The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.
Interpretation
Writing fiction allows for creativity and innovation in storytelling.
Penelope Lively highlights the joy of writing fiction, emphasizing its inherent flexibility and the opportunities it offers for exploring new narrative techniques and character development. Through fiction, writers can constantly discover fresh perspectives and unique ways to engage with their audience, making the craft dynamic and ever-evolving.
In practice
During a writing workshop, I shared a quote from Penelope Lively to inspire my peers to explore new story ideas.
All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.
In old age, you realise that while you're divided from your youth by decades, you can close your eyes and summon it at will. As a writer it puts one at a distinct advantage.
The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.
Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It's the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.
The idea that memory is linear is nonsense. What we have in our heads is a collection of frames. As to time itself-can it be linear when all these snatches of other presents exist at once in your mind? A very elusive and tricky concept, time.
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Art requires imagination. It requires Creativity. Creativity requires experience and experience comes from your life. And your life is expressed in your art.
I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.
The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.
In a book, you can describe a scene and have any song you want playing on the radio and have any painting you want hanging on the wall. That was really freeing to me when I was writing 'Ready Player One.' I could throw in everything that I love.
No picture is made to endure nor to live with but it is made to sell and sell quickly with usura, sin against nature, is thy bread ever more of stale rags is thy bread dry as paper.
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