Hooking the reader from the very beginning

Creating poetry and rhythm through language.

Creating a sense of place and community.

Theme as a unifying force throughout the novel.

How to hook the reader from the very beginning.

Strangely exactly like I wrote about Love Without Hope, reading Augustown can teach you how to write well in similar, multiple respects, though Kei Miller is obviously a different writer from Rodney Hall: But wait, perhaps you can still achieve magic as per Kei Miller’s model!

And in this blog post I’m seeking to help you to understand the magic, even though it is achieved in large part as a result of his upbringing in Jamaica, where the novel is set, and not many of you are likely to be able to draw upon such background. But nevertheless, like Rodney Hall’s novel Love Without Hope (see my blog post on Love Without Hope: Learning from Rodney Hall), Kei Miller’s novel Augustown did exactly what Miller is talking about: it energised me, it blew my mind. What blows your own mind… find the book… that blows your mind, and then understand the magic.Īugustown is an unusual novel for me to enjoy for two reasons: it relies predominantly on telling rather than showing and it is not written in the third person limited point of view, which I tend to prefer because it pulls the reader directly into the protagonist’s or multiple characters’ experience. Read read read… Part of being a writer is finding what energises you. Given the nature of this blog, it’s not surprising that I would underline Kei Miller’s prime advice for writers, according to a column for Writing Magazine online: Augustown came to me via a ‘Star Interview’ by Tina Jackson with the author Kei Miller in the August 2016 issue of Writing Magazine, which began as follows: ‘If you read only one new novel this summer, WM recommends the spell-binding Augustown …’ And having now read it, I agree whole-heartedly.

Augustown by kei miller