I am most pleased today as the opening chapters of my novel Soul to Soul entered the Top Ten Charts on the Youwriteon.com site funded by the Arts Council in the UK. On the site writers review each other’s work and rate it according to ten different categories e.g. plot, language and character. I have scored highest for language which thrills me as I have often perceived that as my weakness – I’m usually so eager to get my story down that I grab for the nearest word that enables me to thunder on.
Recently, however, I read Colím Tobín’s Brooklyn and, as his novels are always being shortlisted for something, I was expecting long words and convuluted sentences, but that’s not what I got. It reads easily and simply, and has been hailed in The Irish Times, as his greatest work. This makes me wonder if the trend in literary fiction is moving away from long words and sentences, and towards simpicity and clarity. If so there is hope for us all – readers and writers!
Well, I shall go back to my children’s novel, which I dumped the moment I found out about my Top Ten Chart position. That’s the danger of checking emails in the middle of writing. I really shouldn’t do it…
