Award-Winning Author Share Thoughts On Writing At JIS
By Ben Ng

Bandar Seri Begawan - Award-winning author Anne Fine, known for penning Hollywood blockbuster "Mrs Doubtfire", shared her thoughts on the craft of writing with parents and teachers yesterday at Jerudong International School.

Fine has written over 50 novels as well as won several coveted awards. "When I was young, it never occurred to me that I might be a writer," Fine said. "But I was good at writing stories, and I had a good deal of practice."

In 1971, she said, after giving birth to her first daughter, she wanted to go to the library but due to bad weather, she decided to write a book of her own. "After that, I never stopped writing."

The best advice she had been given in school, she said, was: "Find out what you like doing most in the world, and then find someone who'll pay you to do it.

"Since books have always been my greatest pleasure," she added, "it's not surprising that I've ended up in a career that entails mostly reading and writing." Some books, she said, take her over a year to write.

"Even once it's typed up, there'll be layers of changes and additions and corrections. Short books, however, for young readers, take just weeks or months." The best thing about being a writer, she felt, is "the silence".

"I love the sheer addictiveness of writing. Out of nowhere, you feel a sort of nudge inside your brain... I write the books for me," she added.

Fine also talked about her books that have been made into films. "I feel quite detached from them, as if they have little to do with me. A film can show brilliantly what happens, but only the book can explain the complex emotions and thought processes behind those actions," she said.

"So, though I quite enjoy watching them, the films people make of my books are, for me, a bit like the fancy icing shell without the cake inside."

When asked if it has become increasingly difficult to compete with television and other types of media available in today's world, Fine said, "I remain deeply disturbed and depressed by the low levels of commitment of television, to the vitally important matter of children's reading.

"Television's persistent emphasis on celebrity, and their pathological fear of 'talking heads' for the young, seem to me to seriously impair the quality of content of those comparatively few moments that they do actually choose to devote to books."

She added, "Television producers, of all people, most need reminding that the book is infinitely more important than the author, and that, given the chance, children are interested in what they read, not simply in the person who wrote it."

To aspiring writers, Fine said, "The advice of many of the best writers to children who want to be authors is, ‘Don't worry about the writing yet. Just read, read, read. Because only if you're a reader will you know whether it's working, and if not, how to fix it so it does." -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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