Ask the Author: Michael Kroft
Answered Questions (5)
Michael Kroft
A little less than what could be asked by those men with large plastic thingy aspirations, or so I hear.
Michael Kroft
Hi James,
Dickens. Without even taking a minute to think about, it's Dickens. I always liked his style, especially considering the time period when his novels were written. His Pickwick Papers was what put him at the top. It was his first novel but I only read it as his seventh -shame on me. He only wrote one book I disliked, and I think I am alone there, and that's David Copperfield - too long and too few moments to keep me engaged for very long. I had to force myself through it. I also enjoy historical fiction, and though I'm certain that Dickens didn't write them as historical novels :) , they are good Historical Fiction reads. Bleak House was the saddest novel he wrote, not because of the story, but because it was the last of his books I had left to read.
Dickens. Without even taking a minute to think about, it's Dickens. I always liked his style, especially considering the time period when his novels were written. His Pickwick Papers was what put him at the top. It was his first novel but I only read it as his seventh -shame on me. He only wrote one book I disliked, and I think I am alone there, and that's David Copperfield - too long and too few moments to keep me engaged for very long. I had to force myself through it. I also enjoy historical fiction, and though I'm certain that Dickens didn't write them as historical novels :) , they are good Historical Fiction reads. Bleak House was the saddest novel he wrote, not because of the story, but because it was the last of his books I had left to read.
Michael Kroft
That's a tough one to answer, only because it depends how prominent the historical incidents, including the historical characters, are within the story and the level of historical learning the reader is forced to absorb. If the incidents are used as simply the background and parametres to the fictional plot, then it could be as low as five percent. But, if the story is based around historical events and uses or works in historical characters significant to it's plot, the weight of the historical incidents may be as high as seventy-five percent with the fiction being worked into it as twenty-five percent. I think any more than seventy-five percent and one is pretty-much writing non-fiction.
My Novel On Herring Cove Road uses a character driven plot set in the seventies in an actual place, so I am limited by the environment of the time (culture, technology, places, and etc.,) and there are no prominent figures used from that period within the story line. I would say that the historical incidents weigh in only at five percent and would not call it historical fiction, of course, being only forty years back does not, in my mind, qualify it as historical either, but genres can be at times pretty much subjective.
I have plans to write a fictional story based in the 1700's around indenturement. On my list of projects, and it comes in as the fifth novel. If that comes to light, historical incidents would be easily thirty percent as it would use characters from that time, based on actual events and the law and policies of indenturement and be worked with the parametres of the environment of the time period.
My Novel On Herring Cove Road uses a character driven plot set in the seventies in an actual place, so I am limited by the environment of the time (culture, technology, places, and etc.,) and there are no prominent figures used from that period within the story line. I would say that the historical incidents weigh in only at five percent and would not call it historical fiction, of course, being only forty years back does not, in my mind, qualify it as historical either, but genres can be at times pretty much subjective.
I have plans to write a fictional story based in the 1700's around indenturement. On my list of projects, and it comes in as the fifth novel. If that comes to light, historical incidents would be easily thirty percent as it would use characters from that time, based on actual events and the law and policies of indenturement and be worked with the parametres of the environment of the time period.
Michael Kroft
The poking around in the head of each character to see how they will react to a situation. I especially enjoy creating dialogue, but most of what I write is only a small portion of that.
Michael Kroft
I never really understood writer's block. I hardly ever seem stuck on words. I only get writer's block (if I can even call it that since the term seems so much more dramatic than what I go through) when I'm trying to decide the best way to start a chapter or section. I pretty much have everything outlined before I start to write, and much of that seems to be problem solving to insure consistency in characters and story flow. The outline itself can be rather detailed, almost to the point where it walks me through the story on its own and I just put each part of the outline into sentences and paragraphs.
When I do find myself stuck on how to start a chapter or section, I simply move to another section and begin writing, or I look at a previous written section and go through it again. The mind amazes me, because at one point the answer will hit me like a brick to the brain when I never even thought it was working on the problem.
When I do find myself stuck on how to start a chapter or section, I simply move to another section and begin writing, or I look at a previous written section and go through it again. The mind amazes me, because at one point the answer will hit me like a brick to the brain when I never even thought it was working on the problem.
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