Columns: Tag – Romantic Fiction Writing
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Watch a novel grow
Why wash my dirty words in public?
I’ve explained why I want to write the novel. That’s clear enough. But what about this running description of the trials, tribulations and (I hope) triumphs of the process of writing it? Why expose myself to the cruel taunts of an army of critics out there—that’s you, dear blog reader? Why commit myself to a very public parading of what is under normal circumstances a very private process? (There can be nothing more private, after all, than the intimate conversations you have with your characters, and the even more intimate conversations you have with yourself about your characters.)
Writing Quips and Tips
Suspense is more than a shot ringing out at midnight
Richard and I ran a Writers’ Group last night at which one of our members read us a piece of her writing. She hoped it might form the start of a memoir; a story of the things she’s been facing in her life.
It began with her waking in the night and experiencing a sense of depletion.
“Could it be my unhappy marriage of 15 years, and my inability to escape? Or perhaps my teenage daughter who has dropped out and will no longer speak to me? Could it be my niece’s struggle with cancer, followed by her painful death, or my desperate attempts to help my sister through this terrible time?” (And so on.)
We explained that she had actually told us the entire book in a couple of paragraphs – too much at once. If you read those, there’s almost no need to read further. We now know what she’s been facing in her life.
Writing Quips and Tips
McEwan on suspense
After I wrote so much about suspense last time, I found an interview with the fabulous British fiction writer, Ian McEwan, in the New Yorker. He’s one of my very favourite writers, so I was excited to find the following extract on the subject – and to see that he also believes that suspense stems from withholding information, rather than giving too much:
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