A Minor Milestone Passed

Silly, but fun: Last night, at midnight, I reached the anniversary of serious blogging on this site. And my stats counter shows there have been 25,013 page views over that first year. Whilst pleased I've reached so many people and, hopefully, entertained, informed and maybe even inspired some of them, I'm aiming to double for the coming year. So, if you find things here that interest, inform, irritate, illuminate or inspire, please tell your friends. I welcome comments especially, as these provide feedback, the very lifeblood of the writer.
Meanwhile, my thanks to all those who have visited during the past 12 months. I hope to continue giving you what you want to read and see. Please let me know if there are other features you'd like here. I'll do my best to fulfil any reasonable and relevant requests.

Writing: Ch24 Complete & Ch25 Begun.

This morning I finished Ch24, which now runs to 4551 words. All three threads of the story now weaving well together, with the major driving force of the celestial event affecting the action for all groups. As readers, would any of you like more information regarding characters, locations, etc as I continue this diary? As writers, is there anything you'd like me to include, or exclude in this account? Writing epic fantasy is demanding in some ways, requiring extensive imagination and the ability to reside within the envisioned world. On the other hand, current events here on our real world have no part in such fantasy, so, apart from linguistic anachronisms, the writer is less restricted in the use of ideas than is the writer who sets stories in the known world. Many fantasy writers include magical creatures in their stories; dragons and unicorns are common. Many dwell on the physical battles between good and evil. Many rely on esoteric magic elements. There are references to dragons, there is war between good and evil and I do employ a small amount of magic in my novel. But the story is much more about my characters and their interaction within several societies founded on different religions, so that I explore many of the topics that others have neglected.
Whether my story will appeal to many or just a few remains to be seen. I hope for the former, of course: writing is communication and communication without an audience is a little pointless, after all.
So, the rest of my day has been taken up with a pleasant rural walk with Valerie, a short session in the garden, moving a few plants about in preparation for a fairly major project I have planned, and some social networking via Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.
I've also started Ch25, just a couple of hundred words, but ready to continue tomorrow after my return to the office after this long weekend break.

The picture, taken at the weekend, is entitled 'Cloudy Sky.' Enjoy.

To Tell the Truth, or Alter It?

Image via CrunchBase

As fiction writers, we often take factual situations and even people as the basis for our stories. To what extent is it valid and/or morally defensible to pass off an altered factual account as fiction? I was prompted to ask this question when one of my writing friends, Patricia Love, invited me to a LinkedIn discussion forum as follows: Has anyone ever written a piece of fiction based on a public or historical event, or a piece of news that required some investigative reporting?

(Some areas of interest are whether writers find it challenging to present a narrative that is reliable, yet subtly subjective.) You might wish to follow the link and join in the discussion; I have.

But, back to my question. Many books have been written as fictionalised versions of a factual situation, or thinly disguised portrayals of real people. My interest is in whether such conversion is right; morally, artistically and socially. We live in a world where it is now possible to present entirely fictional information as fact, whether in written, photographic or film form. In fact, due to advances in the CGI process, it is becoming almost impossible to tell the real from the manufactured in film nowadays. The amalgam of journalism with online mechanisms makes the reporting of items, once considered as 'news', open to all manner of distortion, plagiarism and Chinese whispers (my apologies to Oriental friends). So that we, as the consumers of the news, are no longer able to determine whether what we are being shown, told, informed about, is real or merely the workings of some fevered journalistic brain.

I recognise that we are far too far down the road of technology to go back to the days of newsprint and lead type. Though there is no real evidence that news presented in those 'good old days' was either neutral or factually accurate, of course. But we do need to be aware that the world we now inhabit allows ideas, opinions, propaganda and dogma to be presented as truth, and that this 'truth' is then abused by people in positions of power.

Is there anything we can do, as citizens intent on discovering the reality behind a given news story, to learn what is true and what is false? Short of examining the issue from a number of different and disparate viewpoints, we are unable to sort the chaff from the wheat.

It is for this reason that organisations such as the BBC World Service, still a well-respected purveyor of news over the globe, must continue to be strictly governed to prevent both deliberate and accidental bias or distortion. Doubtless, there are other international news organisations that are currently equally trusted. We lose these organs of truth at our peril. For, without them, we dive steeply into the world of those newsrags that sell lies, mistruths, legends and myths (urban or otherwise) as truth entirely from a profit motive. Under such a regime, we will find ourselves incapable of trusting any information gained and will become unable to form informed opinions and make important choices on all manner of subjects.

Which takes me back to the fiction question. Is it right to take real situations and people and turn them into fiction? Or, does this practice encourage the use of fiction in real journalism? This is an invitation to discuss and put forward points of view, so, please, let's have them.