Телеграм канал «Abby Wynne»

Some people are so stupid

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXJxPn3lr5V/?igsh=ZjY1aXo0NTF1OGZn

Mark Me Jacqui and Digby!! And we all look very fancy in Mark’s new location 😎

https://youtu.be/h0SJhOL0Zk4?is=YhWzAew_C2tvylK7

When Thomas and I were talking about learning through story, we looked at fairy tales, and with fairy tales you give very little description so that people can fill the blanks in. I'll give you an example: there was a girl on a horse. Now, if you're black, you're going to imagine a black girl on a horse, and if you're white, you'll imagine a white girl on a horse. If you're Asian, you'll imagine an Asian girl on a horse, and immediately you connect to the threads of the story because you're putting in images that you relate to at a deep level. I think that's really important.

You can write a book now, and people feel they have to have a black person in there and an Asian person, etc. If you don't describe their skin at all, then automatically a black person will imagine the people are black, an Asian person will imagine that they're Asian, and so on.

The books that I write, the fiction books, are written this way. I put as few details in there as possible so that people will connect immediately to the characters because they put their own ideas into the characters, and I never say anything otherwise unless it's important to fix a person in place in time. That's the only time I would do it.

For my book Russian Doll, I have described the character of Dylan and Sinéad because they're an Irish couple, and that's an important part of the story; however, the author that's narrating most of the book, I never describe at all. I mean, I described what clothes they're wearing, but you don't know if the author is male or female.

What I found very interesting was that my friend and editor, Daniel Peacock read my nearly finished draft of “We Live Inside a Giant Russian Doll”, and he assumed that the author was a male because he's a male. When he wrote back and said the author did this and he did that, I fist-bumped the air because it worked! He projected himself into the character of the author, and then he felt like he was in the story.

Maybe it's just me as a writer; I notice things like this, but language is so important, and allowing people to make up their own minds is so important, and giving people space for their imagination to breathe is also important.

If you haven't seen my video with Thomas, here's the link again; it really is worth a watch. He's a wealth of information.


https://youtu.be/TIinKJcUxKQ

Has anybody read The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton? When I was a child, these were my favourite books. I didn't know, of course, how shamanic they were, going into a tree and finding a different world in the branches every day with different people and different adventures.

I loved those books. They opened up my imagination, so I was excited and worried when I found out that they were making a movie of it fifty years later. There's no way they could get this right.

I'm looking at the poster now. Moonface was called Moonface because his face looked like the moon. Here we have a black man wearing a vaguely moon shaped hat. He does not have a face that looks like the moon. I knew that this was the kind of thing that they would end up doing.

I recognise some of the names of the characters on the IMDB listing: Silky the Fairy, the Saucepan Man, Mrs Snap. I don't remember when Enid Blyton wrote these, possibly in the 1940s. Very old-fashioned, filled with non-PC style writing… I knew they would tidy it up, but they could have at least made someone who looked like a moon for Moonface.

I'm disappointed already! I don't think seeing this movie would be helpful for me, especially since I've had years of imagining the possibilities.

I remember somebody said when they read Harry Potter before the movies were made, they could enjoy imagining everybody, and then when the movies were made, any time they imagined Harry Potter or any other character, they see the actor that played them. It shut something down in their mind. There is a lot to be said for keeping imagination fresh and clear.

The replay link was sent out to each of you that signed up for today’s webinar. I went looking for it as I copied myself on it and it was in my spam folder.
My email to me, from me, went to my spam folder!!
Please check yours if you’re expecting an email from me. Something strange is afoot.

thankyou abby, fabulous webinar i had to spep out of my comfort zone 1st to access webinar and the to get sound. the whole webinar resonated and i feel so calm and peaceful now. i am definately in for your further workshops. feeling so grateful. 🙏