Home For Fiction – Blog

for thinking people

Gender and Sexuality in Dracula

March 17, 2018

Criticism

academia, criticism, Dracula, sexuality

Note: the following article on gender and sexuality in Dracula is a modified excerpt (pp. 102-107) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see the list on the main website.

Productive and Non-Productive Sexuality in Dracula

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a text replete with sexual innuendos. More importantly, it is filled with hints at a non-normative sexuality.

Count Dracula makes it almost explicit, when he warns the three female vampires that are about to attack Jonathan to stay back, stating “[t]his man belongs to me!” (Stoker 2003, 46). Hindle notes that Stoker’s earlier drafts were even more revealing, as Dracula’s full warning originally was “[t]his man belongs to me I want him” (Hindle 2003, xxxiv).

sexuality in Dracula
Victorian sexuality is a misunderstood subject
(more…)

Over-Explaining in Writing and How to Avoid It

March 14, 2018

Literature

creativity, literature, over-explaining, patience, writing

Besides a linear narrative progression and not optimal narrative endings, another problem area for authors of fiction is over-explaining. By over-explaining in writing, we mean the tendency of a writer to provide too much factual information. This is usually detrimental to the overall pace of the novel, but it’s not the only repercussion, as we will see further below.

In today’s article I’ll show you where over-explaining in writing comes from (in other words, why fiction writers tend to over-explain), as well as how to avoid it. As a sneak preview, I could reveal that over-explaining in writing is very much related to an author’s relationship with their audience. In more detail, fiction authors who over-explain do so out of fear that their readers will not understand the story.

over-explaining in writing
Art is NOT about facts; it’s about affect. To over-explain means an author is preoccupied with facts where s/he should have focused on showing affect
(more…)

Too many Photos, not enough Experiences

March 12, 2018

Experiencing

experience, life, mediocrity, nostalgia, photos, social media, time

I’ve said in the past how memory is everything for a writer. More importantly, however, it’s precisely the memorable experience that is useful for authors. In other words, experiencing something that affects you helps create an image of the experience. This mental image, though accessible only by and through your mind, is very vivid and powerful in terms of affect. Perhaps it is its very nature – abstract, rare, living its ghostly existence only in your consciousness – that gives it its power. Compare that with the modern habit of taking too many photos without the experiences associated with them.

It’s insidious.

I doubt – though nowadays, you never know – you took actual photos during your first date with your loved one. Which one do you remember the best, particularly in terms of affect? The first date from ten years ago with zero photos or a vacation four years ago with hundreds of actual photos (and plenty more selfies)?

Taking too many photos without the experiences the photos refer to renders them both meaningless. Let’s see why, and it’s particularly from an author’s standpoint I’m examining this. It all began… with a dream.

too many photos, not enough experiences
I’m using this image to connote the concept of “memorable experience”. But from the couple’s own perspective, the only image of their experience worth having is the one in their minds
(more…)