Fact or Fiction

It's been a tough week in an unrelated to writing way, so things have been a little slow. 


However I have completed over 13,000 words of rewriting for The Duke's Shadow and am now working on a new Chapter 1 and polishing off Chapter 6 for a critique.


One of the issues that has arisen with feedback is the obvious eye on historical facts. One of the reasons I chose an historical critique group was to develop a sense of time and era from those who are interested in that kind of thing. I'm no historian but I do love reading and writing historical genres. I must say that it's been a mixed experience. At one end of the scale there those writers who are knowledgeable of the time and place and who like to flavour their writing with snippets and details that will draw the reader in and add to the story being told. On the other hand there are those who are so trapped in the historical detail that their suggestions would strangle the fiction out of the story being told. So I've had to pick my way through comments, suggestions and sometimes downright rudeness at my ignorance in deciding what advice I should follow. One fellow critiquer, James, has been most helpful, particularly following a damning critique that nearly sapped my confidence. To him I shall be always grateful for developing another shoulder pad that we writers need to protect ourselves from the nasty critique.


And for me, it will always be story first, with an eye on the historical detail to ground it, but always as a flavouring. And I now have this quote fixed in front of my desk to remind me, what and who I am...

The historian records, but the novelist creates. EM Forster

Until Later... 

In Memory of Ray Bradbury

I'm dedicating this weeks blog to a man who has shaped writing and writers for many years. There is nothing I could write which would match his style or motivation. So here are some of his most famous quotes. 

• “Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.”

• “The trouble with a lot of people who try to write is they intellectualize about it. That comes after. The intellect is given to us by God to test things once they’re done, not to worry about things ahead of time.”

• “What can we writers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.”

•  “I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.”

• “We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

•  “Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.”

•  “You fail only if you stop writing.”

• “Don’t talk about it; write.”

• “You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the necessary work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality. How so? Quantity gives experience. From experience alone can quality come. All arts, big and small, are the elimination of waste motion in favor of the concise declaration. The artist learns what to leave out. His greatest art will often be what he does not say, what he leaves out, his ability to state simply with clear emotion, the way he wants to go. The artist must work so hard, so long, that a brain develops and lives, all of itself, in his fingers.”

• “A writer is a magnet passing through a factual world, taking what he needs.”

• “A story should be like a river, flowing and never stopping, your readers passengers on a boat whirling downstream through constantly refreshing and changing scenery.”

• “My readers must become the main character. In ‘Dial Double Zero’ they must be Tom, confronted by a miracle, trying to understand . . . the mysterious voice that keeps calling him on the telephone.”

• “The real fear isn’t rejection, but that there won’t be enough time in your life to write all the stories that you have in you.”

To Blog or Not To Blog

My posting has been a bit erratic lately. A number of reasons or excuses, call them what you will. The main being my head is firmly stuck into rewrite of The Duke's Shadow and turning all the great feedback I'm getting into improving my manuscript. As I have given it top priority, that's fair enough and I'm really enjoying it so it works all round.

The second is our WA Anthology, Foreign Encounters, which I posted about last week. I have to pull out of the bag a fiction and non-fiction piece (I wouldn't attempt poetry) and submit to my fellow members for critique well in advance of the deadline. So I've been rolling ideas (a bit of a grand term really, just nuggets really) around but still not any further than that.

Thirdly, sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself on here, that's not unusual - I'm used to my own company. Blogging can sometimes feel like a chore, especially if you feel you don't have something to say that is witting and interesting, and I suppose that's why readers will read or not. So posts will continue to be a bit intermittent but I will do another character profile soon, I need my Duke to develop some redeeming features...

Until Later...