Time to get emotional

[John Dean]

Emotion is something of which some writers are wary, preferring to produce work without revealing too much of themselves. However, for many other writers, there cannot be fiction without a sense of themselves in it.

For some authors, there is always part of them peering through, their fears, their hopes, their aspirations, their take on life.

They may not say ‘and this is me’ but it is there all the same. For many authors, writing has to be a deeply personal art.

Of course, it is not all autobiographical - many writers write characters and scenes which readers find abhorrent and use language and ideas with which readers might not agree but which need to be there because they reflect the world about us.

However, in there somewhere are also tantalising glimpses of what the writer really thinks of the world.

That is certainly the case with my books. Incidents, people, places are all stored away until the day they are needed.

I mention this because I am about to start work on a new novel and in seeking inspiration I keep coming back to one of those memories. And if a writer keeps coming back to the same thought, it usually means there's something in it.