tips Archives - Page 3 of 6

Meeting around large print publishing

The meeting around the edition in large print took place online on Thursday, March 28, 2024 on the website of Occitanie book and reading. It is part of the reading for all. This event brought together several professionals around a theme related to the accessibility of the book.

I participated in this meeting which seem interesting for the artists here is a little report on this subject. The interventions of several participants including a visual disability awareness association and a specialized publishing house.

One of the most important information for reading adapted books concerns the font used, its size and the fact that it is necessarily without serif. The text needs to be formatted (paragraph, leading, etc.) too. A font has been developed following several studies, firefly is available on this website.

Tips

Avoid fonts with serif, that is to say with wheelbase, for reasons of accessibility.

Prefer a suitable size for reading or that can be enlarged with a support tool.

Regarding formatting air paragraphs with interlines.

Following the conference, a font that can be downloaded and used free of charge was proposed by a speaker: link to the website of this font.

The choice of characters

On this International Women’s Day, I reaffirm my support for all women. It’s a long fight for equality and although the progress is real, certain measures plunge it back into a certain form of archaism. Violence and discrimination have no place. And that for no one.
Writing, like any artistic form, reflects a part of the society that surrounds it and the impulse that an author gives in her story is a trace left.
For my part, the choice of characters was made in several ways. On the one hand, as I thought there were few female detectives in literature, I tried to create personalities along those lines. On the other hand, I made sure to maintain a certain logic to avoid falling into clichés.

Here are two excerpts from my fiction.

Beginning of the extract from Fantastic L.A. dialogue between the detective and one of the protagonists:

– Legend or not, what’s certain is that in the museum, there’s an indefinable presence that seems to protect what’s there.

– How do you know this?

– Gladys had mentioned it. All the employees knew that Fantastic L.A. had been set up in a building where a hold-up had been committed. Since the unsolved murder of one of the victims, unexplained events have been recurring.

– Have you seen or heard of a vampire kit acquired by the museum?

End of extract

Beginning of extract from Duel à Albi dialogue between the cinephile and a visitor:
The visitor stared at her intensely with a keen, deep gaze. Lydia in turn stared at him from head to toe, as if to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. She could detect no difference. It was indeed Gary Cooper, a Hollywood star of her childhood who had mysteriously crossed space-time to Albi.
End of extract

Work mutations number 3

Today, I will attend the career changes conference organized by Occitanie Livre et Lecture. If you are an author too, you can contact me at this address.

Link to the conference page

Forensic science

I used the knowledge I had acquired by enrolling in Forensic Science (University of Singapore), it gave me the necessary elements to develop Fantastic L.A, even if it is about a fantastic story. This information still helps me in my writing.

Useful link: Forensic Science

Structuring of the story

When I write, my thoughts sometimes move vertically and other times horizontally. What I mean by this is that a chronology in time can be visualized horizontally and moved around, whereas a list of clues, for example, is best understood vertically. Using thought in motion allows you to apprehend the story in a different way.

Information and link to the Theater

When I work on an art project, I do researches. Some are directly related to the creative phase and others concern implementation. Here is an address to a platform offering support for live theatrical performances. You will find the link here.

Extract of a conversation

Fantastic: There are several definitions of the word fantastic, you will find it more official and complete in a dictionary.
For my part, I would say that these are unexpected and unexplained events (strange, magical, supernatural etc.) taking place in a story. These strange events can sometimes be explained, but not always. Very often they appear singular and disturbing.

The fantastic questions its author as well as the public. Thus putting us face to face with a universal problem (our greatest fears for example) or specific (an element of society).

The characters will face them to defeat them or not.

Digital book and accessibility

The 24th edition of the Digital Book Conference is dedicated to accessibility in the world of books.

To find out more click on the link.

Complexity of characters

If your first fictional characters are created with acceptable qualities and drawbacks, they are often close to a form of impossible perfection. It is only when you progress through your process that certain questions will arise for you. When writing the sequel to a novel, for example, my vision of the characters evolved. I felt able at that moment to make them more complex. It is a crucial stage in the evolution of writing.

Avignon festival 2023

This year I went to the Avignon festival for about one of my artistic projects. This allowed me to connect and establish contacts but also to discover new live shows.

I made the choice to explore several themes such as burlesque which is close to musical theater and also to revisit certain classics such as William Shakespeare.

My visit to the off village was very rewarding on a professional level. I attended an author’s conference (interview of Michèle Gazier by Harold David) as well as a round table on theatrical writing, three different profiles of artists working in live performance exchange their experiences with the public.