characters
November 18, 2009
- I had introduced a character and written about him for a week without giving him a first name. Or, more accurately - finding out his name. But the time came when the other character, who arrived with first name no problem at all, wanted to know the man's first name. A reasonable question for the woman and, golly gee, I bet the readers would be relieved, also.But.His name would not come. Last ...
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November 2, 2009
- Doing a road trip for 5 days along the CA coast -- Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay -- great inspiration for the next book and tons of new characters. Sometimes I have to get out of L. A. to see where I am and where I'm going. On the road again -- sing it Willie.
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October 24, 2009
- I won’t be able to complete it. There is something about the unfinished that I find fascinating…perhaps because that is how things have been for me.Just look at a piece of bread that lies on the plate, crumbs surrounding it. What does it convey? That it has been broken, the hard crust revealing its supple insides. It is not a useless static baked piece.A half-eaten apple with teeth marks – ...
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October 22, 2009
- We made it to Thursday night -fabulous! It's not like we wouldn't but whether or not we'd all be intact was debatable. Seems like the last few weeks have been a tad rough. Monday I realized one of my two new characters was a total pain in the ass to work with. Not a good thing to discover at all. Don't get me wrong -I like him fine. It's just that he's so far out of my comfort zone that I ...
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October 7, 2009
- I've come to realize that one of the methods I use in writing a novel is to 'paint myself into a corner'. I get my characters into a devil of a mess and then they have to figure out how to resolve it. It may be lazy on my part, but I like to interpret it as genius.Over the next few days (weeks?) all my characters face a battle of vessels and boats on the surface of a broad harbour on the coast ...
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October 4, 2009
- How is surrealism different from magic realism? Fantasy? Speculative Fiction? How does the prose poem fit in? Except for prose poems, all other fiction, from romance novels and science fiction to highly literary fiction, must audition and cast characters from the land in which they live. Reluctantly--or perhaps eagerly--they always show up. And often they do very good ...
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September 23, 2009
- During my twenty-eight years of writing, I’ve heard plenty of advice from other authors. One tidbit stands out: tighten the relationship between characters. I know exactly where (in Albert Zuckerman’s Writing the Blockbuster Novel) and when (1995, as I wrote Reflection) I read this suggestion. It’s stayed with me all these years and I draw on it with every book I write. I thought of how ...
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September 21, 2009
- Cross posted from Fictional Life I read somewhere that a writer shouldn't fall in love with her characters to the point that she can't let them go. I understand that. Once a story is finished, a writer can do two things with it: She can put it under the bed (or leave it in her writing folder) and hoard it, or she can make it available to others. Either of those options has its pitfalls.Emily ...
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September 16, 2009
- I just climbed out of the The Slough of Not Writing—a place of confusion, boredom, and stoic self-reliance. During this time all kinds of projects were cached in my computer--a disorganized filing system that invariably shocks techno-people. And there were a lot floating around since I work from fragments that seem unviable, until--like shells releasing flowers underwater--something brings ...
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September 15, 2009
- Ideas for novels come from a variety of sources: overheard conversations, stories relayed by others, personal experience, locations and the news. On my blog I recently mentioned the Windsurfing Festival on Hayling Island as a potential idea for an Inspector Andy Horton Marine Mystery crime novel, well here's another idea that popped into my Google Reader - Murder on the Hayling Seaside Express. ...
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