Ronald Frame
Ronald Frame
Ronald Frameis a prize-winning novelist, short story writer and dramatist. He was educated in Glasgow, and at Oxford University...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 May 1953
good might people quite
I've actually got quite a good memory. I've good recall. It's often things which other people might not notice.
aptitude freak musical quite ten theory
For ten years, I went to piano lessons. I don't think I'm a very musical person, and the theory quite defeated me, but I had a freak aptitude for Debussy and Ravel.
age brown cap chocolate compulsory cross earn glasgow honour last length looked medal pinned regulation ribbon stockings succession test war wearing
At the age of nine, I could cross the length of Glasgow on a succession of buses, wearing regulation garter-topped stockings and compulsory cap and - if I'd done well enough to earn the honour in last week's test - with a First World War medal on a striped ribbon pinned to my brown blazer. I must have looked like a chocolate soldier.
carrying fed spent subjects teens until
Sundays in my teens were spent on homework: from 8 am until at least 8 pm, with stoppages to be fed and watered. I was carrying up to ten subjects simultaneously.
dickens explain good reader somewhere terms
The gift of a writer as good as Dickens is not to explain everything; that way, the reader has, in terms of their imagination, somewhere to go.
absolutely bit factual list obligation suit tick
I think, when you are writing non-fiction, you feel there's an obligation to get it absolutely right, so all your factual details have to be, have, you know, to go through a long list of them and tick them. I'm not saying that's not important in fiction, but I think you have a bit more leeway; you can suit yourself.
beginning either feeling hate left means title titles trying
Titles either come to you at the beginning or they don't come to you at all, I find, and I hate the feeling that I haven't got a title because it usually means that you are left at the end scrambling around trying to find something.
attached attaching certain characters great knowledge left miss mostly mystery option wanting writers
We become attached to certain characters in novels, mostly because they have some mystery attaching to them. We re-read the books, but we're still left wanting to know more. In my own case, it was 'Great Expectations' and Miss Havisham in particular. Luckily, writers have the option of making up the knowledge that reading doesn't supply.
interested works
I'm very interested in how corruption works - and it's not necessarily the way one might expect.
fine imagination life might people rather suits
A writer's life suits me. It's fairly, well, other people might think it was actually rather dull, but that's fine because I feel that my imagination is enough to kind of keep me happy.
current fancy happened hope seem simpler
Let's say I find a lot of current American fiction too overwritten for my tastes, too self-conscious; I like something that's simpler and more direct. The story is what matters to me. I hope to make it seem real to readers, as if it happened just like this - so I don't want fancy descriptions getting in the way.
skewed
I like French films, Chabrol in particular. With him, you often get a skewed morality in which you sympathise with the person you shouldn't.
felt
I always felt journalists had a very clear idea of what they wanted to write about me before the interview began.
again apparently opened ringing running undoing
As a little boy, I apparently had a predilection for undoing latch gates, running up pathways and ringing doorbells - and then running off again and away before the door was opened behind me.