Writing: when to 'play' and when to take decisions - Alice Jolly
A few years ago I heard author Tracy Chevalier talking at a literary festival. She said something which fascinated me. People think, she said, that writing a novel is a hugely freeing and imaginative process. You can do anything you want, create any characters you want, any world. But the reality, she said, is that writing a novel is mainly a process of closing doors, identifying the novels you don't want to write. I think that is very true. But the question is - how much time do you spend 'playing' and when does the moment come when you have to take decisions? By 'playing' I mean time spent experimenting, trying things out, messing around to see what comes up. When I talk about 'making decisions' I'm thinking of that moment when you suddenly say - no, the main character isn't a doctor, she is an architect. I became interested in this question of 'play' versus decision making through writing plays. Until I started doing that I had...