Authors Electric

I’m naturally anxious to remind the august membership of Authors Electric that I’m still a keen follower of the group’s comings and goings so I’ve decided to use one of my occasional guest visits to help prolong the relentless gaiety of the Christmas and New Year observations by offering a little light-hearted challenge designed specifically for members' tastes and talents. In fact, it’s a variation on one I published several years ago by way of response to a Facebook posting. Facebook is a strange place for all sorts of reasons – some good, some less so. Just by answering a few questions, one can, for example, find out really useful things, such as which 18th century politician, Renaissance painter, Jane Austen character, or medieval landlord one most resembles in terms of one’s susceptibility to certain medical conditions. Other queries help one decide whether, temperamentally, one is closer to a porcupine, a swallow-tailed butterfly, or a haddock. Or there’s the simple process...

This has nothing to do with anything What follows is a piece I posted on my own blog between Xmas and New Year. My excuse/reason for repeating it here is that I think it illustrates the process of how asking questions of ourselves as writers (questions of which I gave examples in three of my AE blogs in the summer of 2015), provides the substance and complexities of stories and novels. The range and nature of the responses I got to the challenge at the end made me want to provoke some of the literati who frequent the AE blog into giving their take on the exercise. First, then, the blog. Facebook is a strange place for all sorts of reasons – some good, some less so. You can, for example, find out which 18 th century politician, Renaissance painter, or Jane Austen character you most resemble just by answering a few questions. Really useful, eh? Other questions help you decide whether you’re a porcupine, a swallow-tailed butterfly, or a haddock. Some ask you to combine the ...