I’m just back from a few days at the Ullapool Book Festival and a few days walking on Skye. Lots of ideas and inspiration from both, including some great reflections on the value and purpose of writing.
Here’s a comment that I picked up from one of the discussion sessions. It was a timely reminder of the responsibility we have as writers for the words we use and the worlds we depict.
How do you think it applies to your writing?
Good writers describe the world
Better writers reveal the world
Great writers create the world
I love this! I can create a wonderful and inspiring Affirmation for my writing with these thoughts!
Thank you!
Hi Karen, I’m glad this struck a chord with you. Like you I found it a powerful way to think about the aim and purpose of writing.
Joanna
What a brilliant and insightful post, Joanna. Though, yet another old one, haha. (I’ll be getting to the newer posts in time, I promise)
As a near-solely fictional writer and fan of reading fiction, I entirely agree with the points raised here. As a personal preference, I like to be immersed within a world when reading, and conversely try to immerse when I am writing, and that’s something which can only be done by creating a world.
It matters not if it is a fictional, fantastical world of elves, dragons and fairies, or you are writing about the real world. It’s the tiny nuances that make a world come alive. That is the role of the fictional writer, I believe.
Matt, I am a little worried about what you might turn up as you go through these two year old archives! I do think my stuff has got better with time, honestly…
“It’s the tiny nuances that make a world come alive.”
I like that sentence v much. Applies to memoir writing too, which is what I’m currently immersed in
Thanks