crumbs of wisdom: December 2021

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Point no point

Point No Point, BC

There are many things that must be locked away from the room where we write. ... [C]hief among them is a point to be made -- even when that point has kept us up all night, fired our emotions, made us both angry and sad, indignant and afraid.

"Remember," Flannery O'Connor said,

that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character. ... When you have a character he will create his own situation and his situation will suggest some kind of resolution as you get into it. Wouldn't it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write than to impose one? Nothing you write will lack meaning, because the meaning is in you.

"Writing fiction," Eudora Welty wrote,

places the novelist and the crusader on opposite sides. ... We cannot in fiction set people to acting mechanically or carrying placards to make their sentiments plain. People are not Right and Wrong, Good and Bad, Black and White personified; flesh and blood and the sense of comedy object.

-- Alice McDermott, What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction

from "Crumbs of Wisdom" by Penelope Lively:

Elaine, a writing teacher, has taken her class on a field trip to the home of Ruth Harrap, an aging romance writer.

"What we’re all wondering," Elaine went on brightly, "is, what advice would you give to the aspiring writer?"

"The who?"

"Aspiring writer. The, you know, person who wants to write."

"You needn’t spell it out," said Ruth Harrap tartly, displaying her first sign of animation. "I couldn’t hear you, that’s all." She paused. "Don’t. That’s what I’d say."

Elaine laughed merrily. "Oh, I do understand. I mean, in my humble way I’ve toiled in the vineyard as well. I know. It’s grueling. Punishing. But the rewards, Miss Harrap! And I don’t of course mean financial rewards. The artistic satisfaction. All that."

There was a silence. The author stared at Elaine, her face knotted in disapproval. "That may be your experience, for what it’s worth. It’s not mine. I never wrote but for cash. I wanted to be a buyer in a department store. Never got promotion. Ten years in china and gifts, I was, and then all those books, and I don’t know which was worst." She heaved herself to her feet again. "You’d better have some tea before you go. How many with sugar?"