During his visit Nov. 17, Sigmund Brouwer held a session in FLEX for a few keen creative writers.  Sophia Hu, one of our Library bloggers, kept a record to share some of the questions he answered.  The excerpts below are not his exact words, but summarize his responses.

Q: What is your writing process?

1.  I have a target audience in mind
2.  I think of what reaction do you want to provoke in your audience
3.  I research
4.  I write (search for a story)

Q: What emotions do you want to provoke in your audience?

It depends on who the target audience is and what causes them to react in a certain way.

Q: Why did you become an author?

Because I loved reading.  Humans are driven by stories and crave emotional reactions.  As an author you can do all that.

Q: what is your favourite part of writing?

Research and prewriting.

Q: What are some tips you have for aspiring writers? 

• Send your short stories to multiple magazines to get them published.
• Listen to stories in real life.
• Don’t be tentative or too critical to your own work.
• What does your character want the most? Don’t give it to them

Brouwer also explained how he views stories in 3 aspects and each requires different skills:

1. story
2. writing system
3. technical skill