Hello world!
I recently finished Joyce Carol Oates’ Masterclass on short story writing. It is a short course and there’s a cool workshop segment at the end where she critiques the short stories of two students.
Here’s a collection of my notes from the lessons, much of it paraphrased
—
NOTES
It’s about translating instinct into craft
So that instinct… if you feel like you’re a writer, you probably are
Everyone has a fantastic story to tell – and it’s often a mystery story
Writer as photographer, you have a magic camera, and with lens you can see the subject, and the camera is your writing
Characters generate the plot
Why is this character there? If you can’t explain them, then you should get rid of them
If it’s just a few characters, then it’s a short story. But if it’s a theme / larger world / political or sociological, then a novel is better
Short story is meant to be read in one sitting
“Burn through the first draft”
Orwell believed prose should be like a window, very clean
Faulkner, Hemingway were more interested in the language of a story, the “how” of the telling
“Your worst enemy will have the most beloved face” – whether a child, a dog or cat – someone you can’t say no to (the constant distractions)
She started writing around 14, and working with others at 19
Doesn’t recommend writing a novel if you’re a beginner – it’s important to learn how to finish your work
If you write a novel and take 20 years, your whole life will have a cloud over it
Need the psychological uplift from finishing something
If you get rejected, it means that if it was published it may not have been that good – sometimes you’re very lucky if your first novel is rejected (like James Joyce)
recommends writers keep journals because it’s intimate and private, keep in contact with innermost self
she’s kept journal since 18, she adds dialogue, impressions of places and things that happened
try different ways of writing:
-start writing when you only have 40 minutes
-write when you feel very tired
-next morning look at it, might be really worthwhile
she takes tons of notes, for a novel it can be 200 pages (!)
transcribes notes to laptop, adds them into scenes
has checklists of things, if things aren’t used, she can use them for future stories
critics told her she should leave the “social unrest” / “big novels” to Norman Mailer
she was never interested in what’s expected of women writers, the “domestic novel”
she wrote a lot about domestic abuse, wife battering
her father was almost killed because he wanted to try to help a neighbor suffering domestic violence
Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray is a novel about taboo, couldn’t express his homosexuality, uses the novel
most powerful writing comes from repressed, each taboo subject has a natural audience who have no outlet
memoirs on such subjects are astonished at the number of readers, eg, about alcoholism, obesity, bulimia
William Styron on depression – had no idea it would be that successful, he just felt a total failure
“secret audiences”
**only rule: “Don’t be boring”
bestsellers move fast, short and declarative sentences
writers want to write their family story, their ancestors, their generation
she memorized alice in wonderland as a kid, deeply imprinted
she thinks about it every day of her life
it’s playful, funny, subversive – inspires her writing
interview your own mother, she was astounded when she did this
found out she was given away at 9 months old to an aunt and uncle
wishes she’d also interviewed her grandmother before she passed
try not to exploit other people, never hurt other people (doesn’t think what philip roth did, writing about women he knew, was the right way)
“an unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart”
take the earliest memory you have, try to evoke it and write it powerfully
Robert Frost: poetry is melting ice on a hot stove
beginning writers should write mini narratives, a paragraph, the shorter the better
really good acting is also an arc of emotion
theater is monologue, eg, Hamlet
good to be young and write an old person’s perspective, or vice versa, or men writing from woman’s PoV, it gives you more objectivity, and is a growing experience
Where are you going, where have you been? is one of her most popular stories, gets questions daily about it
a cautionary tale
based on true story, man who pretended to be a teenager, one by one he was murdering girls he met at the mall
some teens knew, but they didn’t tell anyone, they protected HIM. why?
take your old writing, take 3rd person and make it 1st person, or make past tense into present tense / historic present – this can completely revitalize prose
read from stratosphere to draw upon your mentors / influences
what you read and what intensity will determine how you write
for example, take a summer to read James Joyce – as the weeks go by, your vocab will improve, your language will elevate, etc
Hemingway’s novels are good, but short stories are where he was a master
readers only care about the characters — even though the writer spends so much time on the formal qualities
Hemingway says literature is an iceberg, all his short stories – what’s under the water is implied
Characters don’t have back story, move very quickly – feeling of modernism
for new writers often the story might be too subtle
workshops are helpful in this way, participants are like editors
writers are cooks – keep unused material in fridge, put it later in the casserole
better to have deadline, and readers, talk and revise
more “aerated” instead of isolated
really likes having a window to look out, a garden, natural world outside the window
“i don’t know what i’m gonna see out the window, and that’s part of writing”
hates only having a wall to stare at
think excitedly about what you’ll be working on – something surprising, novel, shocking will happen before noon – and no one will know about it but you
if you write one brilliant short story a year, that’s great!
if you write one novel at all, that’s great too