A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saundersamazon.com
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
Too many books and films begin with characters that seem to be mere outlines: perfect, innocent human-shaped nothings, perhaps with a bolt-on quirk or two, waiting to be coloured in by the events of the plot. Far better to find ourselves waking up, on page one, startled and exhilarated to find ourselves inside a mind and a life that feels flawed, f
... See moreWill Storr • The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better
The problem was the lifting of the invisible barrier between the story and the reader. “I have to create a fictional space,” Christian says. “Can you do that? I mean if this is just a story then anything you do in it will just be another part of it, it will follow from what came before,”
Douglas Lain • Wave of Mutilation
We might think of a story this way: the reader is sitting in the sidecar of a motorcycle the writer is driving. In a well-told story, reader and writer are so close together that they’re one unit. My job as the writer is to keep the distance between motorcycle and sidecar small, so that when I go right, you go right. When I, at the end of the story
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
The redemption arc, in clumsy hands, becomes cheesy and unbelievable, offending good taste more often than not. Granted. But literature has, in the past, found ways to handle this sort of plot delicately, and to great effect. After all, the question of how a person changes ought to absolutely possess a novelist – as a matter of philosophical inquir... See more