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Writing is a peculiar field, and one of its oddities is that its practitioners are permitted - even expected, in some cases - to present false identities to the world in the form of ‘pen names’. There are, I think, certain advantages to this. I can think of four: 1. Avoiding Negative Feedback This may be the one that many think of. If you’ve exposed your heart and soul in a piece of work, pouring out emotions which you have perhaps never shared with anyone and making th

From the Editor's Foreword of Vortex: The Inner Circle Writers' Group Literary Anthology 2018, available here: I’ve noticed a trend of questions recently in some writers’ groups regarding the definitions of ‘genre’ and ‘literary’ fiction. Quite often, the starting point for such questions has been genre fiction, with science fiction, fantasy or romance writers and the like asking ‘What is literary fiction?’ Sometimes the answers have been misleading or a little shallow, so

Earlier on, we looked at Northrop Frye's development of what he called fictional ‘modes’, each determined by the relationship of the hero or heroine both to other characters and to the natural environment. The five modes, as outlined in his ground-breaking book Anatomy of Criticism, were: (1) Myth, featuring a world in which entities that we usually call ‘gods’ do barely recognisable things. As we have since seen, going beyond Frye, myths about creation involve something em

We saw in a recent article in this series that the powerful images and motifs of Myth could be found in different forms in what Northrop Frye called Romance, the genre of legends and tales of heroes and demigods. Examining the Matter of Britain, we detected quite easily the presence of most of the great archetypes - the Wise Old Figure, the Comic Companion, the Emerging Warrior, the Aware Protagonist, the Submerging Female, the Shadow Protagonist and the Antagonist - partakin

Some assertions: Myth brings something out of nothing via a set of two poles, between which is a spectrum of points: Pole # 1 Close to Pole # 1 Equidistant from either Pole Close to Pole # 2 Pole # 2 This abstract scale is then personified as the great archetypes: The Wise Old Man The Comic Companion The Warrior Companion The Protagonist The Female Companion The Shadow Protagonist The Antagonist At first, in myths such as the creation stories told in culture

The act of making something, we’re assuming, is the act of drawing something out of an ultimate Non Existence into some kind of Existence. Before you begin writing a story, this theory goes, there is no story. Whether quickly or slowly, consciously or unconsciously, something emerges into the light - perhaps beginning with some kind of vague polarity or dichotomy, resolving somehow into shapes and figures, moving in one direction or another. At least, that’s what myths te

If you’re a member of the Inner Circle Writers’ Group on Facebook, you will have observed that on most Mondays I have a slot called ‘Marketing Monday’ in which I encourage members to post links directly to their websites and books and so on. At the same time, I discourage members from doing this in the main group feed - there, any attempt to ‘sell’ to members is discouraged and usually not allowed. Why is this? I have commented on this in the group itself, but here’s a sl

Continuing from the earlier article 'Archetypes': The Shadow Protagonist This figure also appears across the whole range of fiction: he or she is like the protagonist, but with different choices made. Think Bentley Drummle and Orlick in Great Expectations; Darth Vader in Star Wars; Gollum in The Lord of the Rings; Mordred in the tales of Arthur. These are often the assistants of antagonists, lurking in the darkness like brutal versions of the hero or heroine. The Anta

In our ongoing series about Myth, we’ve already covered a lot of ground. But you might feel as though you’re climbing a few mountains before we reach the next plateau. Starting from Northrop Frye’s division of literature into the modes of myth, romance (by which he meant mediaeval-style epic stories), high mimetic (grand stories about kings and leaders), low mimetic (more ‘ordinary’ stories about more ‘ordinary’ people) and ironic (stories about the less-than-human), we hav