Category: Literary Thoughts

“For me, writing is really just learning about the things that interest me, and then trying to convince you to find them as interesting as I do.” — Susan Orlean on Twitter

Whether you write nonfiction (like the marvelous Susan Orlean) or fiction, the maxim applies. Good nonfiction writers engage readers in subjects they never thought they’d care about. Fiction writers, especially those who do extensive background research, are equally responsible for incorporating what they learn in ways that are integral to their stories. If we fail to generate that interest, the manuscript will be of interest to only one person — the writer. For more of my literary thoughts, see REFLECTIONS.

The late and revered author E. L. Doctorow said of nighttime driving, “You can see only as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Doctorow could just as well have been talking about writing. You can only see as far as the next word or sentence, but guided by the headlights of imagination, you can write a whole book. For more of my thoughts on writing, see REFLECTIONS.

From an interview with historian and writer Jill Lepore: “The Academy Is Largely Itself Responsible for Its Own Peril: Jill Lepore on writing the story of America, the rise and fall of the fact, and how women’s intellectual authority is undermined” by Evan Goldstein (Chronicle of Higher Education, November 13, 2018):

Q. You get asked about your productivity a lot. I gather it’s a question you don’t like.

A. I sometimes say to people — this is like a 1930s thing to say, you can picture Barbara Stanwyck saying it in a noir film — it’s like complimenting a girl on her personality. It’s not about “You do good work,” it’s about “You do a lot of work.” // For a lot of people writing is an agony; it’s a part of what we do as scholars that they least enjoy. For me writing is a complete and total joy, and if I’m not writing I’m miserable. I have always written a lot. For years, before I wrote for The New Yorker, I wrote an op-ed every day as practice and shoved it in a drawer. It’s not about being published, it’s about the desire to constantly be writing. It’s such a strongly felt need that if it was something socially maladaptive it would be considered a vice.

I’m with her. Read Lepore’s latest book, These Truths. For more of my thoughts on writing see REFLECTIONS.

Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Powers recently had a conversation about the craft of writing (see “A Talk in the Woods” by Kevin Larimer, Poets & Writers, November/December 2018, pp. 46-55). I resonated with Kingsolver’s description of her creative process as it bears many similarities to how I work. For example, she says “I do a lot of architecture. I do an enormous amount of planning. … [Others] say ‘Well I just start writing and I don’t have any idea where I’m going to end up, and it’s like a wander through the woods.’” Like Kingsolver, I’m a “mapper” rather than a “meanderer” (my terms). Not that I don’t change direction or take detours as the story evolves, but before I can start to write I like to identify a final (albeit draft) destination and set out markers along the way. For more thoughts on the observations of these noted authors, see REFLECTIONS.

Now I understand why I roll up a weaving and put it in a trunk when it is finished, and I don’t like to reread a story or novel once it’s completed. Interviewer: When you’re flipping channels and you come across a “Seinfeld” rerun, do you flip right past it or do you linger? Seinfeld: Right past. I think there’s a level of focus you need to get something to a certain point creatively, and you pay a price for that, which is you can’t ever look at it again. (From “Jerry Seinfeld Says Jokes Are Not Real Life” Interview by Dan Amira, The New York Times Magazine, 08/19/18, p. 58). For more thoughts on writing, see REFLECTIONS).

 

 

My counter-argument to “Write what you know” has always been “Get to know what you want to write about.” The inspiration for my fiction often comes from something I learn by chance. Then I research the topic with intention and shape what I’ve learned into a work of fiction, prioritizing the story over the facts. In an e-doc compilation of author’s views on the role of research in writing (Glimmer Train, Close-Up: Research, 2nd edition), I came across the following: “Some people say that you should write what you know, but I am driven to write what I learn” (Abbi Geni, p. 7). Read more comments on this topic by Colum McCann, Duri Justvedt, and Ha Jin in REFLECTIONS.

(SPOILER ALERT) The solution to the New York Times acrostic puzzle on April 05, 2018 is: Stella Adler, The Art of Acting, “The reality you create on the stage by opening a jar or threading a needle isn’t so that the audience will believe in you. It’s so that you believe in yourself. Acting is truthful when you yourself are convinced.” Adler’s analysis applies equally well to writing. That is, the reality you create on the page with character, setting, and plot isn’t so that the reader will believe in your narrative but rather that you, the writer, convince yourself. For more thoughts on the art and craft of writing, see REFLECTIONS.

Like the mason builds a cathedral one stone at a time, so too the writer builds a book one word at a time. Admittedly, this thought is not original (read Anne Lamott’s classic manual Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life) but it encourages the novelist to aim for a magnificent literary edifice. For more thoughts on the art and craft of writing, see REFLECTIONS.