G.R. Forrest's Blog

Some characters develop to fit what a particular story requires; others evolve independently until a story shapes itself around them. Tamzin is one of the latter, and has been about for a long time in various different forms. I can no longer remember exactly when she first turned up and I wouldn’t say that I created her; more that she solidified out of a collection of ideas and influences, and kept presenting herself for my attention until I found the right story for her.My earliest memory of her is as an eleven-year-old princess, being rushed from her home while a volcano explodes above her city. Later, I imagined her as an unconventionally talented mage’s apprentice, and later still she morphed into a teenage warrior princess. From there, the ‘warrior’ part grew until the ‘princess’ was crowded out. I was never a particularly princess-y person myself so perhaps that’s not surprising, but also I had realised that involving royalty meant writing about politics, and it was action and adventure that I was interested in.That process of evolution spanned my own mid-late teenage years and, given the time period and the various changes in Tamzin’s life status, you’d be forgiven for asking why I still think of her as the same character. Certain things have been constant: she was always a stubborn, tenacious personality; she was always a little precocious; and she was always unconventional according to the accepted norms of her world. Looking back, the exercise of trying out a character in different situations, and of adding and subtracting years from her, was probably invaluable to my development as an author even though none of that work has been directly incorporated into the books I’ve ended up writing.The form in which Tamzin finally settled has come to represent a return to my personal roots, as it’s heavily influenced by books and characters which made an impression on me as I was growing up. On the subject of writing influences I frequently name-check Brian Jacques, whose adventure stories not only contain fantastic action description, but are remarkably equal-opportunities when it comes to characters’ career choices: males and females alike can pick up a sword and set off on an epic quest, and their success or otherwise rests entirely on their strength of character. Tamora Pierce’s novel ‘Alanna: The First Adventure’, in which a girl swaps places with her twin brother to become a knight, presents the opposite scenario, where the heroine has to resort to deception to even get an opportunity to prove her worth in a male-dominated world. My lifelong fascination with computer games played a role too: the advent of Tomb Raider captured my imagination, and certainly had an influence on how I thought about Tamzin’s physical training and survival skills. There were others, but those are the ones which I feel were central. You may have noticed a theme here. Gender equality in storytelling continues to be a topic of much discussion - and rightly so - but for the purpose of explaining Tamzin, suffice it to say that I was drawn to strongly adventurous female characters and felt that the world needed more such!I have had one or two people ask whether Tamzin is, in fact, me, but that was never the way I intended to write her. Certain elements are borrowed from me, however: to name a couple, we both incline towards stubbornness, and neither of us thinks that “Because we’ve always done it this way” is a good answer to “Why do we do things the way we do?”. Creating a spectrum of characters with differing roles and viewpoints is an acquired skill in my experience, because it involves removing the personal perceptual filters through which we usually see everything, and donning other viewpoints which might be quite alien to our normal way of thinking. Since Tamzin is one of my first developed characters it’s therefore only natural that much of her outlook started out close to home. Beyond that, her personality is born out of the characteristics that a person would need to succeed as an adventurous outlier within a pontifical culture: inquisitive, tenacious, loyal, a bit opinionated and increasingly cynical, with a good balance between caution and outright daring. What she’s going to do after the events of ‘Tamzin and the Black Widow’ is currently a matter of internal authorial debate, but I remain very proud of her and I don’t think she’s going to disappear from the stage anytime soon.

It struck me recently that, for something which occupies so much of my mental space, the bulk of my fiction writing has in practical terms always taken place in whatever corners of my life are not commanded by other activities. (Figuratively, but often literally as well: I have sat in the corners of cafes, pubs, and church halls, and sought out quiet lunchtime spots in schools and workplaces to scribble down a few lines before the next ‘real’ activity came along.)By the end of this year my ‘official’ written word count will stand at something like 160,000 (the sum of two complete novels). When you add to that the numerous notebooks and sheets of paper I have filled with ideas for stories, plus the countless hours which have gone into worldbuilding and plot-planning ever since I was about nine years old, that makes one heck of a lot of filled corners.Initially I found this slightly worrying. A proper writer, I thought, should set time aside, and be able to keep to a schedule. Then I remembered a book I came across about six months ago. It was titled Write a Novel in 10 Minutes a Day, and on looking through it I had recognised something of myself in the author’s suggested method. When writing her own first novel she would set a timer and write for ten minutes, then when the timer went off she would leave the computer and do something around the house – put the laundry on, check on the children and so forth – and then return to her computer for another ten minutes. In this way she eventually produced a work 95,000 words long and, as she was a home-schooling mother of five at the time, one can be sure that her household duties were not light!I don’t use a timer (though I might be tempted to try sometime!) but the anecdote got me thinking about the benefits I have found of writing in small chunks. The biggest one is that it keeps me hungry to write. There is nothing like being interrupted when the words are flowing really well, halfway through scribbling down a scene I’m excited about, to make me want to get back to writing more as soon as possible! Writing in situations where I’m prone to be interrupted has also gifted me the ability to tune in and out of the writing ‘zone’ very quickly, and that has spilled over into being able to juggle multiple threads of thought at once; I think of it like leaving multiple tabs open in an internet browser.* Another huge benefit is that it keeps me fresh to the ideas. If I’m feeling stuck and don’t know how the next bit of a scene should go, the best thing I can do is leave the keyboard, and when I come back to it later all will be clearer.** I suspect this is because it’s easy to put oneself under pressure when writing, especially on days when words are hard to come by, and temporarily downing tools means I can allow myself freedom to ponder over the issue. (Forgetting about the problem entirely for a while can also be good for resetting my perspective, I’ve found.)The author of Write a Novel in 10 Minutes a Day related a couple of others. Firstly, nearly all writers start off having to fit writing around other life commitments, and not everyone may be able to set aside hours at a time; everyone, however, can find ten minutes a couple of times a day. Secondly, for those who haven’t written a book before (her primary target market), it breaks down the task of producing such a large volume of words. A lot of writers, myself included, fall prey to their own perfectionism by holding themselves to such high standards that they have trouble producing anything, but having a tight time limit on each writing session can help to break down that barrier. This was demonstrated to great effect during a writing course I recently attended, where every lesson was filled with bite-size tasks aimed at generating and developing ideas, none of which was more than fifteen minutes long. With a bit of practice, I think everyone on the course found that taking the mental brakes off in this context produced some very good results!I used to have grandiose dreams of writing at an old-fashioned mahogany desk with a leather top, or curled in an upholstered sofa in my own library with a fire crackling in the grate, and I know I’m not alone among writers in that regard! I may not have let go of those ideas (you’ve got to have aspirations, haven’t you?) but in the meantime what I take from all of the above is that there is less need for ‘ideal’ circumstances in which to be creative than one might think. A heartening thought for those of us who have to juggle writing time with the commitments of ‘real life’!Addendum: after I had completed this post, a writing group of which I am occasionally part drew my attention to the Guardian’s ‘My Writing Day’ series, in which a large number of published authors have shared some insights into their creative processes. It seems that even the professionals aren’t always able to achieve ideal writing circumstances!

This was always going to be a difficult book to give a rating to. As others have observed, it's not as polished as most of Terry's other novels. Some of the language even seems a little stilted at times. But - I loved it. To me it is a remarkably appropriate final book: a drawing together of characters and themes which have been present throughout huge parts of the Discworld series. Tiffany has matured into a deeply powerful witch (and character) while still remaining human, and all of her allies continue to grow too, sometimes in surprising ways - even the redoubtable Nac Mac Feegle! Nothing stands still on the Discworld, which is one of its delights. Ultimately this is a book about knowing where you come from, and therefore knowing where you are and where you're going. It's also, aptly, a book about change. There's no sense of a final ending, however; rather, at the close of the book, I felt that the witches had renewed their permanence. The world might alter around them and they might have to adapt to it in all kinds of ways, but I could almost hear them thinking (as one of my American friends would say): "We got this".There are some very beautiful things here, and above all the story carries a tone of hope. Do not let the fact that this is the final book of the series put you off reading it.

"Is she fact or is she fiction?" runs the promotional tagline of turn-of-the-century aerialiste Sophie Fevvers. It's a highly apposite question for the whole book, which dances joyfully along with one foot on either side of the boundary between reality and sheer fantasy. Or, more accurately, it cheerfully kicks said boundary over. Carter carries off her tale of circus escapades and a saucy heroine with such aplomb that only once did I stop to think on the runaway whimsicality of it all and, even then, nothing seemed out of place or ridiculous. There's a lot here which surely would have done, in the hands of a lesser author, but Carter's opulent use of language throughout makes every element from the dreamlike to the nightmarish feel at home - even as the story whirls you away. The only frustrating element for me was the teasing, open-ended finale, but I can hardly grudge Carter her cheek: it's one of the things that makes her the brilliant writer she is.

This is a beautiful, evocative, children's-book-for-adults. Gaiman has captured the fundamental elements of twentieth-century childhood, and infuses his story with a folkloric style of magic which put me in mind of Alan Garner. Even though my upbringing superficially bears no resemblance to that of the protagonist, I instantly identified with his hopes, fears, love of books, and relationship with his own instincts. A lot of deep, sparkling thinking about the nature of the universe has gone into this book, and I particularly loved Gaiman's commentary on 'reality' through the medium of the hunger birds. I found the ending bittersweet, comforting and challenging in all the best ways. This is definitely one I'll be returning to.

This is easily one of the most chilling novels I have ever read. My experience of it was inevitably coloured by the cultural and political situations in parts of the world at the time of my reading it, but also Atwood paints her dystopia in such detail that it takes no effort to imagine it becoming real. Her virtuoso use of language brings both the environment of Gilead and Offred's experiences to life with brutal vividity; deeply emotional without being sentimental. This is not the kind of story I would have previously associated with the feeling of being on the edge of my seat, but I was, and the ending was therefore satisfying and unsatisfying in equal measure! The book is also charged with pointed observations about people, government, gender and religion; shrewd, serious, but never sanctimonious. To tell such a story so well is a feat I think very few authors could accomplish. Chilling it might be, but it is also a superlative piece of literature.

Every so often you encounter a book which convinces you within the first few pages that it’s going to be a knockout read. This was one such. The story is taut, fast-paced, and perfectly balanced between high-stakes action on a grand scale and the characters’ personal struggles. Paige, the main protagonist, has developed into a wholly believable and fascinating heroine: compassionate, hard, self-doubting, driven, and self-sacrificing – without being dominated by any one of those things. Her cohorts are all similarly well written, with individual backstories which add greatly to the overall texture of the book. The world of Scion Britain has become a terrifying place in this third volume of Paige’s adventures, and the detail that Shannon brings to her dystopia creates an effortlessly immersive read. There’s also plenty of grit present, which kept me on the edge of my seat and really made me root for the protagonists! Over and above all of that, the writing style is tighter and more virtuoso than in the two preceding books and I particularly appreciated the deft use of imagery throughout. In summary, I cannot wait to read the next book in the sequence!

Thus far, I haven't read anything by Sanderson that I haven't loved. Like his previous Waxillium and Wayne novel*, this is a rip-roaring adventure: part-Wild West, part-Victorian in its influences, and underpinned by Sanderson's brilliant metal-based magic system. Initially I had mixed feelings about this book: the writing style seemed looser than usual in places, as though some parts had been edited more closely than others, and I wasn't wholly convinced that the plot had as much depth as I have come to expect from this author. On the latter count, though, I should have known better: as the plot elements began to dovetail together, Sanderson's trademark exploration of philosophical issues came to the fore, this time tackling questions of identity and free will. This is a book of deep shadows, despite the levity with which much of the dialogue is scattered; the balance of light and dark plays out well and the ending packs a hefty emotional punch. One of the great joys of the 'modern' Mistborn books is the way elements from the original trilogy are woven in, transformed into the myths and legends of the new age. As with all his books, this ultimately gave me food for thought as well as great entertainment, and I shall certainly be revisiting it at a later date.*The Alloy of Law

Reading this made me realise just how personal one's preferences in plotlines are. In so many ways this is a brilliantly constructed book: the characters are three-dimensional and 'real' (and often relatable); the writing is lucid and vivid without being overburdened with description; the story's central – fantastical – concept is presented not only entirely believably but wittily. Obviously Niffenegger has thought out her lead character's scenario and consequent dilemmas very thoroughly. I must admit that, for me, once the initial wonder and excitement of Henry and Clare's situation had worn off I felt that the plot began to sag, so this isn't one I'll be returning to. However, without giving anything away, I suspect that parts of the plot which held limited interest for me may be gripping to others (hence my opening comment)! In any case, this is still a fine example of a book which straddles the science fiction and modern novel genres, so if you haven't read it, do give it a go...

A truly extraordinary book. If someone had explained the subject matter to me beforehand I would have expected to find it fascinating, but not necessarily gripping. However, gripping was exactly what it was, quietly yet inexorably - especially towards the end. I'll say nothing about the plot as that would be impossible without spoilering some part of it, but this one is going to stay with me for a long time. Technically it could be filed under fantasy or dystopia but it's a subtle book, and Ishiguro weaves the story with understated style and grace. Information and background about the characters and their situation is drip-fed as events are related, rather than served on a plate, and while this has the (clearly intentional) effect of separating the reader from the characters' world, contrariwise it also creates an immersive reading experience. Thought-provoking, compassionate and hard-hitting all at once. I shall certainly be exploring more of this author's work!