If you want to win at historical fiction, your readers are going to need to feel like they fell into a deep sleep and woke up in a different world. To create that different world, you’re going to not only need to have all your facts straight, you’re going to need to paint a picture with all the right colors.
Satire, pastiche, homage, and parody – four literary terms subject to frequent misuse. Most readers and writers have some sense of what each word means, but many struggle to pin down the specifics – something about real-world references, humor, and mockery, right?
Of course, I wouldn’t be trying to defend Franzen in the first place if he wasn’t a good writer. Thankfully, he is: The Corrections and Freedom were two of my first contemporary American novels, and I think they’re just swell.
Who, what, when, where, why, and how? Six key questions for any storyteller to answer. But, even knowing that, how do you actually bring these vital tools to bear on your writing?
Have any questions? We are always open to talk about your writing, publishing projects, creative opportunities and how we can help you.
