Quoteskimming

[kellyrfineman]

About story endings

Courtesy of the generous soul who is David Lubar, whom I had the privilege of interviewing on Wednesday. Mostly we talked about short stories, but some of David's advice and insight applies to all writing.

Comments

[jmprince]

what a great post, Kelly. I needed it!

[kellyrfineman]

I'm glad something here was a bit helpful, Julie!

[saralholmes]

Well, I was going to all seriously respond to your quotes, but then I went to play with that Shakespeare quote generator. Now my ego is stoked with "Sara, Sara! My kingdom for a Sara!"

Caring doesn't spoil everything. Doting, maybe.

[kellyrfineman]

Your quote goes so very well with your book cover, btw. ;)

I personally don't think I could write about characters if I didn't care for them, at least a little. And I think that when folks don't care about their characters, their characters suffer. Not just in the "bad things happen to them" sense, but also in the "readers can't connect to them" sense. But I could be wrong. Ms. Williams has many books out, after all, and I none.

[saralholmes]

I just plugged in BANANA:

O! it is excellent
To have a giant's banana, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

How in God's name am I supposed to get anything done???

P.S. Number of books out has nothing to do with it. Rock on, Kelly.

[kellyrfineman]

*snort*

Remember, Sara: Sometimes a banana is just a banana.

[robinellen]

I just watched MANSFIELD PARK again yesterday -- that and PERSUASION are my two favorite books. I love all the movies, I must say :)

[kellyrfineman]

I still have to READ both of them, but thus far I like Persuasion best of maybe all the books, much as I love P&P and Northanger Abbey (such a romp!).

[robinellen]

I'd have to say that Persuasion is my favorite book also...but I have yet to make it all the way through S&S, in all honesty ;) And I haven't read Northanger Abbey, either.

[kellyrfineman]

Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are the shortest of the two. I found S&S daunting at the start because there's Mrs. Dashwood, Mrs. John Dashwood, and Miss Dashwood. And it all got a bit muddled for me until I sorted that bit out. But I do love the relationship between the sisters.

About S&S: Did you know that the Victorian-era editions censored Willoughby's misconduct? The late Georgian/early Regency crowd for which it was written handled it just fine, but those later folks found it inappropriate.

[kellyrfineman]

I don't know that she meant one should invest emotionally in the writing process, but my understanding from Wikipedia is as follows: "Williams's fiction often portrays life as a downward spiral, and the failure of life in America, from a spiritual as well as economic perspective, as a virtual certainty. Her characters, generally from the Middle Class, frequently fall from it, at times in bizarre fashion, in a form of cultural dispossession. Characters are usually divorced, children are abandoned, and their lives are consumed with fear, often
irrational, such as the little girl in the story 'The Excursion' who is terrified that birds will fly out of her toilet bowl."

If she truly writres such lonely, depressing characters/stories, I could understand not wanting to really attach emotionally to the characters - it could be destructive!

[kellyrfineman]

Mayhap you're right. But the comment certainly doesn't read quite that way to me.