Reading and Writing Fiction
I’ve heard this idea expressed by numerous people, critics and writers especially, and it makes sense. However, to understand what it means to “write what you know,” I have to look at my experiences and then examine what I write to see what the connection really is. And that brings up some interesting insights and […]
What is atmosphere? Atmosphere is something that the writer creates through setting to make a reader feel a certain way in a particular scene. Mood, on the other hand, creates a feeling that lasts from cover to cover. Creating mood through setting seems to me to be a subtle manipulation of the reader to feel […]
I was listening to the radio a while ago and heard a writer talking about plotting a novel, a crime novel. He stressed the fact that he wrote out scene details on pieces of paper, different colours for different sub plots, and stuck them up all over the walls of the room he wrote in. […]
To talk about metaphor, I have to at least mention simile. As I understand it, a simile is simply a comparison: something is like something else. And usually, at least in literature, similes are used to link something concrete to something abstract, like a feeling or an idea. Although there’s a big difference between a […]
Mood is just what it says; it evokes feelings in readers mostly through description. Mood is therefore buried in the setting; it’s part of the setting and setting surrounds readers with material that links the concrete world of things with the abstract world of feelings and ideas. Setting does this through the use of imagery, […]