Are you a Reporter or an Imaginer?

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Writing as the Opposite Sex

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Paul Whybrow

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Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
I'm currently reading Lawrence Block's Spider Spin Me A Web - A Handbook For Fiction Writers. Chapter 20 is called Reporters and Imaginers.
Block's interest in the two types of writers was raised by a colleague at a literary conference, Arno Karlen who writes largely nonfiction. He gave a lecture in which he postulated that there's often a very thin line between fiction and nonfiction. He cites Hemingway, James Baldwin and Norman Mailer as examples of reporters in the guise of novelists.
This made Block wonder about how he wrote things. How much was he using experiences and people that he'd known as inspiration, and how much came purely from his imagination? He gives several amusing examples of how he found it easier sometimes to write convincingly about people and places that he didn't know, than to create an accurate impression of those that he was acquainted with.
I thought about my writing, and decided that I use a mix of autobiographical experiences and made-up stuff. I definitely favour factual details, though this is done more in a write what you know about way. For instance, I give several of the characters in my novel physical and mental ailments that I've had - gout, Reynaud's syndrome (cold feet), depression and Aspergillosis - a fungal infection of the lungs.
The pitfall of being a Reporter style of writer is that one could come across as giving a lecture if too much detail is given. Then again, an Imaginer really needs to describe their creation in a feasible and convincing way.
What sort of writer are you - a Reporter or Imaginer?
 
Imaginer, then I set up a factual hinterland.

Sorry about the gout, very nasteeeeee. Il Matrimonio has had a couple of short, sharp bouts and I suspect beer, lager is worse; and dose him with cider vinegar for the malic acid, to antidote the uric acid.
 
I'm a Reporter to start with, and then I add Imagination to cover my tracks. :rolleyes:
 
Imaginer, then I set up a factual hinterland.

Sorry about the gout, very nasteeeeee. Il Matrimonio has had a couple of short, sharp bouts and I suspect beer, lager is worse; and dose him with cider vinegar for the malic acid, to antidote the uric acid.
Thank you for your kind words. Gout is one of the few ailments that one gets no sympathy for having - it's always assumed that it's your fault, through rich eating or drinking too much port and brandy. In fact, it's more of an inherited condition (my grandfather had it) and is a form of arthritis. I've suffered various pains, including stabbing, being shot, poisoned (Black Widow) and broken bones, but nothing hurt as much as gout. Thankfully, I've only been afflicted a few times, and not for twenty years, but at the time it felt like my big toe joint was clamped in a vice that was being hit with a club hammer and heated by a blowtorch.
Ah well, it's all grist to the mill, and I passed my agony onto the forensic pathologist in my novel, and her condition provided a turning-point in the plot.

230px-The_gout_james_gillray.jpg

The Gout - James Gillray, 1799
 
In a sense, I suppose I'm reporting something from my own experience; we all are. But experience is imagined as well as experiential. I enjoy the research aspects hugely. It is an educational project, a novel, even if hardly any of the research makes the final edit.
 
Thank you for your kind words. Gout is one of the few ailments that one gets no sympathy for having - it's always assumed that it's your fault, through rich eating or drinking too much port and brandy. In fact, it's more of an inherited condition (my grandfather had it) and is a form of arthritis. I've suffered various pains, including stabbing, being shot, poisoned (Black Widow) and broken bones, but nothing hurt as much as gout. Thankfully, I've only been afflicted a few times, and not for twenty years, but at the time it felt like my big toe joint was clamped in a vice that was being hit with a club hammer and heated by a blowtorch.
Ah well, it's all grist to the mill, and I passed my agony onto the forensic pathologist in my novel, and her condition provided a turning-point in the plot.

230px-The_gout_james_gillray.jpg

The Gout - James Gillray, 1799



It is AGONY and not the victim's fault. I well understand. It's a fault of body chemistry, of the kidneys and urinary system. It can be triggered by purines. Cauliflower can trigger it, or shellfish or spinach and how decadent is that? It KILLED Lorenzo de Medici.

And good for you, for finding a use for it. Silk purse from a sow's ear.
 
I am probably a reporter with imaginer to fill in gaps that my actual observations can't know. Because all of my stories are very much set in today's real world, I observe first, then create additions.

Per the gout, I'm really sorry to hear about that. My grandfather has that and he can't eat red meat except for a few special occasions! What a life! :(
 
At first I starting writing like a reporter but now i think i try to balance a bit of both. I imagine a reporter to be less emotionally attached to the reporting than an imaginer but i am probably creating a prejudice unintentionally.
 
Much more an imaginer. I can invent whole worlds and armies of people from my desk, but can only ever hope to see a fraction of them in real life.
 
I honestly use both equally... does that make me an imagiporter?
 
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Writing as the Opposite Sex

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