Author Christine M Knight’s Blog
Why do I write fiction?
Many people think that a novel is merely a story drawn from the writer’s imagination. Fiction involves much more than imagination. Fiction has to be grounded in the reality of life for it to hold readers’ interest. The characters and their reactions need to resonate truthfully with what readers know about life and how and why people behave as they do. Imagination allows a writer to create fictional characters in situations that explore aspects of life truthfully without being constrained by the facts of an individual’s experience or by fear of a lawsuit.
I am a novelist because I want to capture aspects of Australian life and character that accurately reflect the world that I know. That world is not the outback or pastoral images of Australia. It is urban Australia – coastal town and city. Since the beginning of European settlement, the myth that we are predominantly a nation of bronzed, Aussie outback men with ingenuity and humour has been celebrated and perpetuated in novels and film here and overseas. Images of women are mostly of them somewhere in the background. The accurate historical picture is that we have always been one of the most urbanised nations in the world and still are.
As a proud Australian woman, I want to share memories of the way we were in the recent past – good and bad – and to stimulate thought about the way we are. I want to show how our perceptions of and relationships with others and the world are shaped.
As a writer, I am interested in the nature of love versus romance, the interconnectedness of lives, relationship dynamics, and ripple effect of traumatic events within families, in the workplace, and between partners. I am interested in the change process and its related effects on everyday life
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