THE GETTING OF KNOWLEDGE #1

Learning something new is an exciting experience, it doesn't matter what you're learning if you listen carefully you can hear the new synapse pinging and the neural pathways zooming around in your brain. This is what happens when you learn something new.

To learn how to write fiction you need to read fiction, stories that people have made up from their imagination.  There are many genres and many authors, if you're serious about learning to write fiction then you might want to consider reading across the board.  And these are the reasons why. 

In all fictional stories there are made up characters and situations.  In the works of people like J. R. R. Tolkien and Terry Pratchett you'll also find made up worlds.  Even J. K. Rowling constructed a world for Harry Potter to live in.  If you read science fiction and fantasy (sometimes called speculative fiction) you'll see the richness a writer can find in their imagination to build worlds where their characters can act out their story.  Some speculative fiction writers to look for are Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Stephen King (of course), Brandon Sanderson, Kate Forsyth, Neil Gaiman and local writers Janeen Webb and Jack Dann.

When you read crime and mystery stories you find plots that sometimes defy solutions and yet the writer manages to bring it all together at the end.  Sometimes you'll like how it ends and sometimes you wont, whatever the outcome, the writer has worked this through when they plot the story.  In crime stories there is a good guy and a bad guy (protagonist and antagonist) and the writer's task is to shape those characters so you can see which is which and sometimes when the writer is very smart they can leave you wondering which is which!  Some crime writers you might like to look for are Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Henning Mankell, Peter Temple, Candice Fox, Kerry Greenwood and Kathryn Fox, Kathryn Ledson and local writers Sue Williams and Kate Lance.  And you could put Stephen King here too (well I would).

Romance and relationship stories have their place as well because they usually follow the building and sometimes disintegration of relationships.  Whilst some people might think romance fiction is light weight, you can learn much from the descriptions the writer will provide about emotion and how this has an effect on people and their relationships.  You'll also find a rich supply of how to describe people.  Again you will find a protagonist and antagonist, some times more than one of the latter.  The plots can be as rich and complex as those you will find in any of the above genre.  Writers to look for are: Nora Roberts, Diana Gabaldon, Nicholas Sparks, Liane Moriarty and Australian writers Helene Young, Margareta Osborn, Jennifer Scoullar and Kate Belle.

And of course there are other writers of fiction that don't fall cleanly (for want of a better word) into a clear genre and we'll cover those at another time.  I think there's enough here to keep any budding fiction writer busy for a while.  And remember....there is always plenty of time to read!