Tag: science fiction

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Finding Inspiration at Home

Finding Inspiration at Home

With many of us working from home, it can sometimes be tricky to find inspiration in an area in which you have spent months living and working in. Some may even struggle facing their laptop, especially if they have been working on it all day. I have collated a few ideas that will provide you with a new insight into your home and how your daily routine can help you create new plots and develop characters.

Short on Time?

Many of us may be working full-time, home-schooling your children or have caring responsibilities, which can take a lot of time away from your writing. Whenever I am short on time (my teaching breaks are 15 minutes) I try to come up with a Haiku as a snapshot of how my day is going. A Haiku is a 3 line poem, with each line consisting of so many syllables. The structure is as follows:

Line 1 (5 syllables)

Line 2 ( 7 syllables)

Line 3 ( 5 syllables)

I don’t normally write poetry. However I do like puzzles and I feel like a Haiku poem is a mixture of puzzles and writing that fits really well into my short breaks. You may even prefer to write several Haikus to create a longer form of poetry.

Feeling Lonely?

Living on your own or being around the same type of people can be boring and will not be helping your creativity grow. Instead spark your creativity by inviting your characters over. Jot down every detail: How do they knock on the door/ring the bell? Their posture when you open the door – Do they barge past or ask politely to come in? Once they’re in the house/flat, consider which room they’ll go into. Will it be the study, the kitchen, or maybe even the bathroom? Consider all of their actions, from their fidgeting to their manners. This exercise can be a great way to get to know your characters, as their daily actions may impact their decisions within your story.

Writing tip

Looking for New Ideas?

Consider some of the sacrifices and changes you’ve had to make over the last few months. It could be only seeing your friends via an online chat forum, wearing a mask on public transport or only leaving the house once a day. Once you have a list of these, consider a genre of your choice. This could be any or a mixture of both. When you have decided on the genre/genres you wish to write about, have a look at your changes/sacrifices and try to write a scene in that genre. For example:

If you were writing a crime/thriller novel, your friend might think they’ve left the online chatroom when they haven’t and a crime is committed for the reader to witness?

Perhaps a man in a drive-thru has fallen for the barista who gives him his coffee on a daily commute? Maybe it was the look in their eyes, beyond the mask…

Remember, the possibilities here are endless!

Have a go yourself and see what you come up with.

articles, Writing

How does reading benefit a writer?

How does reading benefit a writer?

We’ve all asked and heard the advice, haven’t we? How do I improve writing? Read more. The pure broadness of this answer really doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not saying it’s not correct but it’s not exactly useful either. This post will delve into this question with a little more focus on what type of reading to consider and how we will be able to use our reading to our writing advantage.

 

What do you like to write?

This is the first question you need to ask yourself. You might like to write a specific genre, ie. thriller, romance etc, or you may prefer to write for a particular audience. Are you writing for a male, female audience for example? Or do you perhaps like to write for a younger audience? Whatever your answer is to this question, this is the type of reading that will help you. If you would like to write romantic YA novel, then that is the genre you know you need to read more. By doing this, you will soon begin to acknowledge what you find gripping and therefore what your readers will find gripping. You might even discover a technique that you really despise and know definitely what NOT to do in your own work. 

 

Whether you like or dislike the book – learn from it.

Just because you did not enjoy reading a certain book, doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from it. I once read a book that was given to me as a gift. At first I thought I would enjoy it but the author kept going off track to explain the characters backgrounds. It was really annoying but I persevered and realised afterwards that my books need to be more concise and fast paced. Quick task: Have a look through your books on your bookshelf and consider what you didn’t like about them. Was it plot, the way the characters were presented to you, or was it unrealistic? Once you have done this, consider what would have made it a better read. Whatever you think the improvements should be, take that advice and include it within your own writing. Remember you have been a reader here and have been disappointed with the outcome – only you as a reader can put that right by doing so in your own writing.

person writing on notebook
Photo by Julia M Cameron on Pexels.com

Learn from your heroes.

If you have a favourite author you jump to when you pick up a new book, consider what you like about them. You might like the author because of how they grab your attention within the first few paragraphs, or you may find their dialogue really engaging. Here is were you can learn from them. If you struggle with dialogue for example, pick a scene that your author has created the demonstrates a great conversation. Now begin to analyse what makes their writing so engaging. Is it the word choice, the action that is placed in-between the conversation or perhaps it just seems effortless? Keep this scene in front of you and then have a go at mimicking this style in a scene of your own writing. You may find that this really helps you with your dialogue, you may even think that it doesn’t sound like you – and that’s okay. That just shows that you already know your own writing style.

 

Write a book review

Writing a book review can really help you understand the main themes of a book and help you consider how these can impact your own work. Sometimes when writing it can be easy to get lost in the genre you’re writing. However if you read a book in the genre you are wanting to write, you will be able to acknowledge any underlying themes that occur in this genre. Writing a review also helps you analyse plot, pacing and characterisation in greater detail. Sometimes the author can even write in such a way that the characters take over and drive the rest of the plot forward. However it is only with writing a book review that all of the authors hard labour of writing the book can be acknowledged.

By doing all of the above, the concept of ‘read more’ seems more solidified to me. Ultimately you can interpret the answer to the original question whichever you like. However I stand by that the concept of reading more was to be subjective to a writer’s own interpretation to their chosen genre. Feel free to have a go at my suggestions and let me know if they work for you. 

Book Review, Uncategorized

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

Sceptre Books, £7.99, 613 pages, paperback, 2014.

The Bone Clocks could be described as one of the most unique and original books I have read to date. The Bone Clocks takes its readers on a lifelong journey to show the ups and downs that life can offer. Mitchell’s novel changes perspective a few times to demonstrate how one person can impact so many other lives. Given the change of perspectives, it is evident at how much thought has gone into the creation of The Bone Clocks, as although the perspective may change, the main character does not.

Throughout the novel an undercurrent theme of science fiction can be seen through the main character’s, Holly Sykes’, potential of psychic ability. However this is no fortune telling, carrot reading or crystal ball kind of psychic. In fact this concept is brought up and discussed within the novel; providing its readers with answers throughout the Sykes’ journey.

At first I did find this book a bit difficult to read, purely because there are no chapters. Only sections and brief spaces between paragraphs give an indication as to where a good place to stop reading may occur. Having said that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. As a reader I feel as if I have travelled through Sykes’ journey with her and have gotten to know her intricately. The understanding I now have of Holly is the equivalent to the understanding of a main character from a trilogy book-set.

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If you want to be whisked away by a character’s journey, then be prepared to be whisked away by The Bone Clocks.

articles, Uncategorized, Writing

Feminist Dystopias within Science Fiction

‘Only by considering dystopia as a warning can we as readers hope to escape such a dark future.’

This post will explore the depiction of feminist dystopias within the science fiction genre. Margaret Atwoods’ Oryx & Crake (2003), The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1979) question whether a feminist dystopia will provoke change in contemporary society.

A utopia is an ideal place that could be described as a haven. It is created from people’s perspectives of what could warrant an ideal place. This includes ideal laws and politics, which result in a perfect society. A dystopia however, perceives the opposite of a utopia and could therefore include a place of oppression and inequality. In relation to a feminist dystopia, M. Keith Booker states in Woman on the Edge of a Genre: Feminist Dystopias of Marge Piercy that,

‘feminist visions of the future tended in general to show a dark turn in the 1980s, probably due to political reverses that damped the feminist optimism of the 1970s.’

Booker’s assumptions of why feminist writers had taken to writing dystopias instead of utopias proves to be a theme within critiques of the science fiction genre. Raffaella Baccolini in The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction states that the term utopia, has lost its value as ‘it has been conflated with materialist satisfaction and thus commodifed’ within society. Thus it is because critiques were noticing a turn from a feminist utopia towards dystopian fiction that the term feminist dystopia was created.

A feminist dystopia critiques contemporary society by extrapolating patriarchal ideologies in the future. Thus feminist writers display patriarchal societies as a dystopia by the oppression of women and the internalisation of patriarchal ideologies. Although this post focuses on this issue in relation to science fiction, there are many other genres that these texts suit. All of the texts display the qualities that can be found in speculative fiction. Oryx & Crake is post-apocalyptic, The society in The Handmaid’s Tale is a result of the assasination of the president and Woman on the Edge of Time debates how neurosurgery could lead to a dystopia. As the dystopian worlds have been extrapolated from contemporary society, the texts could also relate to fantasy and dystopian fiction. Anne Cranny-Francis in Feminist Fiction critiques the fantasy genre as a way of changing contemporary society. She states that,

‘the contradictions concealed by realist conventions are highlighted in fantasy literature, […] fantasy thereby shows the fragmentation of the real, revealing the real as a negotiation of conflicting discourses.’

This supports a feminist dystopia as a feminist dystopia critiques the flaws within the real so that the reader can negotiate other ideologies for society. Although Cranny-Francis is critiquing fantasy literature, her concept is still relevant to a feminist dystopia. Baccolini supports this by claiming that genres are ‘culturally constructed’ and ‘it is the science fiction genre that will able feminist criticism to deconstruct the genres that fit contemporary society’. Therefore with Atwood and Piercy critiquing contemporary society through science fiction, the readers are able to glimmer into a possible reality. Thus the readers reluctance to live in such a world will help change contemporary society.

This post was originally posted on my Medium account. To see what else I’ve posted click here.