My love of fiction stems from the satisfaction I receive from the art of shaping and creating a story directly from my imagination. All of my favorite writers share and possess an innate ability to align and weave myriad and exciting characters throughout their stories into a single thread.
Great writers of fiction entertain, inspire, provoke thought, and transport their readers. Even as I write, I try to delve into the situation of the narrative. For example, my first novel, For Only A Season, was about an amazing family of morticians than spanned generations. So, in order to make the story’s flow and characters even more real, I deemed it necessary to learn all I could about the funeral industry. I visited funeral homes, learned about embalming, where to stand during a funeral, even how to interact and comfort the mourners. No detail was too small–I wanted the whole process to be as accurate as possible.
Some of my favorite writers are: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Terry McMillan, Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Walter Mosley. Their works truly speak for themselves. I encourage all writers to not just write, but write thoroughly and infuse your writing with love…
Charles R. Butts Jr. 