Quote:
Originally Posted by Violet_Frangipani  Dear Mary,
I read your tips for writing and you say that beautiful people are boring, yet almost all of your characters are either beautiful on the inside or outside, or both! can you please explain? and also in your opinion, what makes a successful novel?
Violet |
Perhaps I should have said "perfect people are boring"? I meant people who are beautiful to look at and have no personality. You will be attracted to them initially but after a while feel there is no substance. This happens in real life too, though some people are lucky enough to have it all.
When one first starts writing, the temptation is to describe every character's physical characteristics in great detail - also what they are wearing. This tends to prevail in certain types of published fiction too.
But if you think about some of the most interesting characters in novels, you don't necessarily have a sense of what they look like, except sketchily. What you have is a powerful reaction to the flavour of their personality, if that makes sense.
As for what makes a successful novel, if I knew that, I'd bottle it and become formidably rich!
For me, it has something to do with the writer's voice and the unique texture of their writing plus a quirky plot and characters. So there are some writers I follow even though not all their works are equally successful, like Diana Wynne Jones, Margaret Mahy and the late Jan Mark, just because of enjoying keeping company with the way their minds work.
Mary