Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, talks about his new book, Anathem. He has some interesting things to say about writers doing readings and about the process of writing. I saw him do a reading and talk in Chicago for the release of this book, and it was interesting. Here, as in the talk I attended, he has some interesting insight into the question of writing routines that we were talking about on the blog earlier in the semester.
The first poem that he reads has them. But more important is the central idea that he talks about: the importance of writing and stories.
He’s got a very good point about the state of the short story, a creature that is now mainly housed in literary (college) journals and one or two archaic and monolithic magazines that are too stubborn (thankfully) to die. It’s not only sad, but strictly at odds with the trend in reading these days. Short and interesting should sell well, one would think.
This one is a long one, but if you haven’t heard Gaimen speak, at least hit play. You’ll probably find yourself watching the entire thing.
The interviewer in this one sort of fumbles through the questions, at one point even confusing himself.
I like how Palahniuk defines what a good story is. It’s somehow organic, and I can see that, even with the stories we tell one another without pens or paper or computer screens or blogs. At the same time, he is speaking to the point about marketability and even, on a larger scale, universality.
He also outlines what a typical writing workshop is, outside academia–essentially a small party a few friends who love to write read each other’s stuff and comment on it. There’s really nothing that can compare to it, after the formal classroom setting is no longer available. It keeps you writing, and it provides a sounding board of honest people interested in craft.
Here’s a short clip of some of the advice Kurt Vonnegut has on short fiction.
With all the novel ideas that he had, like so many other writers, Vonngut insists that the center of any work is character. It’s true in every story that I have read, too. I can be impressed by a plot twist, fooled by a bit of literary slight-of-hand or admire a writer’s command of a subject. However, it’s the characters that we keep coming back to read about again. That’s true whether we like them or just like to hate them.
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