On Short Stories
A story always involves, in a dramatic way, the mystery of personality.
I lent some stories to a country lady who lives down the road from me, and when she returned them, she said, “Well, them stories just gone and shown you how some folks would do,” and I thought to myself that that was right; when you write stories, you have to be content to start exactly there– showing how some specific folks will do, will do in spite of everything.
Now this is a very humble level to have to begin on, and most people who think they want to write stories are not willing to start there. They want to write about problems, not people; or about abstract issues, not concrete situations. They have an idea, or a feeling, or an overflowing ego, or they want to Be A Writer, or they want to give their wisdom to the world in a simple-enough way for the world to be able to absorb it. In any case, they don’t have a story and they wouldn’t be willing to write it if they did; and in the absence of a story, they set out to find a theory or a formula or a technique.
Flannery O’ Connor, Writing Short Stories
Refered to in this essay by Raymond Carver.
[x]#1436 fan vrijdag 23 september 2005 @ 23:58:33
