As problems go, the problem of writing fiction is perhaps unique. Often, when we look at the creative arts, we think in terms of solving a problem.<\/p>\n
Yet writing good fiction is somewhat unique in the arts in that it requires solving a problem by creating problems.<\/p>\n
Specifically, in order to solve our problem of creating a great story, we need to create problems for the characters in that story. Then we need to help those characters solve their problems.<\/p>\n
In the process of our characters solving their problems, we have solved ours. The reader or viewer is pulled into our characters’ problem solving, and thereby becomes engaged with our story.<\/p>\n
Things gets even more interesting when we are writing fiction involving a character who is herself a writer of fiction. In that case, we are called upon to solve our problem by creating the problem for our character of creating problems for her own characters.<\/p>\n
We might even manage to create a loop. Somewhere down in the creative chain, one of the characters writes the top level character. What could be more fun?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As problems go, the problem of writing fiction is perhaps unique. Often, when we look at the creative arts, we think in terms of solving a problem. Yet writing good fiction is somewhat unique in the arts in that it requires solving a problem by creating problems. Specifically, in order to solve our problem of … Continue reading “Writing fiction”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20423"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20426,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20423\/revisions\/20426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}