Anne Skyvington
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • Craft
      • Structuring a Short Story
      • Alternative Narrative Approaches
      • Genre in Writing
      • A Grain of Folly
        • Novel Writing
          • The Sea Voyage: a metaphor
          • How I Created My Debut Novel
          • What I learnt from writing a novel…
          • Short Story
            • At the Swimming Pool
            • The Night of the Barricades
          • Poetry
            • a funny thing happened …
            • An ancient mystic: Rumi
            • A Window into Poetry
            • The Voice of T.S. Eliot
  • Publishing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • A Perfect Pitch to a Publisher
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
  • Book Reviews
    • A Story of a Special Child
    • Discovering Karrana
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • The Trouble With Flying: A Review
  • Mythos
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Births Deaths and Marriages
    • Duality or Onenness: The Moon
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
    • Pandora’s Box
    • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
    • Symbolism of Twins
    • The Agony and the Ecstasy of Change
    • Voices From the Past
  • Australia
    • A Country College Residence
    • A Kit Home Goes Up in Vacy
    • A Sydney Icon or Two
    • 5 things about Coogee
    • Moree and Insistent Voices
    • Things To Do in Sydney
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    • A Bird’s Eye View
    • A Tuscan Village Holiday
    • Back to Cavtat in Croatia
    • Travel to Croatia
    • 5 or 6 Things About Valencia
  • Guest Post
    • a father’s tale … by Ian (Harry) Wells
    • A Guest Poem: “First Loves” by Roger Britton
    • A Love Sonnet by Ian Harry Wells
    • “Snakey” by Roger Britton
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
  • Psychology
    • Creativity and Mental Illness
    • Networking and Emotional Intelligence
    • C.G.Jung’s Active Imagination and the Dead
    • Psychology as a Field of Study
    • Western Influencers Down Through The Ages
  • Life Stories
    • Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd
    • Always something there to remind me…
    • A Well-Loved Pet
    • Candidly Yours…
    • Memoir Writing
    • River Girl: An Early Chapter of my Memoir in Progress
Tag

connections between writing and folly

fool-jester
CraftCraft of WritingWriting

A Grain of Folly

How is Fiction Writing a Form of Folly?

In order to understand the features of fiction, it is helpful to examine the features of an opposite type of writing: the academic essay.

I taught Academic English to overseas students at the University of New South Wales in Sydney for many years. Since retiring, I’ve become more interested in exploring the features of fictional writing. This form of writing has become a sort of passion for me. The expository writing I taught to undergraduates was, basically, the essay.

The academic essay has a fairly rigid structure that can be unpacked and taught, and is on the whole impersonal, and veers towards the abstract. An essay has an introduction, a body and a conclusion, and each paragraph, as well as each body part, follows on logically from the previous one. Within this genre there are explanatory essays, argument essays and comparison essays. Students are encouraged to be controversial, dialectical, rationalistic and argumentative.

cover-of-mystery-and-mannersWith fiction, the writer needs to develop other skills. According to Flannery O’Conner in Mystery and Manners, the fiction writer needs “a certain grain of stupidity“. Being able to stand back and listen is key to being a fiction writer. “Show don’t tell” is one of the main adages taught to creative writing students. If you can dramatise an event in words, you are half way there. That is, be the opposite of the declarative essayist. Write in scenes, rather than in logical paragraphs. Be concrete, not abstract.  In the scene, the writer can capture the nuances of character, passion and conflict basic to good story-telling.

Flannery writes: “I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing.” (Mystery and Manners p.66)

The writer’s job is to recreate the sounds, sights, smells, textures, feelings and tastes of the world through the characters. The narrator should stand back and allow the characters to move the story forward.

“Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” Flannery O’Connor

Do you agree with  Flannery O’Connor, or do you think that there can be overlap between opposite forms? Say, between expository writing and narrative?  The answer, if you think about it, might be yes, especially for the future.

However, I certainly agree that a little folly serves the fiction writer well. Like childbirth and parenting, we’d surely think twice about taking on the writing life if we weren’t “a little mad”.

A Grain of Folly was last modified: February 18th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
February 2, 2015 1 comment
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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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