Ruth’s Blog
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The dialogue dilemma
Writing dialogue is really difficult. I realised this on the very first 'writing' course I went on. One of our tutors was Louise Doughty, a skilled teacher as well as a great writer. She gave us the transcript of an actual overheard conversation to look at, and made...
Aversion to formula, or mere perversity?
There's a book I brought with me on this trip. A real book, not the virtual ones I loaded onto my ipad before I left to save the weight. This real book I want for reference, not for reading: I want to scribble on it, turn pages down, use a leaky highlighter, do all...
Telling the story: pace or depth?
I've had the good fortune to learn from some wonderful writers in the past few years. It's been pretty quick learning, mostly through a short presentation of conversation, but I've soaked in as much as I can. One of the interesting things has been hearing about other...
The book cover: telling and compelling
You may have gathered that since the ms. of my third novel in the trilogy went to the editor last month I've been thinking about the details of publication. This past week, driving around the flat wintry landscape Manitoba, Canada, I've been watching the colours of...
Location – real or fictional?
The question of whether the location of a story should be real or fictional has bothered me ever since the first idea for my first novel 'A Good Liar' several years ago. I wanted to write about where I live, but I also knew my neighbours - many of whom had lived there...
What’s in a name?
Here's the thing.....for several months I've been referring to my new novel by a title. It wasn't a brilliant title - intriguing, clever, achingly memorable - but it was pertinent, had a useful double meaning and I was getting used to it. The novel is about a...
How helpful is ‘genre’?
Not very long ago I first became aware of the complexities of 'genre'. I understood this to mean that books had to fit into a category with a label recogniseable to others in the book business. My prior knowledge was rudimentary: I knew about fiction and non-fiction,...
The challenge of ‘linked’ stories
Of all Rohinton Mistry's poignant and 'pain-full' stories the ones I love most are in his 'Tales from the Firozsha Baag', about an apartment building in Bombay (as was), told through the eyes of a boy who lives there and knows all the quirky tenants and the...
The joy of words, spoken and written
Sometimes my working life seems to be in two distinct parts - the education work and the fiction writing - that have no connection with each other and are mutually exclusive. These days the balance of time has tipped towards the writing, but while working in a school...
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