|
Post by marianne on Apr 20, 2005 4:37:27 GMT
Well Patchers, our first male author is soon to be here and what a legend he is! Richard Harland will visit in the next few weeks. In anticipation you might like to check out his website at www.richardharland.netRichard writes a unique blend of horror, humour and fantasy. His fans have been known to steal secretly into bookshops and leave 'Black Crusade' calling cards in other authors books. He has taught writing at university and recently won Australia's highest spec award, a Golden Aurealis. Stay tuned....
|
|
|
Post by marianne on Apr 28, 2005 4:39:57 GMT
Hi Patchers,
Richard will be here from 5th - 9th of May. See you then with lots of questions
Marianne
|
|
|
Post by marianne on May 4, 2005 4:46:36 GMT
Hi Richard,
welcome to Parrish's Patch!
First, would you give us a snapshot about yourself and your writing. (highlights, key influences)
Second, as imaginative worlds go, yours are top of the pops. Do you normally start with the world, or a character? Or do a number of things collide for you when you begin a story?
MDP
|
|
|
Post by richardharland on May 5, 2005 3:05:09 GMT
Hi Richard, welcome to Parrish's Patch! First, would you give us a snapshot about yourself and your writing. (highlights, key influences) Second, as imaginative worlds go, yours are top of the pops. Do you normally start with the world, or a character? Or do a number of things collide for you when you begin a story? MDP Hi! A snapshot? Well, I no longer have my moustache and side-whiskers - after 35 years, they had to go. Now I can feel the wind on my face, the sun on my cheeks, etc! I guess the great miracle of my writing life was being able to finish a novel at all! I'd struggled for so long, with 30 unfinished novels (some only a chapter or two from completion) - I still have the MSS at the bottom of a cupboard at home. Then finally, THE VICAR OF MORBING VYLE, all done, all satisfactory! And when it was published by a small press - the way it took off as a cult book - I was on cloud 9. Or cloud 99! The next step was when THE DARK EDGE was accepted by a mainstream publisher, Pan Macmillan, and I gave up a tenured lectureship in order to write full time - desperately hoping that I wouldn't get stuck with writer's block again. And I haven't. After the three books in the Eddon and Vail SF/thriller series, the 3 books in the Ferren fantasy trilogy, plus stories and novels for younger readers - I think I can now say for certain that my writer's block is a thing of the past. One of the best recent nights of my life was at the Brisbane ceremony for the Aurealis Awards, when "Catabolic Magic" took out (joint winner) the Best Fantasy Story of 2004, and THE BLACK CRUSADE (prequel to THE VICAR - yes, I came back to it!) took out Best Horror Novel - and then the Golden Aurealis for Best Novel in any category of Speculative Fiction. Wowee! Influences? My fantasy always tends to have a dark side, which goes all the way back to Edgar Allan Poe. I fell in love with Poe's stories when I was about thirteen. Many of my all-time favourite books have that gothic edge to them - Mervyn Peake, China Mieville, Philip Pullman. Maybe I'm into the New Weird? (Only there's nothing very new about it.) I've probably been influenced by literature in the same vein - Dickens, and the Russian novelist Dostoevsky. How do I start working on an imaginative world? Well, like you say, it's usual a collision of several ideas that have been in my mind (and my notebooks) for a very long time. (That's the great benefit of having writer's block for all those years - at least I've got a huge backlog of ideas just waiting to be written!) But although the idea of a character might have been thought up first, I don't think it would ever be the motivating force that makes me decide - right - this is a goer - I have to write this novel! Ditto the ideas for a world - not a decider by themselves. Most often, it's when ideas for a world gel with ideas for a story - a narrative development that HAS to take place in a particular world. When I get the shape and feel of a story, then I can see if the needs of the story gel with ideas for characters I'm interested in. In the end, of course, the characters often start to run the story - and whole potential chunks of world get left out because they don't contribute enough to the character-story. But that tends to happen in the writing - I can't see it in advance because I can't see how a character will turn out until they get a chance to change and develop in ongoing action. Even as I type this, I'm beginning to think of exceptions. I admit it, I'm generalising! Cheers richard
|
|
|
Post by marianne on May 5, 2005 5:50:41 GMT
Hi Richard,
Would you mind talking about your experience with writers block? Having come out the end of it and had such success are there any suggestions you could offer someone experiencing these difficulties?
MDP
|
|
|
Post by Chirugal on May 5, 2005 18:05:12 GMT
Hi Richard, welcome to the Patch. Hope you enjoy your time here - and that some of our other members actually show up! We're in a bit of a lull at the moment so if it's quiet don't take it personally... Would you mind talking about your experience with writers block? Having come out the end of it and had such success are there any suggestions you could offer someone experiencing these difficulties? God, yes! Please answer this one! I have such problems with this. Also, I have noticed that a lot of your stuff (sadly I haven't managed to get hold of any of your books but I've read the extracts on your site) borders on the bizarre... how do you manage to write like that without getting into the realms of the utterly ridiculous and implausible?
|
|
|
Post by Cj on May 5, 2005 18:25:31 GMT
Hi Richard, My question is, your writing seems to be out on its own in terms of genre (maybe i'm wrong i'm sorry i've only read about your books but i'm definitly in the purchasing mode now!) how is your genre accepted when you began at readings or in writing groups, i personally dont go to writers groups cos they are rarely sci-fi or cyberpunk related and that stuff is frowned upon is it more widespread than i think and if not how do you deal with public readings and groups?
|
|
|
Post by richardharland on May 6, 2005 3:51:22 GMT
Hi Richard, Would you mind talking about your experience with writers block? Having come out the end of it and had such success are there any suggestions you could offer someone experiencing these difficulties? MDP I think 2 things helped me, and one of them goes without saying now, namely working on a computer. When therre were only typewriters, any change to what you'd written required whiteout - and it was impossible to shift material around except by typing it all up again. For me, that meant a reluctance to type it up in the first place. But it's only when you can see it typed up and finalised that you can see if it works. Thank god for computers, I say. The other thing that helped me was the discovery that I needed a regular writing routine. Not at the time when I was at my most creative (evening and night), but at the time when I was at my most motivated - morning. I start work straight after breakfast every day, and keep going till lunch or an hour or two after lunch. I don't have to fight myself to get into it - I start writing and the inspiration comes along. With a novel, I think, the inspiration is the sense of the world and story in your mind, much bigger than any one day's work - you just have to get back living in it and let it take over. I like to work every day, hate taking breaks - because after 3 or 4 days, the world and story have faded a bit and I find it more of a struggle to get back into them. The other part of a writing routine is to have a finishing time as well as a starting time - so that you don't go on until you've exhausted your momentum. At Swancon a month ago, Charles de Lint said that he always finished his day's writing in the middle of a sentence. That's extreme - but the principle is good! I don't worry so much about a finishing time now, but it was very important to me once. I had to have something that I wanted to get back to next day! Them's my tips - but I guess the best thing of all is to complete that first novel - then you KNOW you can do it again! Cheers Richard
|
|
|
Post by Jocasta on May 6, 2005 4:02:30 GMT
Also, I have noticed that a lot of your stuff (sadly I haven't managed to get hold of any of your books but I've read the extracts on your site) borders on the bizarre... how do you manage to write like that without getting into the realms of the utterly ridiculous and implausible? Hi Richard I'm interested in this also. Your work is always very 'grounded'--I can accept your worlds and characters while I'm reading about them, even though if I sat down and thought about it, they are extremely strange. Perhaps this ability to get us to suspend disbelief so successfully is due to the way you write with a lot of physical detail? You always ground the reader with smell/touch/sight etc. Is this a conscious effort on your part? Cheerio Maxine edited for dropped quote tag - Amy
|
|
|
Post by richardharland on May 6, 2005 4:15:42 GMT
Also, I have noticed that a lot of your stuff (sadly I haven't managed to get hold of any of your books but I've read the extracts on your site) borders on the bizarre... how do you manage to write like that without getting into the realms of the utterly ridiculous and implausible? Yes, the bizarre is home territory for me! In most of what I write there's an ege of the surreal and the incongruous. I see it everywhere in our world today - in fact, I think most people have developed a taste for it over the last thirty-forty years. (How about the ad where the tongue goes slithering off on a mission to bring back a bottle of beer? Can you imagine anyone even contemplating that more than 40 years ago?) As for implausibility - what did Aristotle say about a plausible impossibility being better than a probable implausibility? Or something like that - meaning, that what's plausible in fiction has nothing to do with statistics or the likelihood of encountering it in the real world. I guess I'd want to say that you can have some very odd things happen if you've imagined them thoroughly and seriously, and if you've also thoroughly and seriously imagined the world that brings them about. Even the oddest things can HAVE to happen if you create the coherent context for them. If the reader thinks 'that's ridiculous', then you've lost her ... but different people have very different levels of what they'll dismiss as ridiculous. I mean, some people can't accept anything that isn't true to our particular world - and some people find all fiction fairly ridiculous. 'Why read made-up stuff when there's a real world to live in?' - I'd answer, because it's more intense, more coloured, more charged with emotion. And the bizarre is one form of intensity. I have the feeling that I've only touched one tiny corner of a huge huge issue! Cheers richard edited for dropped quote tag - Amy
|
|
|
Post by richardharland on May 6, 2005 4:42:39 GMT
Hi Richard, My question is, your writing seems to be out on its own in terms of genre (maybe i'm wrong i'm sorry i've only read about your books but i'm definitly in the purchasing mode now!) how is your genre accepted when you began at readings or in writing groups, i personally dont go to writers groups cos they are rarely sci-fi or cyberpunk related and that stuff is frowned upon is it more widespread than i think and if not how do you deal with public readings and groups? Hi Cj! I'm beginning to think that my genre is the New Weird! (Which is embarrassing, because nobody seems able to define it, including me.) But maybe that's just because of the novel I'm working on at the moment. I've done a lot of genre-hopping in my time, from SF thrillers, to heaven-and-earth fantasy, to simple horror (in short stories), to gothic/macabre/bizarre. The surreal/dark thing is there in most all of my stuff to a greater or lesser degree - but it's The Black Crusade and/or The Vicar of Morbing Vyle that you're probably thinking of as 'out on their own'. I don't know that anyone has ever hit on exactly the same note as The Black Crusade, but I see plenty of tendencies in the same direction. It's the mood of the times, I really believe that. Of course, some people don't 'get it' (including one particular reviewer in The Age) - and people who don't get it may be offended. Okay, I can live with that; they SHOULD be offended! I don't want to write safe and middle-of-the road; I want to write something strongly flavoured as against bland. Or at least, that's what I wanted to do with The Black Crusade. I do readings the same way - strongly flavoured in the sense of highly dramatic/melodramatic. Never had any problem there. I wouldn't be part of a critique group that wasn't reasonably in sympathy with what I was doing - no point. A critique in sympathy can still be negative, even savage; but an out-of-sympathy critique doesn't help anyone. Cheers richard
|
|
|
Post by richardharland on May 6, 2005 5:02:25 GMT
I'm interested in this also. Your work is always very 'grounded'--I can accept your worlds and characters while I'm reading about them, even though if I sat down and thought about it, they are extremely strange. Perhaps this ability to get us to suspend disbelief so successfully is due to the way you write with a lot of physical detail? You always ground the reader with smell/touch/sight etc. Is this a conscious effort on your part? Cheerio Maxine Hi Maxine! I like your word 'grounded'! I certainly try to make imaginings concrete and perceptual - so I hope it comes across! When I do school visits ('cos I write kids' novels too), one workshop exercise that always works well is when I set up a (fantasy) event and get the kids to answer: 1) what would you see/visual effects? 2) what would you hear? 3) what would you smell? 4) what touch sensations? 5) what would you think and feel? It's amazing how good the answers are - and also, how the answers of younger kids are typically even better than those of kids in year 10, 11, 12. Maybe it's because the older kids aren't prepared to imagine so seriously, or are more inhibited about leaving themselves behind. Maybe they're afraid of seeming a bit ridiculous! I truly believe everyone starts out with tremendous concrete imagination - but so often it gets worn away, ground down. I don't do a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 checklist for my own writing - but I do do something that helps me. (This is very dubious advice, because I've never heard of any other author doing it.) In the afternoon or evening - long after I've finished my day's writing - I think about the episode I'm going to be working on tomorrow - and I kind of pre-film it in my head. That is, I think about how it's going to look, how it's going to feel - and I make a few notes to help me remember. Then I 'go to sleep on it' over night - and when i start writing the next day, it's as if all the discarded possibilities have been shorn away, and the way I've seen it is the way it really happened. All I have to do is record it. Works for me! Cheers Richard edited for dropped tag - Amy
|
|
|
Post by Chirugal on May 6, 2005 11:30:51 GMT
I mean, some people can't accept anything that isn't true to our particular world - and some people find all fiction fairly ridiculous. 'Why read made-up stuff when there's a real world to live in?' - I'd answer, because it's more intense, more coloured, more charged with emotion. And the bizarre is one form of intensity. I like that theory. Thank you! I'm going to ask that question every writer hates, because I think with fantasy/sci-fi it would probably have a more interesting answer than with stuff based in the 'real world' - whatever that is. So... [glow=red,2,300]Where do you get your ideas?[/glow] ;D
|
|
|
Post by richardharland on May 7, 2005 4:58:01 GMT
I'm going to ask that question every writer hates, because I think with fantasy/sci-fi it would probably have a more interesting answer than with stuff based in the 'real world' - whatever that is. So... [glow=red,2,300]Where do you get your ideas?[/glow] ;D Hi. Chirugal! Yeah, it's a familiar question - and every writer probably develops a few standard answers. Because, let's face it, no one really knows where ideas spring from. They pop up or they don't. For me, writing fantasy, I have one answer that a writer of real-world based stuff wouldn't give - I draw a lot of my material from dreams. A long while ago, I learned that the trick with dreams is to jot a few notes in the moment after - even scribbles on a bedside notepad in the dark - that way, the dream doesn't slip away before you're awake enough to really record it. It's a habit anyone can train themselves into. I guess I'm lucky, because many of my dreams have always been very long and very vivid. Almost like full-length movies, some of them. When I write them out in full, they can go on for 20 pages. (I also have plenty of boring dreams about doing the shopping, etc etc.!) Bits out of dreams creep into a lot of what I write. Apart from that, I struggle to answer the question. For example, there's having ideas in the first place, the ideas to launch a novel, but there are also times when you need to invent something to fill a hole - a certain kind of something, but you don't know what. For e.g., my forthcoming novel for young-readers and cat-lovers, SASSYCAT, was set up with main character and subordinate characters (Sassycat and the other animals) - I knew what I wanted to do with them and their world, and I had the basic story involving the supernatural. But there was still a hole over the particular nature of the ghosts - I wanted something different and original, not just ordinary ghosts. So I mulled over it, set it aside, mulled over it, set it aside, tried and rejected a few ideas - and after a few weeks, came up with what I needed. Not the whole idea all at once, but the germ, the seed, which ended up growing into whole new ghost mythology. Which doesn't answer the question, of course - but I suppose what I'm saying is that I never find ideas by going out looking for them, by deliberate effort. More often, it's a matter of waiting and being receptive - but waiting in a special way, where I sort of hold the circle open for the idea to pop up into. Or to put it another way - I aim to keep the space open in the back of my mind, where creativity is always quietly at work. If the space stays open long enough, something is bound to arrive eventually (even if it takes weeks or months or sometimes years!) I've done my best! (and a bit better than I expected) Cheers Richard edited for dropped quote tag - Amy
|
|
|
Post by Cj on May 7, 2005 16:28:20 GMT
Thanks Richard, I might test the water on some writing groups (or at least scare the fiction people for a while ) I completely agree with you when you said that a world outside of fiction is more interesting and results in a more emotional and stimulating world, I’ve been ringing that bell for ages!
|
|