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With the continued growing popularity of the short story, many good collections are released each year and yet sadly the majority go unnoticed by mainstream readers.
Heroes come and go. That’s certainly true of the fictional variety where very few linger in the mind beyond the last page of a novel. So what makes the perfect fictional hero?
Whether it be a spine-tingling ghost story, the sighting of a UFO, stories of Gods and Deities, or the fascination of the occult, most of us are curious in one way or another about the supernatural.
Pitching the rhetoric at just the right point between the believable and the unbelievable compels the reader to continue, and forces them to ponder on possible political realities of the future.
Whilst the issues of prejudice and discrimination are multi-faceted and complicated beyond belief, a key moment for me was the day I picked up ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Harper Lee implicitly drilled down the relative unfairness of human existence into my 12-year-old brain, creating a sense of outrage that has stayed with me throughout my life.
The imaginary worlds and characters of fantasy fiction continue to enthral readers around the world.
The best time travel books in fiction have certainly gone through something of a transition.
Possibly the trickiest of all writing genres, the thriller comes with high expectations, which are hard to fulfil. So what do we expect from a thriller, and why do we enjoy reading them so much?
Albert Einstein said that. No doubt imagination, then, is a great thing to have if it yields such rich thinking in adulthood-But when does imagination start in the brain? And how important is reading for developing imagination young minds?
The explosion in self-publishing and the subsequent success of self-published authors has certainly turned the publishing industry on its head.
Trying to distil the essence of a good book down to a few short words is a thankless task because the qualities that define good books are, more often than not, quite elusive.
Dusk creeps upon you as you make your way home, bringing with it the stillness and dark of night. As one sense shutters another opens, magnifying each whisper of wind-every shuffle on the pavement behind you.
Is there a better way to live and can self healing books set us on the right path?
How often do we read a book where a character appears in the mind’s eye fully formed?
I read with both fascination and disgust as I learned how he was attacked by a bear who scalped him and left part of his skull flapping open but was not prepared to lay down and die.
Go back not so many years and an author was just that-an author…. who wrote, and at the most maybe edited their own work. How different things are today!
It is estimated that there are approximately 4,300 religions in the world. Even then, the concept of religion itself is hard to understand – in some people’s eyes synonymous with spirituality, and in others largely a vehicle for control.
While the occult is a broad umbrella, hiding its many forms under its silky black folds, it’s concepts have endured through time, enjoying many a resurgence through the ages. The term ‘occultism’, is relatively new, not used in French or English literature, for instance, until the 19th Century, although the term ‘occult sciences’ was commonly used in the 16th Century to describe practices such as astrology, alchemy, mysticism, and natural magic.
A child’s imagination is a wonderful thing. The suspension of disbelief comes easy to them. As we get older we think in terms of our willingness to suspend our critical faculties and believe something surreal whilst sacrificing realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment.
Whilst the evolution of self-publishing has proved a genuine boon for readers the bar for publishing has been notably lowered and in no genre more obviously than Literary Fiction.
Are we desensitising our young people with the graphic offerings of modern media? And going even further, do the conclusions of ‘Bandura and the Bobo doll’ still hold true in the modern era?
Whilst there is undoubted value in considering historical context, not least because past forces, individuals and trends both shape the present and provide valuable lessons for our future decisions, is historical fiction of any value?
We said it so often it seems like we are on continuous replay but we make no apology for saying it again. The days when an author could simply write for a living are over.
As inconceivable as it seems, the ‘man’, Jeff Bezos himself, has predicted the demise of Amazon. “Amazon is not too big to fail … In fact, I predict one day Amazon will fail,”
As fantastical as science fiction seems, there is often something familiar about the incredible concepts dreamt up by its writers. In fact, not only familiar at times but eerily accurate about future advances. Is this some kind of scientific prophesy? Is there something sinister going on?
There are a number of essential techniques an author must master if they ever want to top a bestsellers list and none more so than the ability to deliver genuine suspense.
It is an inescapable fact that Language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of successive generations. It’s the way of evolution and as long as the needs of language users continue to change, so will the language.
Definitions differ as to what constitutes a ‘genuine’ historical novel and when the term ’historical novel’ might properly be used. More importantly it begs the question as to What Makes Bestselling Historical Fiction Novels.
At their best, they stun you with their visions of ultimate endings both small and catastrophic with hauntingly bleak futures.
What makes a memoir so alluring? After all, they are not generally stuffed full with action, suspense, romance or mystery, which provide the highs and lows or other literature.
Fables can widen our appreciation of other cultures, help us understand traditions, and teach us new ways of appreciating the world and the diversity of life, reducing discrimination, and promoting acceptance.
Should writers write what they know about or has this age-old sage piece of advice become something of a cliché.
History and present day testifies to the struggles women face and have faced to earn what should be the natural right of all humankind – fairness.
The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced our consumption of media in a variety of ways. From every new Netflix original being crowned its ‘best ever’, to cinema releases being consistently pushed back, stay at home orders have resulted in us engaging with media differently.
Never before has the voice of social commentary in literature sung higher. Freedom of speech has brought with it a cacophony of loudly spoken, written and sometimes harshly promoted opinion and judgement.
Fiction Authors and poets have always found ways of confronting cultural, religious and social issues especially those where……..
We are constantly and enduringly fascinated with fictional accounts of parallel existence, alternative realities and genetic engineering. Films such as ‘The Fountain’ present immortality as attainable, whilst books such as ‘The Book Thief’ (Markus Zusak) explore the nature of death, in this case by death himself acting as narrator.
Ever had writers block? Hardly surprising! Here are our three tips to send your imagination skyward….
Near Death Experience’s or NDEs as they are more commonly called are not a new phenomenon; they’ve been reported throughout history and yet few subjects create so much division.
The fact is that few authors really master the art of suspense and those who do are the ones who come to understand its underpinning psychology.
From films to books to politics, Armageddon is a term which represents a culmination of cataclysmic events- devastating to humans, and destined to change the worlds of both heaven and earth forever.
The bedrock for authenticity has to be robust research but the inclusion of fact doesn’t necessarily make for a compelling read.
You know the ones! The edge of your seat, knuckle gnawing, nail biting books. So, what makes for a good plot. Is there a magic recipe? Or is it just potluck?
George Macdonald, when asked the reason for his chosen genre, replied,
“I write, not for the children, but for the child-like, whether they be five, or fifty, or seventy five”
The popularity of Crime Fiction might wax and wane but at the end of the day, it still remains one of the most popular genres.
The best you can bring to the reading adventure is your imagination, sense of humor, and your love of reading. Playing with a child with ASD can be enjoyable and enlightening. That playtime is also fertile ground for planting the seeds of reading.
Will reading be ‘a thing’ in the distant future? And what does it mean for writers of fiction? More importantly, what are we collectively doing to keep reading alive?
Why should we care about these personal experiences, of the reminiscing of an individual with whom we have no obvious connection?
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