRkPdj1iu3jfglH7ptyaPp38xOl8fpEokteZJ4W-QZV_mLnKmPqbkbC2MF-BCUsYlJa0-wux2QtU0L/s582/Maggie_O'Farrell_(cropped).jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRjR86Ik1Ov6Oysuk2eHXu-bqP7ej5uL-imYujhePBQCa0N1V4OV0bH04zdeVcqwcMzHkY17AG5JoUeHPFMUMNEomgCOz_WeEDvJPbtGRYpolRkPdj1iu3jfglH7ptyaPp38xOl8fpEokteZJ4W-QZV_mLnKmPqbkbC2MF-BCUsYlJa0-wux2QtU0L/w242-h320/Maggie_O'Farrell_(cropped).jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maggie O'Farrell</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So begins Robert Brownings poem about Lucrezia, Duchess of </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Ferrata. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">She was just sixteen when she died, reportedly of putrid fever, just one year of she was married and had been married for one year to Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrata. This true story was the inspiration for Maggie O'Farrell's latest novel. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I loved her last novel <i>Hamnet</i> so much – you can find my short review here; <a href="https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-womans-prize-longlist-is-ready-for.html">https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-womans-prize-longlist-is-ready-for.html</a> – but a</span><span style="font-family: arial;">fter winning acclaim and prizes for this story about the death of Will Shakespeare's son, I approached the new book in some trepidation, because, honestly, how could any writer achieve something as good as that a second time round? Okay, O'Harrell has been writing for years, and was recently feted for her autobiography,<i> I am, I am</i>, but I've known novelists stymied after achieving their greatest book yet. <i>Hamnet </i>was</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> sensitively and beautifully and robustly written, andO'Farrell addressed this hidden story of Shakespeare's life with originality and vigour</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>The Marriage Portrait </i>is also a forgotten story, but thanks to </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> Robert </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Browning (and the dust jacket, of course), '</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">the reader begins the book already knowing the central character will die by the end of it. Even if they haven't read</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>s poem, or the blurb,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span> the first paragraph the first chapter makes this plain. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>S</span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">ixteen year old Lucrezia</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> sits across the dining table from her husband, and sudden realises she is doomed.</span></p><p></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">…it comes to her with a peculiar clarity, as if some colour glass has been moved from in front her eyes, or perhaps removed from them, that he intends to kill her. </span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtUspNFqqvhMB4E-s5KQYe2N5Rp8sphJXsht__Rt3AFRXxnKSeG6nsUN-4liswff6d0--04u6zjaelpitYm_nYFPvb5zQuzNIv_MC8PgdonASFE3brfaUZJcIEzrDLjvzABBhKKy_A_OxV1lJBn50gnZn3x1XiimqZHGQkR3lSkF3eHDPQ9OoZ_lqm/s436/91JvbOopSDL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="282" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtUspNFqqvhMB4E-s5KQYe2N5Rp8sphJXsht__Rt3AFRXxnKSeG6nsUN-4liswff6d0--04u6zjaelpitYm_nYFPvb5zQuzNIv_MC8PgdonASFE3brfaUZJcIEzrDLjvzABBhKKy_A_OxV1lJBn50gnZn3x1XiimqZHGQkR3lSkF3eHDPQ9OoZ_lqm/w259-h400/91JvbOopSDL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg" width="259" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Lucrezia has been taken by her husband to a remote hunting lodge. No maid, no friends, just the two of them together. Very soon the the great painter, Il Bastianino, and his apprentices, will arrive, bringing the finished marriage portrait with them. Lucrezia is a painter of immense skill herself, but of course, she is also a 16th Century duchess, and will never have her work hung, sold, or even much admired. She is just a girl, and her only job is to supply her husband with sons. What she doesn't know is that, after her death, two further wives will also be unable to do that job, just as she, after a year of marriage, has not – Alfonso is unable to have children. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />This book cleverly mixes fiction with fact. Yes, Lucrezia did die, supposedly of a fever, in 1661, and perhaps we would have forgotten her but for Browning's poem. Regal ladies did have a terrible habit of dying young, especially if they displeased their husbands; Lucrezia's sister Isabella died, perhaps of strangling, just days after her cousin, Dianora died mysteriously at a villa in the Italian countryside.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The book opens only days before the murder, but then moves back and forth in time, weaving the previous story. We see Lucrezia's conception, her birth, and her childhood as the third daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence. We watch her grow, into a girl with huge spirit, a lover of animals and a blossoming artist – her parents allowed her to take lessons from the same grand artists as her brothers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">O'Farrell represents Lucrezia's life, both as a child, locked away inside Florence's grandest Palazzo, guarded by guards and maids-in-waiting, and her year as Olfonso's wife, at his court in Ferrata, where her freedoms are just as thwarted and dangerous politics swirl about, only half understood by the teenager.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">You may find, if you look at some of the reviews of this book, that some readers have found it wanting. The Guardian's Johanna Thomas-Corr comments on the present tense, which can become a bit wearing, I agree, but also thinks the book is<i>:</i></span></p><p></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>"</i></span><span face="-apple-system-font" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 18px;"><i>not nearly as horribly gripping as it ought to be, partly as O’Farrell refuses to say in one image what she can do in three…too much hospitality is shown to Lucrezia’s dreams…the symbolism of men as hunters, women as prey soon becomes overwrought."</i></span><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="46" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: -apple-system-font; max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Luckily, I read the book before I read the review, or I might have ne</span><span style="font-size: medium;">ver bought this <br />beautifully crafted hardback edition. I beg to differ; the prose is steady and magnificent, and any repetition feels naturally how Lucrezia might feel and think five hundred years ago. The screws of tension begin to turn as the portrait is painted; Lucrezia meets Jacopo, the mute apprentice to </span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDz1CarHD2QSs44NFACVXQapACD0YHw5nESiiZxtF0zdCoNqVlJTHEKh8ts8n6ZADARAYqTPfMeWobYleixLNdp8yRx-6rfIybvrHnmYfDGpqO6JX4BMam7TRAMyIP_uY1yvlylO8XLlI69D4iHSmZiq2r7FVXs0lwc6QWPV7EWkgjc6aSZGMlFvw/s1164/1277.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1164" data-original-width="760" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDz1CarHD2QSs44NFACVXQapACD0YHw5nESiiZxtF0zdCoNqVlJTHEKh8ts8n6ZADARAYqTPfMeWobYleixLNdp8yRx-6rfIybvrHnmYfDGpqO6JX4BMam7TRAMyIP_uY1yvlylO8XLlI69D4iHSmZiq2r7FVXs0lwc6QWPV7EWkgjc6aSZGMlFvw/s320/1277.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span>The only actual portrait of <br />Lucrezia, at the age of 13</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: arial;">Il Bastianino, and they quickly form a deep attachment. Steadily, a possible way of escape is build into the story – but, how can Lucrezia take it? In history, she dies, trapped at the hunting lodge. In the fiction…well, you'll have to read the story to find out.</span></span><p></p><p data-reader-unique-id="46" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span> Not only is there fiction in this novel, though. Robert Browning's poem </span></span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">(you can find it here </span><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess" style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(27, 27, 27); color: #1b1b1b; font-family: arial;">) </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: arial;"><span>only imagines a marriage portrait; in reality the only</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> painting of Lucrezia was commissioned by her parents, when she was betrothed to Alfonso – with a dowry, it is said, of £50 million in today's currency.</span></span></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-636551448925651520.post-87129998744798420452022-06-17T04:50:00.032-07:002022-06-24T00:47:03.203-07:00 Midsummer Reading – Books to read in the sun and places to read them.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What’s needed for a great holiday, or even a day off in the sun? </span></p>
<ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 10.8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Parasol — check</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 10.8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Sunglasses — Check</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 10.8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Chilled drink — check.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 10.8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Sunlounger — check</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 10.8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Poolside. patio or beach — if you’re lucky</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 10.8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Book — absolute essential.</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px;">I love the sun, but I’m no poolside babe;</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px;">my absolute favourites also include a sunny woodland glade, a the corner of a field, an isolated cove where the seals sing, a clifftop bench or possibly a street café in town, where you might get interrupted by passing friends.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mind you, living in Wales, my check list for a great afternoon’s reading usually includes warm slippers and a comfy fireside chair, even in summer!</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While you’re working out where your favourite midsummer reading spot is, let me pass on my recommendations for some really varied summer reading. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One way or another, I’ve been getting through a lot of very eclectic novels lately, and I’d love to share them with you. Some would make very good airport reads, some need at least a weekend on a beach and some may require the full length of a road trip, Absorbing, puzzling, thrilling, funny, even shocking, these are my midsummer reads;</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One for the Beach:</span></b></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk0xGDn_ApB4V5yNjKqv-8SSjSG9cIFZu-3YM9-Gf8CEsnjmULOjuZSgEHGWRcAJGBu4YgWv3J0oYdmz4APJ9SV2-br-NQTjN1jRDOxSubJMySnEz--jxj3OyPFbzVgjFb4mozq4EfH98BlJprMYkGt4SlxTlxhw3SEJe85GFpbaZ2cXvmHEmpA4uo/s500/1788166167.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk0xGDn_ApB4V5yNjKqv-8SSjSG9cIFZu-3YM9-Gf8CEsnjmULOjuZSgEHGWRcAJGBu4YgWv3J0oYdmz4APJ9SV2-br-NQTjN1jRDOxSubJMySnEz--jxj3OyPFbzVgjFb4mozq4EfH98BlJprMYkGt4SlxTlxhw3SEJe85GFpbaZ2cXvmHEmpA4uo/s320/1788166167.jpg" width="209" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The <i>Last House on Needless Street</i> by Catriona Ward. </span><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on your book on a beach. It gets damp from the last swim and greasy from tapas. Get up to play ball, and you can lose it in the sand. So what you need is something so gripping, so beguiling, so terrifying and so demanding that you never put it down. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ward has written a cracker of a psychological thriller here. In her long Afterward to the novel, she opens with ‘if you haven’t finished <i>The Last House of Needless Street </i>yet, please don’t read on — what follows is one long spoiler. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is because the mysteries that are set up in the first third of the novel will keep you guessing through the whole of it, even while you turn the pages in trepidation and fear for the lives of various characters. The most I can say is Ward has taken a psychiatric condition and immersed her story within it, so that nothing we see — nothing at all — is quite as it appears. With an uplifting ending and memorable characters, this gave me a very happy holiday.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One to Read in a Deep Wood:</span></b></p><div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqJl_CwzTre_haVFhcW5PX-iY-BV9j1yCuYLL5_v9apBKsxbuvlufRyiA77RPms_ebikA6lvpow4fgUottEd9i2mylj8yssXw6DrELpR4MgtkMXbF-wOd_DtU7zZu6w6Wg7xNDjUGDnt1Wpg-sII_AdvsC9SrFOlZi-RHvrX4Td62f2EV9FD6TjL_U/s500/9781473205451_600x.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqJl_CwzTre_haVFhcW5PX-iY-BV9j1yCuYLL5_v9apBKsxbuvlufRyiA77RPms_ebikA6lvpow4fgUottEd9i2mylj8yssXw6DrELpR4MgtkMXbF-wOd_DtU7zZu6w6Wg7xNDjUGDnt1Wpg-sII_AdvsC9SrFOlZi-RHvrX4Td62f2EV9FD6TjL_U/s320/9781473205451_600x.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Mythago Wood</i>, by Robert Holdstock</span><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Strange from the get go, this story is set shortly after the second world war. Steven has returned to his family home, after staying away until his disturbingly caustic father has died. But when he arrives, he finds his brother in the same sort of thrall to Ryhope, the ancient, wild wood that lies at the border of their house. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the woodland depths is a realm where mythic archetypes grow flesh and blood, where love and beauty haunt your dreams. It seems to promise freedom but hides insanity. Strange people begin emerging from the depths of the wood – green men types and Arthur knight types and Steven comes to believe that some have been created from the mind of his father. Some are deadly, but when he meets Guiwenneth, he falls in love with her ancient beauty. Eventually his brother arrives with a band of wild-men and captures her, taking her into the forest. Steven follows, trying to get past the invisible barriers that stop humans entering the mythago centre of the woods. He and a friend follow a stream that takes them past the barriers and into a mythic world. This covers two bases; it's both fantasy and reality at the same time, and held me all the way through,. </span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One for the hay-meadow, or the Village Summer Fête:</span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The Corn King and the Spring Queen</i> by Naomi Mitchison. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCIsjj4OZjrH5DsluFMzgzZylGpYXDiYqL-D9BTe6pVx1a7xi1oi5cXG9x0Mch_NUx9dBq7gLo_ktigCozc2JaHydNjWfT9TplmZusx2Jq15yW2SbT9_EFLoC8ilNK8rD-A8fUTpp160xHchoT8iY5OWEgda50uLV91Kw_mMszngjjNtMpiuWwgYKc/s347/md31131202399.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCIsjj4OZjrH5DsluFMzgzZylGpYXDiYqL-D9BTe6pVx1a7xi1oi5cXG9x0Mch_NUx9dBq7gLo_ktigCozc2JaHydNjWfT9TplmZusx2Jq15yW2SbT9_EFLoC8ilNK8rD-A8fUTpp160xHchoT8iY5OWEgda50uLV91Kw_mMszngjjNtMpiuWwgYKc/s320/md31131202399.jpg" width="277" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />Written in 1931 but available in a 1998 imprint from Amazon, my copy, gifted by a thoughtful friend, is from 1935, and a delight in itself. </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The story is long and dense, woven of history and myth and stretches from the Black Sea to Greece and Egypt. Set among the Scythians on the Black Sea in the second century, t</span><span style="font-family: arial;">he story feels modern and relevant, as well as filled with magic and the beauty of ancient times. Mitchison was a feminist, a political activist and a socialist and awarded the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">C</span><span style="font-family: arial;">B</span><span style="font-family: arial;">E, so she keeps her story of seventeen-year-old Erif Der very relevant. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Erif has witch powers and is set the task by her greedy father of bewitching, marrying, then dispatching, the king of the land. But she falls in love with Tarrik, who is the Corn King, and as Spring Queen she must be by his side when the rituals of sowing and harvest take place. Tarrik travels to meet Kleomenes, rebel king of Sparta, who fervently believes in a hedonist revolution. After his aunt tries to kill her,Erif Der follows and magics him out of a prisoner of war jail.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">She takes revenge on her scheming father, although she cannot find it in her to hurt the aunt. The two lovers then</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> join forces. This story is redolent with beauty, creativity, power, courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice. It is complex but</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkB7RNU-pLIaSbWbSIXYdgzTZ0vSacFKD4LhPAPOrL_drpEpwJWRciQ_45S6vaKW-WBMtsjDq5QIPxIaPvo9oGlHudWytTeRY5xAzTW1xqkmiUFN78S66SxfzJohhlAjghY2DTh9KmjyAej4jAg6LIBkm-wPCciyuWT_1hBXDor4Y8fv-1AoCJGtys/s750/14359.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="750" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkB7RNU-pLIaSbWbSIXYdgzTZ0vSacFKD4LhPAPOrL_drpEpwJWRciQ_45S6vaKW-WBMtsjDq5QIPxIaPvo9oGlHudWytTeRY5xAzTW1xqkmiUFN78S66SxfzJohhlAjghY2DTh9KmjyAej4jAg6LIBkm-wPCciyuWT_1hBXDor4Y8fv-1AoCJGtys/w446-h251/14359.png" width="446" /></a></div></div><div><p></p><p></p></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Strangely, then, I've read two books set by the Black Sea in the last few weeks:</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One for the Café in Town:</span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Grey Bees</i>, by Andrey Kurjiv Translated by Boris Drayuk </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKq0stqMSLxw_CQsrWK69mbCxGHc-ApK-cjiiVM4ANYUuHwAxnk1tlOEQnhIijNYyC6FKuH9EV3pQ5pl0ABdMIvRnCWolts_8pqw1H-M8PnQy6NwcrjW828IJ2L9zPZsDXfS4OLvsslfbWCDcYc-HPeSVJiPyKw5mh6ZxUq8sO998A3ZwVstivMEmf/s500/9780857059352-uk.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKq0stqMSLxw_CQsrWK69mbCxGHc-ApK-cjiiVM4ANYUuHwAxnk1tlOEQnhIijNYyC6FKuH9EV3pQ5pl0ABdMIvRnCWolts_8pqw1H-M8PnQy6NwcrjW828IJ2L9zPZsDXfS4OLvsslfbWCDcYc-HPeSVJiPyKw5mh6ZxUq8sO998A3ZwVstivMEmf/s320/9780857059352-uk.jpg" width="209" /></span></a></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: 400;">This novel isn't grey at all; it's politically red-hot — definitely one to read where people pass — you’ll be desperate </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: 400;">to tell them about it and recommend it. Set in the neutral ‘grey zone’ between Russia and Ukraine during the 2014- 2021 conflict that exploded into war this year, if features Sergey Sergeyich, a gentle, peace-loving beekeeper who lives alone in a Grey Village with no power and little food, but a surfeit of honey. No one can be trusted; there’s a Ukrainian soldier lying dead in the field at the bottom of his garden, and a mystery sniper who keeps an eye on all the goings-on. His wife has left with their daughter, along with everyone else. In fact the only other person in his village is his arch-enemy from their schooldays. But Sergey has such an honourable heart; he cannot even bear the idea that the children in the next village are missing their Christmas sweeties, which forces him to crawl, through the snow, in the middle of the night, to the soldier’s body. T</span></span></b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">o help his bees survive the lack of spring crops in the area, he goes on a road trip with a tent and trailer, camping out in forests. At first he drives into Ukraine, still at peace at that time, but</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;"> some of the locals try to wreck his car and he</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: large;"> heads to the sunshine of the Crimea, where he finds the Russians authorities are very threatening influence. He meets locals, sleeps with some sympathetic women and tries to get one woman’s husband, then her son, released from custody And all the time, he’s just not able, somehow or another, to phone his wife and daughter…</span></p><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></div><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: 400;"> </span></span></b><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One for the visit to a Roman Villa</span></b></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The Golden Ass</i> by Apuleius</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Also set around the Hellenic, world before the start of the common era, but amazingly, written at that time, in Latin by a Roman, this is one raunchy tale. I was expecting a classically literate and erudite book, but instead I was given a rollicking ride. Officially titled <i>The Metamorphoses of Apuleius</i>, Augustine of Hippo referred to it as T<i>he Golden Ass. </i>It is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZUGGAePMBsEVokWkoiA0twC7srEsOdeOyCE3Ujc4mGldnUQsQZvSuQHuRhIt-lHBzAYod7sMuMiFo36MHQnNorL3IL-GX8X2L2FVNJ_YHll4DIvWT_C7uFHwJoad_sf6uT2VwdkC9h0jjyIpEaajvP_h5Jid8GUyWVbg2Riin0daegbSL-cGvIj4/s475/md30649696347.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZUGGAePMBsEVokWkoiA0twC7srEsOdeOyCE3Ujc4mGldnUQsQZvSuQHuRhIt-lHBzAYod7sMuMiFo36MHQnNorL3IL-GX8X2L2FVNJ_YHll4DIvWT_C7uFHwJoad_sf6uT2VwdkC9h0jjyIpEaajvP_h5Jid8GUyWVbg2Riin0daegbSL-cGvIj4/s320/md30649696347.jpg" width="202" /></span></a></div><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Lucius cannot help but dabble in other people’s magic. While trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an donkey. This leads to a long journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, whose cult he joins. The word ‘novel’ had not quite been invented at that time to mean a long fictional story, but this has to be one of the world’s first picaresque novels and a worthy pre-curser to books like Don Quixote. It’s a surprising read, although I did find the animal cruelty pretty hard to swallow, especially as it’s still going on in some parts of the world. </span></p>
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<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4RWsR3xylFFtAISetVMXJhISsUfEIZnWhp9iKMWJTvfeAw3sjqlSSIladXJgnfv52ZTqPVdg91zGxr6dbt1MYVruwsdbPx26Atn1iSnVqCA7O5JPW6382ZE66C5fmg2y3AsFcpjhZQ5aBg_xKknuuovQKxSjwZdpHWLXKm5Dvo2c7aTFayf-FtYTn/s500/0755322819.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="324" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4RWsR3xylFFtAISetVMXJhISsUfEIZnWhp9iKMWJTvfeAw3sjqlSSIladXJgnfv52ZTqPVdg91zGxr6dbt1MYVruwsdbPx26Atn1iSnVqCA7O5JPW6382ZE66C5fmg2y3AsFcpjhZQ5aBg_xKknuuovQKxSjwZdpHWLXKm5Dvo2c7aTFayf-FtYTn/s320/0755322819.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One to Read on a Very Long Journey:</span></b></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>American Gods</i> by Neil Gaiman – the author’s preferred text.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">My copy of this book has almost 650 pages, and exclusive extra materials, including an interview with the author, in which he says “England has history, and America has geography.” </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Gaiman exploits that geography by sending his character, Shadow, on a road trip with old gods who expect a </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">lot – sacrifice, worship, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">violence; all</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> of the shadow side of humanity.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Shadow starts the novel as a convict and grows throughout it, reinventing himself, just as countless emigres and exiles had done with the USA. </span></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">What are you reading this summer?</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Do let me know by adding your thoughts to this kitchentablewriters post. </span></p></div>Nina Miltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03109010528418687212noreply@blogger.com0