There’s an enormous difference between being a story writer and being a regular person. As a person, it’s your duty to stay on a straight and even keel, not to break down blubbering in the streets, not to pull rude drivers from their cars, not to swing from the branches of trees. But as a writer it’s your duty to lie and to view everything in life, however outrageous, as an interesting possibility. You may need to be ruthless or amoral in your writing to be original. Telling a story straight from real life is only being a reporter, not a creator. You have to make your story bigger, better, more magical, more meaningful than life is, no matter how special or wonderful in real life the moment may have been.More here.
Monday, March 30, 2009
exactly
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I haven't heard Rick Bass's name in ages. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link! Very good advice.
ReplyDeleteit's kind of like stage makeup versus regular, everyday makeup. no one will be able to see you on stage if you go out there with your civilian makeup, and no one's going to notice your story if it's just a bland account of a real life experience.
ReplyDeleteso, is art a mirror for reflecting, or a hammer for shaping? probably both. sometimes i think of it as taking someone's reflection, beating it with a hammer until its some new possibility, and then showing it back to them, hoping that it will inform them; change their life.
ReplyDelete@Bryan - Yes, that's a great way to put it! I like to think that art reflects life, but it's like a fun house mirror - it's still life, but it's a little bigger, a little longer, a little stranger. For me, writing starts with truth and then gets better (or worse) from there.
ReplyDelete"Hoping that it will inform them; change their life." So we share the same humble aspirations, then? Excellent. :)
SOMETIMES TO FEEL AT HOME SOME WHERE ELESE YOU HAVE TO DO THINGS YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE IN NEW YORK
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