Comments on: Charlotte From Sweeden Asks…

By: Nadine

Nadine — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:16:52 +0000

Thanks for your insights. And to answer your question, I am searching for knowledge. Beyond that I have a thirst for novelties, and at the moment I am taking great pleasure in reading Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.

By: Robin Rice

Robin Rice — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:09:43 +0000

I think that is the idea of fan fiction, and I truly approve, if the exercise makes you think, create, and find meaning. Otherwise, why do it?

By: Nadine

Nadine — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:04:30 +0000

Sometimes artists will take another’s work and replicate it while incorporating new ideas, using different media, or doing whatever possible to create an entirely new and different work while keeping the same frame/theme/outline of the previous art work. Doing this allows the artist to experience another’s style, and thus helps him/her develop his/her own artistic style. Would it be effective to do the same in writing? For example, taking a sentence from a classic book and creating another sentence by replacing the parts of speech where they correspond accordingly. One might take the sentence “They walked to the lake” and make the new sentence “We danced in the garden.” The pronoun “they ” is changed to “we” and the verb “walked” becomes “danced” and so on…

By: Robin Rice

Robin Rice — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:59:55 +0000

Hmmm….. I was thinking about this just this AM, remembering how the very critic-panned book “Bridges of Madison County” was loved by so many. WHY? Well, there’s a place for literature, and a place for a good read, and a place for stories that help you know who you are and why, and maybe look a little deeper than you would have otherwise. If you are lucky, you find a few books in your life that offer all of them at just the moment you need them. I, personally, have no aspirations toward writing something that anyone else can label and I’m prepared to be accused of a great many things. (Maybe why I’m not on the NYT bestseller list yet! Ha!) I try to tell good stories about characters that grow, and interest me, and point to larger world views, and make you think about who you are and why you are here. Maybe even heal something that feels broken or lost or alone, yet without a hint of preaching. I think as a reader you have to ask yourself what are you looking for. So… what are you looking for?

By: Nadine

Nadine — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:48:15 +0000

Book critics claim that “any accessible, fast-moving story written in unaffected prose is deemed to be ‘genre fiction’-at best an excellent ‘read’ or ‘page turner’ but never literature with a capital L.” Another novel critic reminded me of the Twilight series when he asked, “Who… wants to be accused of writing ‘action movies in book form’?” What is your opinion?