Tuesday 11 October 2016

IN AWE OF OTHER WRITERS

I have recently started to read GAME OF THRONES and wow is it a story! I do not generally read this genre of novels but of course with its fame so wide spread I thought I had better. The complexity of characters and their names, so cleverly chosen as a kind of distortion of familiar names, makes me wonder how many threads there will have to be to complete the story. I am only on page 95 and so have just under 700 pages to go. Will I last the distance? I guess time will tell but I expect so. I am finding it best to read a chapter at a time so that I can digest more readily where the characters and the intertwined relationships are heading. Such books, so well written, make me twinge with awe as I am certain I could never write such an epic piece with such enthusiastic joy as the author George R R Martin has done. I do realise of course that no matter what age or what world a fiction novel is written in, if it contains human characters then their basic needs are similar to every other human and it is this that retains the interest of readers. All great writers,whether of classics or modern works have this fundamental principle to their writing. I have an eclectic taste and so can read almost any writer with some joy but do have my favorites. I read different authors for different purposes but always out of curiosity of how stories are revealed, with either brilliance or just in an ok fashion.  It is fascinating to discover how the greats do it but oh so much more difficult to emulate.
As a writer who writes mostly about what I know or know of, it is good to stretch myself beyond what I would usually read and to learn from every piece of story telling I come across, hoping beyond hope that just a tiny fraction of someone else's genius rubs off onto me. How optimistic is that! To live in hope is surely the only way to live. 


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