Merely a mere…

 

 

 

 

I’ve just been out in a driving hail storm. Yet only days ago I was sauntering along beside Scarborough’s lovely mere, gazing at waterlily leaves…

…and making conversation with the local residents…

   I even imagined I was in deepest Africa, when there seemed to be a crocodile just submerged… Of course it turned out to be a rotten boat or something…but then writers are allowed to let their imagination run wild, aren’t they?

It seems, though, that even the most creative of us find it difficult to “feel” different temperatures…i.e.  when it’s cold we can’t quite imagine warmth, and when it’s warm, as it was only the other day at the Mere, it’s hard to imagine the hail against your skin. Yet we have knowledge, don’t we, and can recreate in our minds how it might feel. Which is exactly what you have to do when you’re trying to climb inside the skin of a character in a novel…we have to be that person, so that the reader can gain as much of an insight as they can and BELIEVE in them. I guess that’s the advantage of taking notes wherever you are, stashing away a whole raft (‘scuse the pun) of scenarios, so that you have the detail to hand to provide the authentic character and the authentic scene…

Just trying to figure out how I can use an old rotten boat that resembles a crocodile…

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