Author Christine M Knight’s Blog
MY WRITING PROCESS: CHRISTINE M KNIGHT
When I finally committed to actually writing fiction rather planning to do it, I envisaged a whole world with a community of characters whose lives intersected and diverged as the issues and concerns of their respective lives and the times brought them in and out of contact.
My plan was for each novel to have a different set of characters at the story’s heart and to write about their lives in that world. The secondary characters from one novel would be the central characters in another and so on. Each novel would stand independently, but when read within the context of the series, the readers’ knowledge of the characters in that world would be enriched. The world in my novels represents snapshots of contemporary Australia.
Like Tennyson, I believe that not only are we part of everything that we meet in life, but what we meet becomes part of us for good or for bad. I’m interested in the ripple effect of experiences in life and how that contributes to and shapes our personal stories. That view of life shapes the way I structure my novels.
My writing process involves the creation of a fictional world that parallels the real world. It is a world with a set of characters, places, circumstances and an environment revolving around human relationships under pressure. That pressure is the source of the conflict that drives my story telling. It’s a world where relationship dynamics, challenges, and problems give rise to many stories. I planned my first series of novels as 4 titles fixed in different periods in the near past.
I think of my writing as dream catching. As part of the dreaming process, I conduct extensive research into my subject matter. Research helps me visualise and understand life and its concerns from other people’s perspectives. Research guides the way I imaginatively connect to those experiences. It also helps me select the characters I’m going to use and it guides the way I focus on their concerns, and it helps me construct a virtual reality for them to inhabit.
Writers of fiction need to be thoughtful and compassionate people with empathy for others. That doesn’t mean that writers are always sensitive to the people in their immediate real world. Writers are flawed, just like everyone else.
When I’m in the research phase, I gather experiences and technical facts. I collect stories through discussions with as many women and men from different walks of life and generations as possible.
Research underpins my writing because I believe that for fiction to hold a reader’s interest it has to be grounded in the reality of life. Characters and their reactions need to resonate honestly with what readers know about life and how and why people behave as they do.
Imagination is the bridge that connects the real and fictional worlds for readers and writers. Readers like writers bring imagination to the words that tell a story. Readers are crucial in the process of bringing the alternate reality to life. Without them, a novel is just a book on a shelf gathering dust.
I’ve been surprised over the years by the number of people who think that the only thing worth reading is non-fiction. They dismiss fiction because it involves imagination. Fiction allows writers to create characters in situations without being constrained by the so-called facts of an event or by fear of a lawsuit when the author offers insight into the motives and objectives of characters. For it to succeed, it has to read as reality.
Fiction is a way of comprehending life – not just what is, but what was, what is likely to be, and what could be. ‘Life Song’ begins with Mavis Mills life as a single parent working as a receptionist at a local car dealership and follows her journey as she dares to reach for a life that could be. So many people are reluctant to hope for something better, lest they be disappointed, not Mavis Mills. She believes that fulfilling her own dreams can secure a better life for those who matter to her most.
“Standing there with her hair streaming behind her, Mavis enjoyed the bracing wind. She felt alive and that life again held possibilities for her. Somehow I will make it all work.”
© Christine M Knight
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