for thinking people
November 30, 2020
Self-reflection isn’t easy, as humans have a tendency for confirmation bias. To put it bluntly, it’s easier to believe in a comforting lie than to face an ugly truth. Writers are no exception – indeed, as we’ll see, in some sense they’re particularly vulnerable to self-deception, but probably not in the way you’d expect – and as a result they struggle to gauge their writing skills.
November 2, 2020
The title of this post claims finding connections in your writing is important. Actually, it’s more than that: It’s crucial. Indeed, I’d go as far as calling it critical. If you can’t find connections in your writing, you’re in serious trouble.
I’ve mentioned this before, in my post on imagination and creativity: “Creative writing is a connection game, and that’s where imagination plays a major part; in helping you see the connections”, I then said.
In today’s post we will expand on this concept. I will show you
As a sneak preview I could mention that finding connections in your writing has to do with the bigger picture and the affective power of your novel.
October 19, 2020
Today’s post on (not) repeating reality in fiction is authored by Igor da Silva Livramento. He’s a fellow academic from UFSC, fellow author, fellow creative-writing advisor, and overall a great fellow. He’s also a composer, music theorist, and producer. Check out his papers on Academia.edu, his music on Bandcamp, and his personal musings on his blog – in Portuguese, Spanish/Castilian, and English. You can also find him on LinkedIn.
If you want your fiction to immerse the reader, you probably suppose you should describe reality as it is. That is, you should be repeating reality in your fiction. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Writing fiction is a process of controlled distortion, in which emphasis is placed on what really matters.
If we describe all the details of an event, we will fill many pages with unimportant trivia. Moreover, we will leave the reader tired, cognitively and affectively, so they will be unable to appreciate the most important moments of the narrative. All our figures of speech, so well crafted, will be nothing more than exhaustive annoyances.
