Orange - Neil Gaiman Neil Gaiman - · Established English author (born in Hampshire) of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, theater and films, mostly within genres of horror, sci fi and fantasy · First career as a journalist/biography . Graphic novels Violent Cases/Black Orchid series/Sandman series · Winner of numerous awards/critical acclaim Orange - . Short story first published in The Starry Rift (2008) (name of the sister in that version Nerys) . Now appears in anthology of short stories Trigger Warning (2015) . 'explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves ... [and] ... the realm of experience and emotion' Neil Gaiman on writing - . We build the stories in our heads. We take words, and we give them power, and we look out through other eyes, and we see, and experience, what others see. . I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places? . I'm thinking ... about those images or words or ideas that drop like trapdoors beneath us, throwing us out of our safe, sane world into a place much more dark and less welcoming. . We authors, who trade in fictions for a living, are a continuum of
all that we have seen and heard, and most importantly, all that we have read. . I grew up loving and respecting short stories. They seemed to me to be the purest and most perfect things people could make: not a word wasted, in the best of them. An author would wave her hand and suddenly here was a world, and people in it, and ideas. A beginning and a middle and an end that would take you across the universe and back. Neil Gaiman on 'Orange' - . The way a story is told is as important as the story being told . I had a story in my head, but it wasn't until I thought of the questionnaire format that it all fell into place. . ... my pale and scary goddaughter ... whose grumblings about orange tan smears on the fridge might have inspired the story in the first place. Reviews of 'Orange' - . The clever format doesn't actually work. Since the written questionnaire is presumably prepared in advance, the questions could not flow from the previous answers as the narrative requires. They do, thus undercutting the premise. . One of the things I love about short stories is the way they can play with form. They are, at their best, unpredictable. 'Orange' by Neil Gaiman is a perfect illustration. . The story never actually tells you what [the] questions were, leaving you to both speculate and laugh out loud at times. . Highly recommended if you feel you're getting into a rut with your short story writing and need some inspiration ...
· Gaiman ... [writes] with a kind of boyish, Ray Bradburyesque enthusiasm that is refreshing