Saw an interesting comment by Michael Connelly, writer of the Harry Bosch series. On being asked about his Irish roots, he replied: “ Yeah, I have complete Irish roots, and I went to Catholic schools and all of that ....But, you know, I don’t consider myself an Irish crime writer or an American crime writer, I consider myself a storyteller. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that if a character is interesting to the reader, it doesn’t really matter where that character is or where the writer is. That kind of story crosses all oceans and all boundaries.”
It gets to the nub of writing - it is what we should all be, just story tellers with good characters. Characters that readers are interested in and who they care about. The genre is secondary - it is why good crime fiction does so well (in my view) it is because the stories are so good. Your attention is held. And you have characters in them that you care about (even more so in series where you have a central recurring character - think Jo Nesbo and Harry Hole.)
I am reminding myself here as much as others - I have a tendency to wander off from the story. Sometimes this is good as it leads the story to new places - other times it is just bad (like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead .. when she was good she was very very good, when she was bad she was horrid!). Note - I am not suggesting here that when I am good I am very very good ... it just brought the nursery rhyme into my head. The 'horrid' still stands.
Wandering off in the middle of a story can lose you your reader - which is why I try to keep my reader in my head. They change shape depending on what I am writing - but sometimes they are a very specific person. I read aloud a piece I have written and wonder what they would think of it. It is not to say that I do not write for myself, I do, but that is not enough - I write so others can read - and if I don't think about them I do them a disservice.
Anyway that came into my mind as I was talking to a lovely writers group during the week and it made me, once again, think about writing. The why, the what and the wherefore.
PS It is also about the words and how they are strung together - the last line of this little poem bears that out. Apart from rhyming with forehead, the use of the word horrid is just so perfect!
