Friday 25 March 2011

Literary Leger de Main

As a writer, you're an illusionist: you create whole worlds for your reader and go to extraordinary lengths to make them seem as real and as plausible as possible -- that is what writing good fiction is all about.

The subversive in me is interested in the effects of setting up an illusion only to destroy it with a kind of devastating sleight of hand.  It can be the most fantastic plotting device and leave your reader open-mouthed with astonishment. Sarah Waters is an absolute genius at this: without wanting to give too much away, in her novel Fingersmith she creates one reality only to whip the rug from under the reader's feet and reveal another, different one. I finished reading it last week and I'm still feeling a little giddy.

So here's a challenge for you: set a wheel turning  within a wheel -- as you're weaving one illusion, produce another like a string of bright silk handkerchiefs hidden up your sleeve. Fiction is bluffing anyway, but take it a step further and go for double bluff. It can be a circus trick: cue drumroll, cue fanfare...

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