As we finish up the fiction unit, I’m curious to hear brief reflections/takeaways. Who is the fiction writer that most influenced your writing? What is the story that most influenced your writing? Did your ideas for what makes a good story change? What’s the most important thing you discovered about fiction / the process of writing a story? Anything else?
3 thoughts on “Exiting Fiction”
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Sandra Cisneros’ Bread and George Saunder’s Sticks definitely influenced the direction I took my fiction piece the most. I probably wouldn’t have dared to try to write microfiction if I didn’t have two amazing examples of the work they can do if pulled off successfully. It taught me that good fiction doesn’t have to be long. That there’s room in the minivan. That you can fit big ideas in small spaces and dig holes for new ones to fill up after the piece is over so long as the ground is soft and fertile. Planting seeds! The job of a good writer. I used to think that I read fiction for the characters, but I’m starting to think that I read fiction for what they characters have to say. Of course, an important factor in that is whether I like or believe in the characters enough to listen to what they’re saying.
Outside of this class, my favorite piece of fiction is a book called Wilfull creatures by Aimee Bender. It is a book of surrealist short stories and I just love how she uses surrealism in a very poetic but very real way throughout that book. My favorite story from it is one about a family of pumpkin heads coping with loss. So, as far as in class stories go, I would probably say her story “The Remember.” She has this beautiful way of talking about the absurd in a manner that is totally factual and real. Her writing is just so weird but so soothing. I love her last line in this story; “I feed the birds outside and sometimes before I put my one self to bed, I place my hands around my skull to see if it’s growing, and wonder what, of any use, would fill it if it did.” I have no idea what it means but I wish I did. That’s how I feel about her writing; like I’m about to grasp it, but I can’t quite wrap myself around it. I wish I could work with fiction in that way but I’m afraid it’s still the form I’m most uncomfortable with. I don’t know how to make up fantastical scenarios that still symbolize something but I wish I did. For now, I’ll stick to doing my best using language to make the real a little more magical. I think the one thing I learned through this unit though, was that I don’t have to have the story when I sit down to write it, it’s okay to let it find itself and to let myself go a little bit.
One story that I’m still thinking about is Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People.” I am struck by O’Connor’s ability to submerge readers into a specific world with very dynamic characters and then completely invert our expectations. The final moments of the story are so unexpected, with the Bible salesman running off with Hulga’s leg and the two older women completely self-satisfied with their conception of him as a simple, “good country boy.” I take away how effective it can be to truly understand your characters–that you can never study and examine their motivations and desires too closely.
Writing my own story was a slow and difficult process, but became a bit more natural after I got about two paragraphs in. There was definitely a hurdle in beginning, but after I established a sense of place/setting, I quickly got swept into the current of the story as it was unfolding. I think it’s useful to notice that my writing often stems from a solid environmental context. I’m excited to keep up this momentum of writing fiction and challenge myself to write about wildly different characters doing wildly different things. It’s empowering to feel like I have so many possibilities.
And, finally, I’m still marveling at how effective it is to take in as many different kinds of stories as possible. Reading varied authors, forms, and about so many subjects in the consistent way that this class requires has been quite helpful in developing my writing skills. I’m inspired to experiment and explore.