Category: Writing

  • What is a Scene in a Novel?

    What is a Scene in a Novel?

    Definitions of a Scene  A scene is the smallest unit of narration. It is a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. One editor calls it the DNA of story. Cells of information shape the essence of a narrative, in which characters undertake actions in a vivid and memorable way on the journey toward…

  • The Sea Voyage: a metaphor

    The Sea Voyage: a metaphor

    How to Write a Novel After gaining a Teaching Certificate in 1965,  I embarked on a journey from Australia to England, passing along the Suez Canal shortly before its forced closure by Egypt. My eventual goal was France, following in the footsteps of my older brother, William.  I’d saved up my return fare for a…

  • Alone not lonely in Apartheid South Africa

    Alone not lonely in Apartheid South Africa

    Alone not lonely is Maureen Mendelowitz’s second novella to be published by Ginninderra Press (2018). See my post about her first book on this site. I attended the successful launch of the 2nd book at JewishCare Centre in Woollahra recently. The date coincided with public awareness of domestic violence issues against women, including in Australia,…

  • Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now

    Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now

    First a note about the painting, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, that serves here as a symbol for Joni Mitchell’s song. Both speak of life, love and beauty. For Plato – and so for the members of the Florentine Platonic Academy – Venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who aroused humans to physical…

  • The Narrative Arc

    The Narrative Arc

    I have recently been researching diagrams to represent the Narrative Arc.  I had completed a personal memoir, River Girl, based partly on childhood memories, that was complex in structure. How was I to analyse and to improve, if necessary, on this work in terms of its overall structure?  I had never mapped out plots and…

  • the personas behind narration

    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…

  • a funny thing happened …

    a funny thing happened …

    Cargoes by John Mansfield I woke up the other morning with an old verse I’d learnt at school — not sure which year, but it was at least half a century ago — playing in my head like on a tape recorder. And the rhythm was still there! I’m sure some of my readers will…

  • A Tuscan Village Holiday

    A Tuscan Village Holiday

    Italy: Fast Cars Driving on the autostrada is a relief after Rome. Watch on the right, my partner says repeatedly, having been traumatised when the mirror on our rented manual Fiat Punta was flattened against a truck in Rome’s crowded streets. I’m the driver, having learnt to conduire à la droite in France, as a…

  • Moree and Insistent Voices

    Moree and Insistent Voices

    Moree, with a population of about 8,000, is situated in the north-west of NSW on the Mehi River and at the junction of the Gwydir and Newell Highways. It is famous for its Artesian Spa waters, which were discovered accidentally in 1895 when a bore was sunk in search of irrigation waters. Instead, mineral water…

  • The Source of “Voice” in Fiction

    The Source of “Voice” in Fiction

    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…