GROUP DYMANICS
My latest novel, The Creative Writing Group, chronicles the intertwined lives, loves, heartbreaks and friendships of six characters linked by their love for the written word, writes subscriber Raymond Little.
My previous work, all traditionally published by presses in both the UK and USA, consisted wholly of speculative fiction, from horror to sci-fi, so this story was a big change in direction for me. The seeds of this new novel were sown by my involvement with two creative writing groups. Firstly Bromley Writers, an experienced bunch I joined a decade or so ago, and then the Brixton Creative Writing Group, which I founded and ran for several years.
Although my early published work concentrated on the weird and scary, the most interesting aspect for me was always getting deep inside a character, so my stories always began with an emphasis on authentic protagonists. My fascination for this, and the itch to write something outside of my usual genre, led to one of those lightbulb moments; if I was looking for a situation where a varied cast of characters would naturally interact, where better than a creative writing group?
The characters in my novel are of course fictional (although some of my writing buddies have, I know, scanned the pages in vain looking for themselves and each other), but they do reflect the diversity you’d expect to find amongst any bunch of inner city and suburban writers and poets. So, there I had it – a ready made situation that would enable me to explore friendship, mystery, love, sexuality, death and a whole lot more.
A chapter is devoted to each character, with that character’s prose or poetry interspersed throughout their section. This was the most enjoyable part for me, writing fiction and poems in six individual voices, whilst retaining a plot that smoothly intertwined the six lives towards an exciting climax.
In order to separate this novel from my genre fiction, I have published it under the name R.E. Little (my speculative fiction is under Raymond Little). I have found this a useful way of working and already have the first draft of another R.E. Little novella finished as well as a Raymond Little sci-fi novel in progress. It also gives my readers a clue as to what kind of story to expect.
The Creative Writing Group is available in Kindle, paperback and hardback from Amazon.
Website: raymondlittle.co.uk