Recent content by Mad Swede

Start with the various UK Census, especially those from 1851 onwards. Look at the local trade guides and the local newspapers, and also at the church records. Personally I'd get accounts on Ancestry and Find My Past to do this. Then do straight internet searches for people and things like pubs...

C S Lewis did not dislike Lady Chatterley's Lover. Far from it, he saw it's literary qualities. He seems to have felt that it could have been improved by using prose which was more erotic and perhaps less direct when it came to sex. By then (and by the time of the interview I mentioned) Lewis...

The trouble is, things like supposition and inclusivism are not tidbits in C S Lewis writings. So many people get blinded by the fact that he was a Christian apologist that they miss the fact the C S Lewis was primarily a philosopher. The Chronicles of Narnia may contain some Christian elements...

We are talking about Western literature so the idea of love, that life is immensely valuable and that this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place is Christian in origin. The fact that this view is shared with religions elsewhere in the world makes it common to many people. Tolkien's elves...

You don't need an AI tool to do any of this. The specialised spelling and grammar checkers that I as a dyslexic author use do all of these things. Those packages are available even to non-dyslexic writers. BUT, software like that is a lot more advanced than the standard tools you get in Word...

Which is said to be why the late Kenneth Tynan suggested C S Lewis be interviewed for the program. (It should be noted that C S Lewis had been Tynan's tutor at Oxford, so Tynan knew Lewis very well.) The story goes that C S Lewis shocked the interviewer and production team into silence with his...

My own view on this is that too often four-letter words become lazy writing, in that many people use those four-letter words when with a bit of thought they could use other words to convey the same sensuousness and desire and write much better prose. In that sense - and having read some of the...

We've been discussing C S Lewis in another thread, and there is a quote from an interview with him (in a TV program discussing eroticism in the arts) which I think might interest quite a few here: Interviewer: "Tell me, Lewis, why do you disapprove of the use of four-letter words in...

No, it is nothing like that simple. What Philip Pullman is ciritising is dogmatism, blind obedience to leaders (not just priests) and the use of religion or other beliefs for oppression. As Pullman himself has said, his books are about the "extreme danger of putting power into the hands of...

That may be so, but what LittleOwlbear was objecting to was the supposed Christian morals in The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm pointing out that there are other books which contain very deliberate Christian messages which haven't been mentioned at all. The question then...

I take it then that you don't like David Gemmell's fantasy books? He admitted himself that he was deliberately putting Christian messages into his books, especially the idea of redemption. Philip Pullman is another writer I assume you dislike based on what you wrote. He claimed to be writing a...

Except that The Lord of the Rings is not an allegory. If anything it's an example of Applicability in the philosophical sense of the word, and this becomes much clearer if you read The Silmarillion. Tolkien himself hated allegory and was very clear that the books were not intended as allegory...

No, never. By the time I was old enough to get those feelings I was also old enough to start dating the young ladies I met. There was one exception though: Suzi Quatro. She was the one rock singer I had the hots for.

I'm having trouble working out how to reply to this, but I'll give it a go. In many ways Omniscient Third Subjective is what good verbal story telling is all about. My grandmother could tell stories like this, especially folk tales, sagas and legends. It is a real art form, and one I've never...

Right, then you're NOT head hopping. What you are guilty of is not choosing a point of view style and then sticking to it. In your case, my advice is very simple. Choose a POV style: either omniscient or close third POV (what you call singular POV). Then re-write in that one style and stick to it.