Comments on: Something Hidden by Nick Blackstock

By: nick blackstock

nick blackstock — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:27:35 +0000

Andrew

Thanks for your comments. As to what comes first – background knowledge or the story – I don’t think it matters. Mind you I suspect it’s easier to start from a position where you know ( or think you know) quite a bit about the subject.

I’m looking forward to reading your book. I spent some time in East Africa myself, albeit a long time ago.

Nick

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:09:55 +0000

What a haunting incident to build a novel around, Nick. As you say for many authors there’s some scenario, scene, incident – real or imagined – that provides the spark. Yourself, Ben and Caroline have used an in-depth knowledge of a subject as the springboard for their novel. For myself it was pretty much the other way around – I did the research after writing the story! This had some advantage in that I knew where the gaps were – what I really needed to research.

By: nick blackstock

nick blackstock — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:35:45 +0000

Ben
Thanks for your comment. Apart from articles in a variety of magazines my previous ‘non fiction’ experience was limited to text books. Given that this is such a specialised field, I wasn’t expecting that it would open any doors to fiction writing.

What I did find puzzling, however, was that my previous fiction publication didn’t carry much weight either. It gradually dawned on me that the economics of publishing had changed in ways that I hadn’t realised. Publishing houses tend to have a solid stable of established writers which, as you pointed out, they tend to stick with – sometimes long past their ’sell by’ date. Beyond that you have the ‘celeb’ books. Most of these don’t make money, but they can be regarded as groundbait – which may or may not have some sort of return in terms of publicity.

This leaves a n ever diminishing slot for ‘other writers’, a slot which should be filled by new fiction – but just isn’t.

Nick

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:02:09 +0000

Thanks for your personal insights Nick.

What I am picking up is firstly that my experiences vis-a-vis moving between the non-fiction world and fiction are echoed by you, because everyone seems to think that previous non-fiction work automatically opens doors – how wrong they are.

The second is the remarkably similar routes that people such as you, Caroline, and myself have gone along – research in a specific field leading to a firing of the imagination.

Look forward to reading ‘Something Hidden’

Ben