On Writing
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Putting in a Hard Day’s Work at the Word Factory
I am fascinated the whole phenomenon of generative AI as a fiction-writing machine. Not because I think it’s a good idea (it’s a terrible idea), but because of what it tells us about what we think the work of writing fiction is, and also what we think stories do. In order to even consider automating novel-writing, you’d have to believe that labour of writing a novel is split into three distinct parts that can safely be teased apart: coming up with the setting, characters, plot, and themes and documenting all those (the creative part), painstakingly and mindlessly lining up words…
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Middle Grade
Middle Grade is my favourite category of fiction to write and to read. People who know MG get it, I think: it has room for earnestness and wonder in a way that isn’t always popular. MG protagonists don’t have the experience and autonomy that’s usually taken as read in adult fiction. It’s more complex than fiction for younger kids, but not as gritty as YA and NA get to be. It’s not arch or sarcastic or cool like the cool kids, and to me that makes it the most genuine and the most fun to write. Ages eight to twelve…