{"id":6199,"date":"2017-10-11T01:07:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T17:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/burning-passion-storytelling\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:08:05","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:08:05","slug":"burning-passion-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/burning-passion-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"A burning passion for storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ron Elliott\u2019s novel Burn Patterns<\/em> is his first foray into the crime genre, but it\u2019s earned him a shortlisting in the 2017 Ned Kelly Awards, Australia\u2019s most prestigious crime writing accolade.<\/p>\n

Set against the backdrop of suburbia, Elliot\u2019s novel follows Iris, a psychologist and former arsonist profiler. Iris is dragged into a police case to track down a serial fire starter and murderer, but finds herself on the suspect list and questioning her own sanity.<\/p>\n

Elliot, a WAIT alumnus, has a wealth of experience as a writer and director of film and television, and has written for much-loved shows such as Minty<\/em>, Wild Kat, <\/em>Ship to Shore<\/em> and Home and Away<\/em>. In 2001 he wrote the AFI nominated telemovie Southern Cross<\/em> and currently teaches film and television at Curtin. Despite his impressive resume, Elliot says he had initial doubts about how to delve into the mind of his protagonist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to write the central character from her point view \u2013 she was a 50-year-old psychologist \u2013 and that had all kinds of creative challenges to it,\u201d says Elliot. \u201cI kept thinking, \u2018I\u2019m making such a big mistake and I\u2019m wasting my time exploring this, and I\u2019m not going to be able to write a woman who\u2019s crumbling\u2019. But the book has done well, it\u2019s so satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elliot says that after Burn Patterns<\/em> was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award, a critic mentioned that it was a \u2018very brave or foolish decision\u2019 to make his central character female, but it has paid dividends. It is not unusual for authors to create a main character of the opposite sex, but a certain suspicion exists among some literary critics of male crime writers who write from a female perspective, or adopt female pen names to draw in women readers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Ron
Ron Elliott<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When asked for his thoughts on this, Elliot says while there is merit in the argument of \u2018who has the right to write\u2019, to him the emphasis should be on what makes a good story.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me you\u2019re not a writer unless you can imagine being someone else. That\u2019s the whole point,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole vast argument, and one to be respected, about what you own culturally, and I do believe there are certain stories that are cultural secrets and I have no right to share them because they\u2019re culturally sensitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut who says that people own half the gender of the world? Yes, there are specific things that make us different, but there are many things that make us the same … I just feel like as a writer that\u2019s my job to inhabit someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elliot says he has ideas for stories constantly shifting around his head, but was drawn to write Burn Patterns<\/em> because it gave him the freedom to research extensively (he jokes he psychoanalysed his unsuspecting family once during a weekend drive), as well as the ability to peer into the complexities of people when they\u2019re under duress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in a time when we\u2019re falling away from religion and centres of codes, what does it mean to be good and what happens when you fray at the edges? Good people do bad things \u2013 can they scramble back over the other side?\u201d says Elliot. \u201cThat\u2019s what I played with in Burn Patterns<\/em>; nobody is all black or all white, and I find that intriguing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his fans are calling for a sequel to his modern crime thriller, Elliot is currently working on a novel set in much earlier times \u2013 the 1890s gold rush in Australia. While he\u2019s not metaphorically panning for gold, Elliot is also working on two feature scripts as well as a TV pilot episode. After three decades in the creative industry, it\u2019s clear that Elliot\u2019s desire to tell stories still burns brightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t stop doing it,\u201d he urges budding writers. \u201cSomeone doesn\u2019t have to pay you to do it. If you want to do it, don\u2019t stop. That tenacity is what makes it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more about Burn Patterns<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Elliott\u2019s novel Burn Patterns is his first foray into the crime genre, but the psychological thriller has earned him a shortlisting in the 2017 Ned Kelly Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4182,"featured_media":6200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-6199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"Screen Arts","qualification":"Bachelor of Arts (Humanities)","link":"http:\/\/courses.curtin.edu.au\/course_overview\/undergraduate\/screen-arts","description":"","faculty":"Humanities"},{"title":"Creative Writing","qualification":"Bachelor of Arts (Humanities)","link":"http:\/\/courses.curtin.edu.au\/course_overview\/undergraduate\/creative-writing","description":"","faculty":"Humanities"}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/fire_smoke_smoke_fire_match_burn_ignition_flame_sticks-1164745d_-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Zoe","last_name":"Taylor","display_name":"Zoe Taylor"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 19:29:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6199"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=6199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}