Embers - a novel by j.m. bridgeman

Style (2)   “Write like you talk” is one of my favourite writing tenets. And EMBERS opens with the protagonist, Wyn McBride, talking to herself. While driving. While negotiating a flagperson stopping her on the highway. Start and stop. Jerk. Jerk. Free association, with words, sounds, songs, and sights, as the sound echoes the sense . Although setting is primary, I do see EMBERS as a novel of character . The plot and the conflict centre upon character revelation and character development. I was also attempting to experiment a bit with point of view ( POV ). Variety of POV is one of the ways we learn more about the main character—what others say about her. For most chapters, Wyn is centre stage as narrator. Sometimes as unreliable narrator, because she is not always conscious of why she makes choices she makes. Most chapters are conversations—with Sylvain, with Lu, with Liam. Doll does dramatic monologues, which tells you something important about Doll. Some of Wyn’s Ir...

Style (1) They used to say (my old profs) that there are two types of literature, and thus, two types of writer. The Classicists and the Romantics. The Classicists are interested in the style, the "how" of telling the story, the little tricks the creator uses to hook his audience and keep them reading or listening. Too many little tricks turn into purple patches, which is a bad thing. (A purple patch is a section of the telling which interrupts/stops the reader by attracting them to the words and the way they are put together, thus pulling us out of our suspended disbelief in the created story.) The Romantics are more interested in what happens to the characters, in the emotional and physical conflicts with which we readers identify and care about the created beings. I probably don't have to tell you that I've always leaned towards the Romantic side (positivity, emotion, nature, spirit). Towards more flesh than flash. Not to be dazzled by the teller's tric...