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What happens when you’ve created and written a character who is so thoroughly realized that he or she is always, well, in character? This week, write a scene in which your character is caught doing or saying something shockingly out of character. What event or realization has caused this atypical behavior, and what is your character’s response to being confronted about it? Will the consequences be immediate and dramatic, or gradual and subtly psychological?
"I think in old age, memory is extraordinarily interesting because there's an awful lot of it by now." Booker Prize-winning novelist Penelope Lively speaks about her fascination with the use of memory and evidence as tools to develop characters.
In this video for Mashable, Chuck Palahniuk reads an imagined kid-friendly version of his novel Fight Club (Norton, 1996). Palahniuk's debut short story collection, Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread, was published in May by Doubleday.
Coco Chanel famously said, "Fashion has to do with the ideas, the way we live, what is happening." This week, focus on the way one of your characters gets dressed: Does he throw on the first thing he sees, or will it take hours for him to get ready? Is a typical outfit an accurate representation of his personality, or more of a disguise? Write a scene describing your character’s clothing in detail, and what is revealed about his demeanor through his attire.
“Do what you want to do, and don’t worry if it's a little odd or doesn’t fit the market.” Lydia Davis, whose latest collection of stories, Can't and Won't, was released in paperback by Picador in March, offers practical and reassuring advice for writers.
An updated version of director Mary McDonagh Murphy's documentary Harper Lee: Hey, Boo airs tonight on PBS. Harper Lee's second novel, Go Set a Watchman, will be released by HarperCollins on July 14, fifty-five years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird (Lippincott, 1960).
"Just like a good book, parenting is unpredictable." Julia Fierro's debut novel was released in paperback yesterday by St. Martin's Griffin with a helpful extra page for parenting emergencies.
Keep your ears open this week, and write down an intriguing phrase that you overhear. This might be a snippet of a sentence exchanged between two people talking, a few words spoken by someone on the phone next to you, or even part of a loudspeaker announcement. Spend some time imagining what led up to that remark. Then write the rest of the story making the overheard phrase your last sentence.
This morning, the Man Booker Foundation announced that beginning in 2016, the Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize will merge to form one annual award for an individual work of fiction translated into English. The reconfigured Man Booker International Prize will divide an award of £50,000 equally between author and translator. Each of the six shortlisted authors and translators will also receive £1,000.
Established in 2005, the Man Booker International Prize has until now awarded one prize of £60,000 biennially to “a living author for a body of work representing an achievement in fiction on the world stage.” Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai won the prize in 2015. The annual Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (IFFP), meanwhile, honored a single work of fiction translated into English. A prize of £10,000 was split equally between author and translator. The 2015 winner was Jenny Erpenbeck’s The End of Days (Portobello Books), translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky.
Jonathan Taylor, chair of the Booker Prize Foundation, said in a press conference that the Man Booker International Prize loses momentum by being awarded every two years instead of annually, and hopes the “reconfiguration of the prize will encourage a greater interest and investment in translation."
Independent senior writer Boyd Tonkin will serve as the 2016 Man Booker International Prize chair. The longlist for the new Man Booker International Prize will be announced in March 2016, followed by the shortlist announcement in April; the winner will be announced in May. Books translated into English and published between January 1, 2015, and April 30, 2016, are eligible for the award.
Erika Swyler's debut novel, published by St. Martin's Press, features mermaids, drownings, tarot cards, and a librarian who uncovers mysteries about his family.
