For many writers, winning a literary award is but a faraway dream, something that is perpetually unattainable. But Nov. 25, that dream came true for Dianne Warren at the 2010 Governor General’s Literary Awards presentation.
"It's been pretty amazing," Warren said. "I've been astounded with the amount of attention that's been given to the book."
The book in question is called Cool Water. Set in a small town in Saskatchewan, the novel explores the intricate complexities of everyday people leading predominantly mundane lives.
Warren said she used her love of the province's landscape as inspiration for the setting in the novel.
"The stereotype is that it's really boring," Warren laughed. "You drive through on the number one [highway] and it's all very flat."
"But when you actually get out and walk around, it's actually quite a very beautiful landscape — a very minimalist landscape," she elaborated. "You come to appreciate it."
The landscape inspired Warren in more ways than one. She said that not only did she incorporate her love of the landscape, but also the nature of people's relationship with it.
"There have been huge changes in the land in the past 100 years," Warren explained. "So then I got to thinking, ‘Well, how have people's relationships with that land changed in that 100 years?’ "
Warren said that she did have some concerns when writing the book. Her main concern throughout the editing process was wondering whether people would be patient enough with the beginning to read on.
"I know sometimes if I'm reading a book with a lot of characters in it, I get impatient," she said. "So I worked pretty hard at writing those first sections, to try to weave them together in a way that wouldn't bore people."
Though it’s common for most works of fiction to be written in the past tense, Warren opted for the present in the case of Cool Water.
“I think the tense in fiction has to do with the distance between the reader and the character,” she explained. “When you use the present tense, it’s immediate. As the characters learn things, the reader is learning them at the same time — they develop a very close relationship.”
The book also includes the brief appearance of a camel named Antoinette. Warren explained it as "having a bit of fun."
"I was playing a little bit with the idea of the exotic," she laughed. "It's a real kind of Saskatchewan humor — kind of understated."
In terms of her future career, Warren said that her next few works would be fiction novels.
“Fiction was my first love,” Warren said. “I loved writing this novel, because I loved spending so much time in the world that I’d created.”
Warren said she loved being able to have that escape when she was writing, the vision of her newly developed world.
“I think that if you can’t imagine that world, your reader won’t be able to imagine that world.”