{"id":819,"date":"2014-07-03T08:18:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T08:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/?p=819"},"modified":"2014-07-03T08:18:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T08:18:57","slug":"kevan-manwaring-desiring-dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/?p=819","title":{"rendered":"Kevan Manwaring – Desiring Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevan Manwaring’s latest book Desiring Dragons: Creativity, Imagination and the Writer’s Quest<\/em> was published by Compass books<\/a>\u00a0in May this year.\u00a0 Unlike\u00a0Kevan’s recent collections of folk tales, Desiring Dragons<\/em> is described – somewhat tongue-in-cheek –\u00a0in its preface as a ‘How to Write Fantasy’ book, and offers advice about fantasy writing gleaned from Kevan’s 13 years of teaching experience.\u00a0 The extract, below, taken from the preface to Desiring Dragons<\/em>, describes the aims of the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>‘The book is divided into two main sections. The first, \u2018Desiring Dragons\u2019, is an essay on Fantasy \u2013 its origins, evolution and application. Tolkien\u2019s approach is foregrounded throughout (the book takes it title from him after all), although other authorities are also cited. There is no attempt to be encyclopaedic here. Rather than be considered the \u2018final word\u2019, it is hoped that the essay will prompt further discussion. The writing and reading of Fantasy is an ongoing research project for not only scholars and authors, but also fledgling writers, students, and, of course, readers.\u00a0 The territory continues to expand \u2013 with every innovative book, film, graphic novel, play and computer game \u2013\u00a0 so an exhaustive charting of it would quickly become redundant. All that can be provided is an entreport.<\/p>\n

The second section is a breakdown of what I call \u2018The Writer\u2019s Quest\u2019, based upon the Old English poem, Beowulf<\/em>, one of Tolkien\u2019s chief influences. In this, the creative process of writing is explored in the context of the \u2018journey of a novel\u2019, and as such can be applied to all genres of writing. At the end of each chapter there are \u2018questings\u2019 \u2013 suggestions for follow-up activities.’<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.compass-books.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.kevanmanwaring.co.uk\/index.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevan Manwaring’s latest book Desiring Dragons: Creativity, Imagination and the Writer’s Quest was published by Compass books\u00a0in May this year.\u00a0 Unlike\u00a0Kevan’s recent collections of folk tales, Desiring Dragons is described – somewhat tongue-in-cheek –\u00a0in its preface as a ‘How to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,52],"tags":[113,40],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-writing-guides","tag-fantasy","tag-narrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions\/823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}