What I Learned from Dead People (Mostly)

No. This isn't a post about me whipping out a Ouija board and contacting the dead, no matter how much I love ghost and horror stories. 

It's just that the bulk of my favorite writers tend to be of the "late" variety. I'm one of the oddball readers who doesn't just call a writer a favorite only because I like their work, but instead they become a favorite more because I learn something from them. I become a better writer because I read them. They influence, nay, infect me with their work. 

That said, I'm really working hard at discovering more living writers who have something to say to me about the craft -- something that isn't just a rehash of the lessons from the already dead folks. (Sure, call me a snob. I've earned it.)

Ernest Hemingway

Papa re-taught me how to write. I totally ignored Hemingway in high school when we read "Indian Camp" and "Hills Like White Elephants," but when I discovered him again in college and tackled books like The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, I actually paid attention. 

What I had thought was boring in high school, I later appreciated as direct, succinct, non-flowery. And I loved it. Then, when I took a class on short stories and revisited the Nick Adams stories (and Hills Like White Elephants), I realized I was seated at the foot of a master craftsman in the art of dialogue. He was the first writer I found who let people talk around the things they wanted to say instead of talk about them. 

And that is a lightbulb moment that has followed me in my writing ever since.

Zora Neale Hurston

Woman have the most important keys of all, according to Zora Neal Hurston, in her collected folk tales Men and Mules. Those are the keys to everything that drives a man to want for himself, the kitchen and the bedroom, food and sex, his belly and his, well, you know. 

Hurston never shied away from the truth of her world. Women didn't have the power they deserved. They were treated like second-class citizens, and if one was a black woman, it was closer to third-class, right behind black men. Still, she knew the power and pride and ability she owned as an African-American woman, and those things permeated her works. Their Eyes Were Watching God, even if divorced from her full body of work, shows the life of a woman who was willing to every tool at her disposal to live life on her own terms and to achieve personal freedom, even if she had to move from man to man to man to no man in order to do it. 

In short, Zora taught me about how who I am and where I am as a writer influence me. Those things make me the way I am. They contribute to my beliefs and my character and my ideals. And there's no reason to shy away from them just because I'm telling a story. Let them flow. Chase the things I believe in and trust the story to find others who believe in them too. 

Ray Bradbury

I can write whatever the hell I want. That's the lesson I learned from Ray Bradbury. 

Do I want to write a collection of science fiction stories? Then do it. Do I want to write a mosaic novel about growing up in a small town? Then do it. Or maybe a sci-fi pseudo-novel told in short stories? Go ahead. Time's a wastin'. How 'bout a horror novel? Sure. Go right ahead. 

Don't let the machine pigeonhole you. Pay no attention to the genre markers that tell you "Thou shalt not pass." The whole of the world of storytelling is your plaything. 

There are no areas of the map you can't travel to. And there's nothing the machine or the marketing department can do to stop you. 

[Link] Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69

by Peter Stone

Gabriel García Márquez was interviewed in his studio/office located just behind his house in San Angel Inn, an old and lovely section, full of the spectacularly colorful flowers of Mexico City. The studio is a short walk from the main house. A low elongated building, it appears to have been originally designed as a guest house. Within, at one end, are a couch, two easy chairs, and a makeshift bar—a small white refrigerator with a supply of acqua minerale on top.

The most striking feature of the room is a large blown-up photograph above the sofa of García Márquez alone, wearing a stylish cape and standing on some windswept vista looking somewhat like Anthony Quinn.

García Márquez was sitting at his desk at the far end of the studio. He came to greet me, walking briskly with a light step. He is a solidly built man, only about five feet eight or nine in height, who looks like a good middleweight fighter—broad-chested, but perhaps a bit thin in the legs. He was dressed casually in corduroy slacks with a light turtleneck sweater and black leather boots. His hair is dark and curly brown and he wears a full mustache.

The interview took place over the course of three late-afternoon meetings of roughly two hours each. Although his English is quite good, García Márquez spoke mostly in Spanish and his two sons shared the translating. When García Márquez speaks, his body often rocks back and forth. His hands too are often in motion making small but decisive gestures to emphasize a point, or to indicate a shift of direction in his thinking. He alternates between leaning forward towards his listener, and sitting far back with his legs crossed when speaking reflectively.

Read the full article: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/the-art-of-fiction-no-69-gabriel-garcia-marquez

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#240) -- Writers Read Writers

Which writers would you most recommend for 

other writers to read to strengthen their own writing?

Every writer I know will have different responses for this, but the writers who most inspire and teach me the craft are:

 
1. Ernest Hemingway

 
2. Ed McBain


3. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

 
4. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 
5. Annie Dillard


6. Ray Bradbury

7. Christa Faust


8, Langston Hughes


9. Flannery O'Connor


10. Richard Hugo