Presently I am reading Anuradha Roy’s novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing .
As with any good novel, interactions between the main characters are strained.
Tension abounds, but not in a melodramatic way.
The story moves with a nice speed for an opening.
I look forward each evening–a hallmark that I have found a jewel of a novel–to settling into bed,
Of Books, Tension, and The Mind on the Page… Read More »
Author, Ken Follett, writes, “There is a rule which says that the story should turn about every four to six pages. A story turn is anything that changes the basic dramatic situation. It can change it in a little way or change it in a big way. …You can’t go longer than about six pages without a story turn, otherwise the reader will get bored. … Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, follows the same rule. In Dickens it’s the same; something happens about every four to six pages.”
The author of at least 20 novels, many of which are thrillers that have achieved international success, this list includes Follett’s well-received historical works, The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, the latter of which made the New York Times Best Seller List.
Adapted for film, The Pillars of the Earth debuted July 23, 2010 on Starz as a mini-series.
When it comes to pacing, Follett’s admonishments are well taken. But what is he really talking about?
Pacing. Read the rest of this entry…
Of Pacing, Tension and the All-Important Artistry of Holding the Reader’s Attention…a Read More »
“A successful resolution thwart the our expectation; it doesn’t (fully) satisfy them.”—-Peter Selgin, 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers
Reversals sit at the heart of a successful resolution. And since novels consist of a continual list of crises fostered by a string of obstacles, both physical and human writers must embed our stories with a minefield of reversals.
But what is the true nature of a reversal?
Of Reversals, Plausible Endings and the Artistry of Thwarting Expectations… Read More »
Surviving a crisis bestows special knowledge garnered and held by few.
It also grants admittance into various orders of wisdom yielded by experience.
Every novel or story a writer crafts tells the life of a certain crisis, and chronicles a central character’s survival of that crisis. The process of writing that novel flows out of an upheaval, the completion of which involves many obstacles that reach a crescendo of conflict and tension.
Of Crises, Experience and Goals… Read More »
There comes a time in every story or novel when the main character stands in the midst of her or his dilemma like Alice does in Wonderland.
The protagonist ponders, How do present circumstances differ from my immediate past?
This place, like that of Alice in her wondrous, and yet frightening Wonderland sits between the time of order in the life of the main character, then shaken by chaos and the present time of having begun the journey towards adapting to the change required by the moment of upheaval and the need to survive.
Of Dilemmas, Alice in Wonderland, and Shifts in Consciousness… Read More »
Words for opening of the next scene came to me as I lay in bed.
Fearful that i might lose them, I turned on the lamp beside my bed and wrote them by hand.
The Holidays and Traveling Slowly… Read More »
According to Jungian theory, the shadow aspect of one’s personality contains any, and everything that falls out of alignment, stands apart, from the ego ideal. The writer must examine the central character’s values, those held by her or his family, mother, father and culture, to gain a sense of how the Shadow archetype might manifest
Who Am I: What Do I Really Want? Read More »