Craft of Writing Archives - The Art of Creative Writing

In Search of a Voice

Anne Skyvington — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 02:34:02 +0000

My writing started out as therapy for a polarised — to be explained later on — childhood. My own background had been stamped indelibly by my not having had a voice within the extended family I was born into. Others in my family had gorged themselves on yackety-yak, thereby filling the void left by my […]

The post In Search of a Voice appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

KARRANA: A Professional Review

Anne Skyvington — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 06:12:33 +0000

From Amazon’s Online Book Club I’d received lots of reviews from family and friends of my debut novel, Karrana. But I never quite believed the veracity of these reviews, being from close contacts. So I submitted the book before the eyes of a reviewer on The Online Book Club. Most professional reviewers charge $300 or […]

The post KARRANA: A Professional Review appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

So You Want to Write A Picture Book? Get inspired by Nicholas Reece!

Anne Skyvington — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 08:17:34 +0000

Worth a thousand words: the top ten best Australian children’s picture books Nicholas Reece, The University of Melbourne The academics and the “mummy bloggers” are in furious agreement – reading picture books to children is one of the best things you can do for a child’s development. It also happens to be, in the opinion […]

The post So You Want to Write A Picture Book? Get inspired by Nicholas Reece! appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills

Anne Skyvington — Thu, 07 May 2020 03:26:25 +0000

A book about writing groups Joining a writing group is very popular these days, at least in Anglo speaking countries. There are many different types of writing groups, just as there are various types of writers. Some writers simply wish to record memories for their family, children and friends to read. Writing correctly and clearly […]

The post Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

Genre in Writing

Anne Skyvington — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 04:06:22 +0000

This post from December 2016, has been re-edited and re-published in April, 2019. Broad and Narrow Genres Since the proliferation of Creative Writing courses in universities in the Anglo world, much has been written and said about “genre” in writing. Creative Writing contrasts with Nonfiction Writing in the broader sense. The former is the sort […]

The post Genre in Writing appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

A Close Look at Point of View—What Is It?

Anne Skyvington — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 01:54:47 +0000

More confusion surrounds the concept of Point of View in fiction writing than any other term. One of the problems is that writers, and I have been guilty of this sin, have come to utilize Point Of View (POV) both in the broad sense of perceiving, and also as defining the three modes open to […]

The post A Close Look at Point of View—What Is It? appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

the personas behind narration

Anne Skyvington — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 12:17:29 +0000

View Post Definitions of Narrative Personas According to Ernest Hemingway, the writer’s job is “to sit in front of the page and bleed”. But it’s not the person in flesh-and-blood who is there in the page, but a persona called the narrator, who steps in for him or her. I’m the one who signs the […]

The post the personas behind narration appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

The Source of “Voice” in Fiction

Anne Skyvington — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 04:22:50 +0000

My Writer’s Voice: A Childhood Spent on the North Coast of NSW The historical photograph of my hometown, with the Clarence River and Susan Island across the water, brings me back to long-forgotten memories of childhood evenings underneath a balmy, star-spangled sky in South Grafton next to the water’s edge. I wonder now whether this […]

The post The Source of “Voice” in Fiction appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

Point Of View and Head Hopping

Anne Skyvington — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 10:17:17 +0000

Point-of-View in the 19th Century In his fictional work, A Million Windows (Giramondo 2014) Gerald Murnane writes: “At one extreme is the boldness and directness of the nineteenth-century writer of fiction who informs the reader, as though possessing an unchallenged right to do so, that this or that character is contented or disconnected or weighed […]

The post Point Of View and Head Hopping appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.

Changes in Narrative Voices Over Time

Anne Skyvington — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 12:30:19 +0000

Traditional Versus Modern Voices Why have I chosen the following photo from my place of birth, Grafton, taken in 1924, as an introduction to this post? For several reasons: I like it very much, firstly because of its classical and historical attributes, as well as for the varied expressions and actions of the subjects in […]

The post Changes in Narrative Voices Over Time appeared first on The Art of Creative Writing.