Minor characters are the subtext, illustrations of whatever it is you’re trying to convey. I was always struck by the minor characters in Dostoyevsky and Dickens. The minor characters have a certain freedom which the major ones don’t. They can make comments, they can move, yet they haven’t got the same weight, or intensity.
JAMES BALDWIN
In the sixth form we’d get assigned essays to be written over the Christmas holidays. I always did these right away, either on Friday night or Saturday morning. Not because I liked writing but because the homework cast such a blight over the holiday that it was best to get it over with. I look back on that period as a precocious summit of self-discipline. I’d love to recapture that iron resolve now, more than 40 years later, when it takes longer and longer to settle down to things, to fight off the dread of having to concentrate, when it seems likely that the only parole from this life sentence of homework will come with dementia or death. On the other hand, when I was younger, there were more things to tempt me out of the house, so it’s actually easier to stay put, girding my loins in front of the computer.
GEOFF DYER
I’ve always loved the movies and I don’t understand writers who feel upset because “they’ve changed my book.” Of course they have. Film is a visual medium. Books are closer to the oral tradition, where you still hear the voice and if it’s done right, the voice readers hear is going to be theirs, not the writer’s. All you should worry about is whether an adaptation is a good work on its own. Forbidden Planet is a brilliant adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. And it’s fun.
RACHEL INGALLS
Now you may ask, what if my characters won’t talk to me? What if they won’t even visit? The only answer is to think and think some more, and then go out and read and look and listen some more. Do not sit and mope. Do not sigh. Do not throw up your hands and give up on the whole project. Do not go back to the drawing board. There is nothing more depressing than an empty drawing board. No, go back to the world, which is where all characters originally come from.
ALLEGRA GOODMAN
I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that’s alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of egocentrism.
MILAN KUNDERA
Surprise yourself. If you can bring the story – or let it bring you – to a place that amazes you, then you can surprise your reader. The moment you can see any well-planned surprise, chances are, so will your sophisticated reader.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
I think craft is a dangerous thing. I saw a trailer for a movie, I don’t want to say what the movie is, but it’s coming out soon. And it was gorgeous, it was…gorgeous. And it made me really depressed, and I was trying to figure out why. I think there was an amazing amount of craft and skill on the part of the filmmakers in this movie. And yet it was the same shit. I know that this movie is going to do really well, and I know that the people who made it are going to get rewarded for it, and so the cycle continues. So I think the danger of craft is that it needs to be in second position to what it is that you’re doing. It’s seductive to put it in first position, often because what you’re doing is meaningless or worthless, or just more of the same. So you can distinguish yourself by being very, very good at it. I think you need to be willing to be naked when you do anything creatively in film or any other form, that’s really what you have to do because otherwise it’s very hard to separate it from marketing. I think that it just sort of becomes what it’s about.
CHARLIE KAUFMAN
Here’s the thing: everybody wants something. Inside the narrative and out. We want to be loved, we want to be seen, we want to be happy, fed, healthy, housed, needed. Did I say loved? Can I say loved enough? And if we’re being true to ourselves and the characters we’re creating, they want what we want. Hence, the question to ask as a writer is What do our characters want and how are they going to get it? Always. Why? Because it’s the question we’ve been asking ourselves our whole lives.
JACQUELINE WOODSON
Writing is an act of nonviolence, but it’s very active, very aggressive, but you’re not setting off bombs or guns. Just using the pen. It’s like shouting and getting your voice heard and the range is worldwide. You might not be able to stop a war right now, but the words can go out and influence the atmosphere and the world, way into the future.
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON
1) They have something to say.
(2) They read widely and have done so since childhood.
(3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a “capacity for clear thought,” able to go from point to point in an orderly sequence, an A to Z approach.
(4) They’re geniuses at putting their emotions into words.
(5) They possess an insatiable curiosity, constantly asking Why and How.
JAMES J. KILPATRICK
Writerly wisdom of the ages collected by the author of Advice To Writers, The Big Book of Irony, and The Portable Curmudgeon.
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