Meet Anjuelle Floyd, and win a kindle!
See yesterday's post for more information about Anjuelle Floyd and The House, and don't forget to read to the end of this post to find out how to win a Kindle!
Over to you Anjuelle:
CHARACTER SKETCH: Meet Edward Manning
Have you ever wondered how a writer comes up with her characters? Author Anjuelle Floyd provides a peek inside the profile of her dying character, Edward Manning.
I recently began reading a book on the craft of writing fiction, entitled “The Half- Known World,” by Robert Boswell. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1555975046/httpanuellec-20
Boswell suggests that stories to truly engage and hold the heart of readers need to possess aspects that are not fully revealed.
Much as in life, Boswell proposes that:
He writes, “The illusion of people and place created by a story is the algebraic product of a writer’s art and a reader’s engagement. This world exits not on the page, but in the reader’s mind. The writer is responsible for the surface story of the character and conflict, the evocation of a fictional reality (including the terms by which it operates), and the execution of a full narrative shape. If the writer’s goal is literary fiction--a slippery term, but for the moment let’s call it “fiction that aspires to be art”--then there are additional responsibilities. One of these, I’ll argue, is the creation of the half-known world. To accomplish this, the writer must suggest a dimension to the fictional reality that escapes comprehension. The writer wishes to make his characters and their world known to the reader, and he simultaneously wishes to make them resonate with the unknown.”
Boswell likens sitcoms to fully known worlds where we see and understand all that is taking place. Lacking the threat and occurrence of change and transformation we feel always welcome. These experiences sound the death knell of the show. And yet, Boswell writes of this lack of this threat that, “To make something fully known is unreal.”
Edward in the The House, epitomizes that which we cannot know fully. Why death has affected him to surrender to Anna after over 3 decades of infidelity is incomprehensible on so many levels.
Surely he is afraid, quite understandably. But why has the certain approach of death shaken him so? He never directly addresses that.
Neither does he hint whether his terminal illness is the reason that at the opening of the novel he has granted Anna both the divorce and a deed to the house. What is even more interesting that somewhere along the way when Anna has taken him back home and he recognizes that she has not divorced him, he chooses to give the house to David. By this time he has dissolved Manning Real Estate, made Anna owner of Manning Ventures, a company formed in the face of his approaching death.
I realize now as I write that the dissolution of Manning Real Estate and creation of Manning Ventures symbolizes the death of Edward’s physical body that is to come and the diasporic transformation of what he had built that leads to a sort of immortality.
We lose ourselves, surrender the material possessions we have amassed to those we love, in hopes of gaining a place in their hearts. We gain immortality most simply by living on in the memories of others. We can but hope those memories bring a best, joy, in the least, bittersweet remembrance of what once existed if only for a moment, a shining flame of hope of what could have been.
Thank you Anjuelle. You can read my review of The House here.
And now, as promised, details of Anjuelle's wonderful Kindle contest:
WIN A FREE KINDLE!
To celebrate the release of her novel, The House, author Anjuelle Floyd is offering a (1) Kindle Wi-Fi (retail value: $139.00) as a part of her promotional blog tour. A WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED DECEMBER 1, 2010.
TO REGISTER ONLINE - http://bit.ly/TheHouseKindleGiveaway
For More Information
• Visit the author online at http://www.anjuellefloyd.com
• View the blog tour schedule at http://bit.ly/TheHouseBlogTour
Comments
Good luck, Anjuelle, with the book.