-
About visits
Once when I had everything settled about a new apartment in Manhattan— advance rent paid, the lease signed, the movers ready —I was informed that I could not have it because it was a professional apartment. Writers are not professionals, because “their clients do not come to them.” I thought of writing to the Department of Housing or whoever made this law, “You have no idea how many characters ring my doorbell and come to me every day, and I absolutely need them for my existence,” but I never wrote this, only reflected that prostitutes could probably qualify, but writers couldn’t. Patricia Highsmith. Plotting and writing suspense
-
Sometimes on Sunday
Edna O’Brien, the talented Irish novelist, said in an interview, “Writers are always working. They never stop.” This is the nature of the job of writing, at least of writing fiction. Writers are either developing an idea or they are questing, even if unconsciously, for the germ of an idea. I create things out of boredom with reality and with the sameness of routine and objects around me. Therefore, I don’t dislike this boredom which encroaches on me every now and then, and I even try to create it by routine. I do not “have to work” in the sense that I must drive myself to it or make myself…
-
How difficult is it to write fiction?
-
What to do if you can’t create a lovely villain?
<< I think it is also possible to make a hero-psychopath one hundred percent sick and revolting, and still make him fascinating for his very blackness and all-round depravity. I very nearly did this with Bruno in Strangers on a Train , for even Bruno’s generosity is neither consistent nor well-placed, and there is nothing else to be said in his favor. But in that story, Bruno’s evil was offset by Guy’s “goodness,” which considerably simplified the problem I had of providing a likable hero, as Guy became the likable hero. It depends on the writer’s skill, whether he can have a frolic with the evil in his hero-psychopath. If…
-
A mermaid in the Sahara: using characters out of setting
The trick is to find a character who is anything but a fish in the chosen landscape. Our mission? To have them see it black enough to make unexpected but unavoidable choices (according to Robert McKee in Story). What would a farmer be doing in Wall Street? Why is a mermaid in the Sahara? How can an assassin remain a saint in Heaven?
-
¿Por qué los escritores no pueden recibir visitas [imaginarias] y los hombres de negocios sí?
Hola, este fragmento proviene de Suspense de Patricia Highsmith. Me pareció divertido puesto que habla de la ficción y la realidad…cada una siendo una esquina opuesta de nuestra mente y al mismo tiempo no. Cada una un uso del lenguaje y la confusión absoluta de la burocracia. Helo aquí. Una vez, cuando ya tenía resuelto todo lo relativo a un piso nuevo en Manhattan —ya había pagado el alquiler por anticipado, firmado el contrato y avisado a los de las mudanzas— me dijeron que no podía ocuparlo porque era un piso para profesionales. Los escritores no son profesionales, ya que «sus clientesno les visitan». Estuve a punto de escribir al…
-
No hay domingos
Los escritores no dejan de trabajar nunca...aunque no parezca
-
Una trama libre
Pero es más importante que los personajes se muevan y tomen decisiones como personas de carne y hueso, que les dé la oportunidad de deliberar, de elegir, de volverse atrás, de tomar otras decisiones, como hacen las personas en la vida real. Los argumentos rígidos, aunque sean perfectos, pueden hacer que los personajes de un libro parezcan autómatas. Patricia Highsmith. Suspense
-
Si no puedes hacer un villano adorable
Todo depende de la habilidad del escritor, de si es capaz de divertirse con la maldad de su héroe-psicópata. En caso afirmativo, el libro es entretenido
-
¿Una sirena en el desierto del Sahara?
"El marco gobierna en gran medida el tipo de personajes que utilizarás. Pero la narración podría mejorar si se utilizara un personaje que no fuera nada típico del marco en cuestión, que no fuera la clase de persona que uno esperaría encontrar en tal ambiente. Las incongruencias tienen un límite que debe respetarse, pero el resultado, si lo hay, es más interesante de lo normal." Patricia Highsmith. Suspense
