Thoughts, feelings, day-to-day activities that comprise your entire life. I’ve written previously about writing journals but I’m talking about something entirely more personal. Writing a diary of your own life can also be a great way to practise. You can intersperse a more traditional narrative around entries or you can do as I’m planning to do and use them sparingly. You don’t have to write a whole novel in diary form. In the next novel I am planning to write, the book will open with a diary entry (although it won’t continue in that way) in order to give a voice to a character who will after that day spend twenty years in a coma while the world changes around her. And simply by combining the story of the Maybricks with the story of Jack the Ripper, you get this book, which is a terrific way to spend a week, particularly if you’re a Jack the Ripper conspiracy theory enthusiast (which I am).” I don’t think I’m spoiling the surprise if I tell you James died from an arsenic overdose and Florence was convicted of his murder. The story of the Maybrick family was already a fantastic one – patriarch James, a cotton merchant and arsenic addict, his wife Florence, an American (which in those days in England was enough said), his brother Michael, who never liked Florence, Florence’s lover Alfred, a house full of servants and two children who were ultimately left orphans. Paper and ink analysis experts say it’s conclusively a hoax and it probably is but that doesn’t make this book any less of a ripper (pun intended) yarn… Creativity comes in many forms and sometimes that creativity is a little bit sneaky, a little bit underhanded, a little bit malevolent. “Who doesn’t love a good hoax diary? That’s to say, if it is a hoax. In fact, I included it in my top ten books, writing: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Discovery, the Investigation and the Debate by Shirley Harrison is a great read, regardless of which side of the fence you fall on. Some have clearly been fiction, others were presented as real diaries and later declared hoaxes, others still have people debating their veracity. There have been books written as the diaries of Anne Boleyn, Adolf Hitler and Jack the Ripper to name a few. Perhaps the most notable thing about all of the above books is that they were the start of the books’ series of diaries, which have all been very successful (all made into films or television shows).Īnother great use of diaries is as a way of exploring real historical people. * The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend * Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding There are some truly terrific and memorable novels that were written as diaries: Diaries are great for writers because they allow for a type of novel that is more focused on the voice of the character rather than how beautiful the words of the author are (even though they are essentially the same thing).įor anyone struggling to get into writing a novel in a more straightforward narrative, a great way to exercise the writing muscles is to forget about writing the novel and to write a diary from the perspective of the main character or characters. One of the great options is writing your novel as a diary.ĭiaries are great for readers because as well as telling a story, they also give a voyeuristic view into the worlds and lives of the people writing them. I wrote recently about some of the basic choices writers must make when they first begin to write their novel – tense, point of view and perspective – and another of those basic choices is the format of the book. Follow me on Twitter My Tweets Tags 2 Stars 2.5 Stars 3 Stars 4 stars 5 Stars A Book About Writing Adaptation Advice Amazon Australian Author Australian Fiction Author Black Spot Blog Post Book Book Review Books Chapter One Character Characters Death Development Dialogue Diary Dictionary Editing Employment Enemies Closer English Family Fiction Genre Goodreads Growth History Ideas Inspiration Job Liberty's Secret LinkedIn Marketing Master's Non-Fiction Novel Plot Poems Poetry Poets Practise Project December Project January Project October Publishing Reading Romance Rules Sequel Short Story Sisters Song Lyrics Spelling Stereotypes Study Text Prize Tips Top Ten Trine University Word Count Work Writer Writers Writing Writing Journal Young Adult Archives
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |