Category: Margaret Atwood

  • Myth, History, and Belief Systems

    “Ancient myths precede histories and were once thought to be histories. They were thought to be true accounts of important matters.” ~Margaret Atwood, from “Burning Bushes” in In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination I’m part of a couple reading groups on Goodreads. Unfortunately, I can never seem to keep up with the novels…

  • World Building vs. Character Building

    Today I’m going to follow up on my earlier post about The Year of the Flood. I had talked about Atwood’s world building, which is immersive and draws me right in. She doesn’t info dump, but rather, she gives little glimpses to draw you in. It’s like the world-building peep show. On the second page…

  • World Building

    I’m working my way through Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. The interesting thing to look at is how she built her world. On one hand, she explains very little. She tosses the reader right into the midst of rakunks and a post-apocalyptic world. It’s not until much later that she explains about the genetic…

  • Margaret Atwood and Origins

    Part mentor post, part Origins Blogfest (this one’s a big ‘un…and how’s that? From no blogfests to two in three days!). In Other Worlds: Science Fiction and the Human Imagination, Atwood has a series of essays about how she came to write science fiction – or speculative fiction, depending on what definition you use – so…

  • Margaret Atwood on Her Creative Process

    Okay, here’s a great little interview from Big Think, asking Margaret Atwood all those questions that we writers love to ask other writers…especially those more successful or smarter than us. Something interesting that struck me in her methodology was the ‘rolling barrage’ – because I do this. As she describes it: the rolling barrage is…

  • You Say To-may-to, I Say To-mah-to: Define Your Terms

    “What I mean by ‘science fiction’ is those books that descend from H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, which treats of an invasion by tentacled, blood-sucking Martians shot to Earth in metal canisters…’speculative fiction’ means plots that descend from Jules Verne’s books about submarines and balloon travel and such – things that really could…

  • Farewell Gaiman, Welcome Atwood

    Alas, such as it is on this blog, we cannot keep talking about one author forever. So, as pleasant as it has been to talk of Gaiman, and as many works as we have left explore of his, it’s time for someone new. But dry your tears, friends, we’ll be talking about Terry Pratchett in…

  • A Margaret Atwood Inspired Short

    Intro: In September I participated in the Colorado Springs Writing Marathon. I’d just finished reading Atwood’s Good Bones and Simple Murders (reviewed tomorrow) and really, really wanted to try something small and twisty like the stories in that book. The following is the result: The Crayon It’s robin-egg blue and hidden behind a potted plant. The…

  • In Related Margaret Atwood News…

    Atwood’s new book on science fiction/speculative fiction In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination is out and about! For an excerpt:  From the National Post – “Margaret Atwood: Utopias in fiction and their failed real-life counterparts”

  • What Do Chapter Titles Reveal About Your Book (Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake)

    I’m not a writer who titles her chapters – though I’ve considered it for various projects, including my WiP. J.K. Rowling titled all chapters in the Harry Potter series, Neil Gaiman titled his chapters in The Graveyard Book, and there’s a whole host of other authors who title their chapters. It’s something I think we…