The two quotes that resonated with me were: "Writers are gleaners; we are always listening for story ideas." and "That idea of “truth being stranger than fiction….” The most bizarre stuff can happen in “real life,” and we hesitate to place it in fiction." In fact I have a blog post with the title, When Truth is Stranger than Fiction. For me the process is, theme (which is women's nineteenth century occupations) then do research on the subject, and somewhere in the process of the research the characters and mystery plot come, with their own introduction of meaningful themes. But this also works for contemporary stories, and my science fiction stories. Subject of interest to me, preliminary research, and the characters and plot and sub-themes follow, often in very unexpected ways. For anyone interested in how this works for me, here is the link to another post about this process: https://hfebooks.com/when-truth-is-stranger-than-fiction-by-m-louisa-locke/
I would add journalism to the list. It’s probably no accident that a lot of novelists started out as journalists: Hemingway, Joan Didion, Robertson Davies, Charles Portis (author of True Grit), so the reporter’s basic who-what-when-where-why is something you can sometimes see in their work.
Of course, journalistic precision and clarity isn’t right for every style. For example, Kafka’s stories almost never mention real place names or people or dates. That gives his work a kind of vagueness, but almost maybe a universality that specifics might undermine.
I think one journalistic thing to avoid is the New Yorker / Guardian / New York Times “profile” approach to description. These articles are really just celebrity puff pieces. You can tell when you’re in profile territory by the tics, for example always describing like a fashion magazine what the profiled person is eating or drinking (“grains, seeds, black coffee”) and their appearance and how they’re dressed (“Eggers, who is thirty-eight, has pale-green eyes, a dark cropped beard, and hair buzzed close to his scalp on the sides. He dresses in black, and his left hand is heavy with signet rings and a large gold watch.”). This is probably okay for parody or satire, but readers might find it tedious otherwise.
Noticing the details: I’m trying to undo a natural urge to create debate-style/agenda pushing stories because to win an argument is more like a magic trick - careful stepping around or ignoring of details that dont suit. I’m trying to build more truth and nuance into my fiction so this is a great point of focus for me. Just read wonderful book by Victoria MacKenzie about a medieval writer who lived where I do. It’s a stunner, and it’s the details - description of river fog rolling in under door cracks and a thousand other little writerly nuances that I can just feel are verifiably true (and respond to climate here to this day) that lets me sink into the story, fully trusting in the writers hand. Lots of skill in memoir too - and/but I think this authority is baked in to readers mind cos we know ‘it’s true’. Lots of great ideas to build this authority into fiction here. Thanks!
If so, please consider clicking the above link and liking the Notes post—leave a comment or even share within your own community. Poetry lives on in the minds of hearts of writers, it breathes on the page.
Your voice can be heard among the starry illuminations, howling at the moon.
Definitely. Love Mary Karr. And DeLillo. As a book editor I often work with memoir, and memoir should ideally be written in many ways much like fiction with a story/narrator ARC, vivid settings and details using the five senses, engaging dialogue, even ‘plot’ in the sense that everything links to the next thing and moves the story forward. Of course in memoir everything ‘actually happened,’ so you can’t just make stuff up. (Although there’s a discussion to be had here about the accuracy of memory, etc.) But fiction techniques in memoir make a lot of common sense. Especially when you’re trying to marry depth, meaning, emotion and entertainment.
The two quotes that resonated with me were: "Writers are gleaners; we are always listening for story ideas." and "That idea of “truth being stranger than fiction….” The most bizarre stuff can happen in “real life,” and we hesitate to place it in fiction." In fact I have a blog post with the title, When Truth is Stranger than Fiction. For me the process is, theme (which is women's nineteenth century occupations) then do research on the subject, and somewhere in the process of the research the characters and mystery plot come, with their own introduction of meaningful themes. But this also works for contemporary stories, and my science fiction stories. Subject of interest to me, preliminary research, and the characters and plot and sub-themes follow, often in very unexpected ways. For anyone interested in how this works for me, here is the link to another post about this process: https://hfebooks.com/when-truth-is-stranger-than-fiction-by-m-louisa-locke/
I would add journalism to the list. It’s probably no accident that a lot of novelists started out as journalists: Hemingway, Joan Didion, Robertson Davies, Charles Portis (author of True Grit), so the reporter’s basic who-what-when-where-why is something you can sometimes see in their work.
Of course, journalistic precision and clarity isn’t right for every style. For example, Kafka’s stories almost never mention real place names or people or dates. That gives his work a kind of vagueness, but almost maybe a universality that specifics might undermine.
I think one journalistic thing to avoid is the New Yorker / Guardian / New York Times “profile” approach to description. These articles are really just celebrity puff pieces. You can tell when you’re in profile territory by the tics, for example always describing like a fashion magazine what the profiled person is eating or drinking (“grains, seeds, black coffee”) and their appearance and how they’re dressed (“Eggers, who is thirty-eight, has pale-green eyes, a dark cropped beard, and hair buzzed close to his scalp on the sides. He dresses in black, and his left hand is heavy with signet rings and a large gold watch.”). This is probably okay for parody or satire, but readers might find it tedious otherwise.
Noticing the details: I’m trying to undo a natural urge to create debate-style/agenda pushing stories because to win an argument is more like a magic trick - careful stepping around or ignoring of details that dont suit. I’m trying to build more truth and nuance into my fiction so this is a great point of focus for me. Just read wonderful book by Victoria MacKenzie about a medieval writer who lived where I do. It’s a stunner, and it’s the details - description of river fog rolling in under door cracks and a thousand other little writerly nuances that I can just feel are verifiably true (and respond to climate here to this day) that lets me sink into the story, fully trusting in the writers hand. Lots of skill in memoir too - and/but I think this authority is baked in to readers mind cos we know ‘it’s true’. Lots of great ideas to build this authority into fiction here. Thanks!
Fine writer and reader of Substack—we are starting a movement to get a poetry section added to the platform. Can I ask, are you with us?
https://substack.com/profile/10309929-david/note/c-15579327
If so, please consider clicking the above link and liking the Notes post—leave a comment or even share within your own community. Poetry lives on in the minds of hearts of writers, it breathes on the page.
Your voice can be heard among the starry illuminations, howling at the moon.
Thank you for your time and support.
Love and appreciation,
David
Definitely. Love Mary Karr. And DeLillo. As a book editor I often work with memoir, and memoir should ideally be written in many ways much like fiction with a story/narrator ARC, vivid settings and details using the five senses, engaging dialogue, even ‘plot’ in the sense that everything links to the next thing and moves the story forward. Of course in memoir everything ‘actually happened,’ so you can’t just make stuff up. (Although there’s a discussion to be had here about the accuracy of memory, etc.) But fiction techniques in memoir make a lot of common sense. Especially when you’re trying to marry depth, meaning, emotion and entertainment.
I wrote a piece about this years ago actually for Creative Penn: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2018/03/09/fiction-techniques-writing-memoir/amp/
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Thanks for answering my question, Alison. This is very insightful and eye-opening. I've save the post so I can keep referring back to it.