Œuvre en travaux: Annie Saumont, Perpetual Writer at Work

• Published in: Australian journal of French studies Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 246 - 256
• Main Author: Poole, Sara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Clayton, Vic Liverpool University Press 01.09.2011
• Subjects: Authors and readers; College students; Creative writing; Fiction; French literature; Reading; Saumont, Annie; Short stories; Writers; Writing processes
• ISSN: 0004-9468; 2046-2913
• DOI: 10.3828/AJFS.48.3.246

To be interested in fiction is almost obligatorily to be curious about what caused a text to be created: in how the author came to write it or, arguably, how (s)he thinks (s)he came to write it. Those who explore the work of living writers are often fortunate in being able to read, listen to and sometimes to conduct interviews with their subjects on this very topic, in an attempt to understand, for example, phenomena such as the synaptic energy-surge that saw Sebastian Faulks suddenly sense (of Birdsong) when “the entire book sort of fell into my lap, the whole thing, right down to the words in which some of the scenes were written”, or J.K. Rowling experience the unannounced arrival of Harry Potter into her consciousness on a Manchester train. To be interested in those hows and whys of creative writing is also, of course, to be curious about selection – about what choices have been made concerning structure, style, tone, theme during its composition – and about what it is that guides the authorial decisions made with regard to these aspects.
To be interested in fiction is almost obligatorily to be curious about what caused a text to be created: in how the author came to write it or, arguably, how (s)he thinks (s)he came to write it. Those who explore the work of living writers are often fortunate in being able to read, listen to and sometimes to conduct interviews with their subjects on this very topic, in an attempt to understand, for example, phenomena such as the synaptic energy-surge that saw Sebastian Faulks suddenly sense (of Birdsong) when "the entire book sort of fell into my lap, the whole thing, right down to the words in which some of the scenes were written", or J.K. Rowling experience the unannounced arrival of Harry Potter into her consciousness on a Manchester train. To be interested in those hows and whys of creative writing is also, of course, to be curious about selection - about what choices have been made concerning structure, style, tone, theme during its composition - and about what it is that guides the authorial decisions made with regard to these aspects.