Well, back from the M.A. course......last night, among other things, my story Div C'hoarazed was discussed. Then, it was universally decided to be 'too foreign'. Some complainants were more vociferous than others. Apparently the very 'foreignness' and all the 'peculiar names' made the plot impossible to follow. even though, in the same sentence, I have explained these 'funny names', and 'funny words'. Can't win. I didn't footnote them, thought that that would be too confusing. I thought that I would make life simple by having the character repeat themselves in English. This also shows the repetitive Breton way of speaking. Hell, I can't win. I get told that my stories are too French. Now they are just plain too foreign I find it hard to write about domestic bliss. To be honest, I have known too little of it to be confident with the atmosphere. I can't set every story I write in London, Manchester or Hebden Bridge. Apart from that I know nothing about comfortable middle-England, never having managed to be a part of it. My value system is a variant, because my life has been a variant. That is not wrong, merely different. A lot of my stories are about 'the outsider', whether the Breton Le Bodeo, or just a wanderer. That's the way they come out, not by artifice and design, but just because that is the story that wishes to be told. Everyone's life experience is very different. Yes, to a lot of people, mine may be a little peculiar. It is, however, going to reflect itself in my writing. Someone else's known is obviously my 'known'. I would never attempt to write a novel set in America unless I had been there or was in the position to afford a bloody good researcher. I write where I have been and things I have seen, and the stories that weave around these. A story is unchanged, whether the lead character is called Tomiko or Jane, Erwan or John. The essential qualities of truth and tale-telling are not culture and name dependent. You just need to WANT to see those things.........