Imagine never having heard the sound of a piano or violin (which is something I tried to convey in one of the scenes at the Wrights’ house.) How do you describe the sound of a bird? Or the shape of clouds? And could thunder really sound like a cannon? (Maybe to people in Boston where there were cannons, but probably not to the people in Stoneybrooke.
I definitely couldn’t use ‘sparkle like a diamond’ or ‘a pearl of a moon’. They didn’t have many past experiences to draw on. In Love’s Pursuit, for example, I was writing about people who lived in a wilderness, who had limited interaction with the world at large. The most difficult part in writing historicals is limiting my words and my metaphors. And I had trouble in my next book (She Walks in Beauty) not making the dialogue sound too contemporary. Love’s Pursuit was a bit more relaxed in terms of formality. I hardly used any contractions in that book in order to convey the more formal speech patterns. Just how ‘Shakespearian’ did the characters have to sound, etc. It’s always difficult to know exactly how true to the time to be. ‘Love’s Pursuit’ is quite different from your other books to date, how challenging was it to write something with such a historical style of language, compared to the more contemporary language used in your other novels? I loved answering them because they made me think about the book in a different way, helped me to understand the ‘why’s of some of the things that I wrote (read on for surprising revelations!), and be more precise about what it was that I was trying to say (which can actually be very difficult for a novelist!) So, without further ado: Thanks too for forwarding all of these questions. I also hope that it was thought provoking. I hope the time you spent between its pages let you immerse yourself in a different time and place. Siri:~ First, thank you so much for choosing to read my book. Love’s Pursuit is available now from Bethany House. Be warned there are some spoilers if you haven’t read Love’s Pursuit yet. Siri graciously answered our questions and I wanted to share her insights into Love’s Pursuit, writing and much more. It is a poignant tale of tender love and God’s grace and is highly recommended to other book clubs.
My Book Club’s September selection was Siri Mitchell’s Love’s Pursuit.
0 kommentar(er)
