Visiting the edge of experience

Many people were surprised I wanted to go on "the Manhire course" as it's been known - the creative writing class at Victoria University - because I’d already had several novels and other books published. Why would an established author need writing lessons? they asked. There were indeed some things I thought I could do well enough already, like structure and plot and character and dialogue.  

Lesson Number 1: You can always do a lot better.

Lesson Number 2: You're never too old to learn.

There were revelations I never expected, such as the discovery of a literary genre I’d never heard of, and probably won’t bother to explore again: transgressive fiction. I now know it covers graphic exploration of aberrant sexual practices and mutilation – visiting the edge of experience, someone called it. I’m amazed that I managed to read it all without throwing up. Ironically, one of the three beautiful young women in the class came up with that one and it was a matter of principle not to seem old school about “visiting the edge of experience”. That is, after all, why I wanted to go on the course in the first place.

What did I learn about writing?

 

Here are some of the key things I learned:

1. How to recognise clichés and, for the most part, lose them
2. How to stop over-explaining and running on, and accept that less is more
3. Severely prune adverbs (I don’t think I could ever drop them entirely – there are two in this list already)
4. Dialogue doesn’t have to follow on – people often don’t answer a question or say the logical next thing
5. Writing what you know is safe. Sometimes you have to go outside the boundaries and “visit the edge of experience” – though preferably not through transgressive fiction!

Footnote:

Felicity Price is on a panel,The Stuff of Life, at The Press Christchurch Writers Festival, with fellow authors Joanne Harris and Nicky Pellegrino on Sunday 2 September at 2.00pm. I am chairing that panel and am currently reading Felicity's A Sandwich Short of a Picnic to be followed by the latest titles from the two other authors.