Tuesday, March 21, 2023

(Advanced) What writers really do when they write



Try this:

and then x 2      this      When       then        and add       that         and
____ I write, “Bob was an asshole,” ____ , feeling ___ perhaps somewhat lacking in specificity, revise it to read, “Bob snapped impatiently at the barista,” ___ ask myself, seeking yet more specificity, why Bob might have done that,  ___ revise to, “Bob snapped impatiently at the young barista, who reminded him of his dead wife,” ____ pause ___, “who he missed so much, especially now, at Christmas,” – I didn’t make  ___ series of changes because I wanted the story to be more compassionate. 


When I write, “Bob was an asshole,” and then, feeling this perhaps somewhat lacking in specificity, revise it to read, “Bob snapped impatiently at the barista,” then ask myself, seeking yet more specificity, why Bob might have done that, and revise to, “Bob snapped impatiently at the young barista, who reminded him of his dead wife,” and then pause and add, “who he missed so much, especially now, at Christmas,” – I didn’t make that series of changes because I wanted the story to be more compassionate. I did it because I wanted it to be less lame.
But it is more compassionate. Bob has gone from “pure asshole” to “grieving widower, so overcome with grief that he has behaved ungraciously to a young person, to whom, normally, he would have been nice”. Bob has changed. He started out a cartoon, on which we could heap scorn, but now he is closer to “me, on a different day”.
How was this done? Via pursuit of specificity. I turned my attention to Bob and, under the pressure of trying not to suck, my prose moved in the direction of specificity, and in the process my gaze became more loving toward him (ie, more gentle, nuanced, complex), and you, dear reader, witnessing my gaze become more loving, might have found your own gaze becoming slightly more loving, and together (the two of us, assisted by that imaginary grouch) reminded ourselves that it is possible for one’s gaze to become more loving.

- George Saunders, author of the Man Booker Prize winning Lincoln in the Bardo

1. What would you say is the key word of this extract?

2. What does the writer do with his first sentence?

3. How does he start the second paragraph? Why?

4. What trick does he use to start paragraph three?

5. What is the writer trying to say about the process of writing?

  




Read the whole article here:

What writers really do when they write



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