In an incidental comment in a previous blog post, I wrote: Personally, I think the novel is best used when your/my/the author’s ideas about something large (our past, our future, technology, childhood, humanity, the soul, big stuff) are deep enough that you need an entire novel to explore them in proper detail. Length of a … Continue reading “A Few Thoughts on Theme in Popular Sci-fi & Fantasy Novels”
I’m writing a memoir now, well, memoir/serious nonfiction/exposé, finally the Nick’s Crusade book, so I was interested in Tom Wolfe’s (brief) comments on Memoir. He quotes Orwell “memoir is the worst form of fiction” because you focus on the sensational, not the mundane and humiliating that makes up 75% of life (then he goes into … Continue reading “Tom Wolfe Talks Memoir: “the worst form of fiction””
When should the word “affect” be used rather than “effect?” Despite my English-Majorness, I’ve never mastered this rule. I understand affect as noun that are refers to someone’s countenance (e.g. “he has a flat affect”) or as a transitive verb meaning “to make a false display of” (e.g. “he began to affect a British accent”) … Continue reading “The “Effect or Affect?” Conundrum”