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The role of the author
"Let’s start by thinking of another name for
writers, another name for a writer, particularly applied
to writers who write fiction. Can you think of another
name for a writer? Yes, Chloe?"
'"Author?"
"Author. Author will do very nicely. So we won’t
do any writing, we’ll do some authing. Writers write,
authors auth? Doesn’t work, does it? So why are
people who write fiction called authors? Bit of a puzzle.
I’ll give you the answer – no, you’ll
sort out the answer for yourselves. Try and work out a
word that starts with author and has three letters on
the end. Starts with author, has three letters on the
end. Your hand was up, Audra."
"Authority?"
"Authority will do excellently. So what does it mean
to have authority, or to be in authority? What does that
imply, what do you understand by authority, give me some
examples or tell me what you think it means. Yes, Keisha?"
"Being in charge."
"Being in charge, yes, OK. People in authority are
people in charge. Any other way of putting it? Yes Chris?"
"Being in control of someone."
"In control, we’re getting some good strong
words here. Miss La La would have liked these words, I
think. In charge, in control. Any others? Yes, Alexia?"
"Important."
"Important, right, people in authority have importance.
OK there’s one more at the back, I’ll take
that."
"They have their say."
"They have their say? Right, OK. Authors do and are
all of these things. And authors are people with authority.
And the two words, authority and author, come from the
same Latin word, auctor. So if you’re an author,
you need, and you have to have, authority over your work.
You have to be in charge of it, be in control of it. You
have to, what was that phrase? You have to have your say.
It is your piece of work. It is not your teacher’s,
not your friend’s, not Roy Apps’s, not the
National Gallery’s, it is your piece of work. So
authors are people of authority, and if we can get authority
into the fiction we write, we begin to be in charge of
it, in control of it, it becomes real, people believe
what we’re writing, and it becomes true. Not true
in the way non-fiction is true, but other truths start
to come through, and we’ll be looking at those in
just a minute."
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