Joyce Carol Oates on creating character

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This is excellent (thank you, DeAnna Cameron):






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How close are you to your character?

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I'm putting away my notes from the Kingston WritersFest, and I think the one big message I got, in both Joan Thomas's workshop on narrative voice and point-of-view and Michael Winter's on "found fiction," had to do with narrative distance.

Thomas asked: How intimate is your stance with respect to the character?

Winter talked about the importance of changing that space: closing in, backing up, closing in again.

When writing from the 1st person, that distance would seem to be fixed—although the character's degree of self-revelation would vary.

Right now I'm writing from a close 3rd person point-of-view (that is, I'm always with my main character), and I've been wondering how to interpret this concept of narrative distance. Sometimes I show my character focussed on what is going on around her, and at other times, I show her lost in the swirl of her emotions. So, in a way, when writing in the 1st person or close 3rd, the narrative distance is within the character.

This is the type of thing writers love to talk about. Put two writers together for 10 minutes and the subject of point-of-view is sure to come up. At one point in Kingston, I was in a packed elevator—we were strangers, in fact—and from the 5th to the ground floor, the talk was of point-of-view. Writers!




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Leaving, returning

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Stepping into my writing room this morning after four days away, I wished I had left it tidy. There is hardly room for my mug of decaf midst the festering mounds of post-it notes and scraps.

It's always hard to return to writing after time away. Of course I had intended to write while at the Kingston WritersFest; of course that was impossible!

Later today, after I emerge from my writing room into that vast demanding arena called Life, I intend to gather my learnings and post them here. But now it's time to dive back in...or at least dip in a toe.

Leaving the Festival hotel, a volunteer called out, "We love you, keep writing!" I'm a writer; I should be able to express in some fresh way how moving that was to hear. Instead I'll just say that I'm tempted to print that out in bold and post it to my bulletin board.

Yes, I'll do that, and then I'll put my toe in, check to see how cold the water feels.

Returning to where it all began

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Returning to Kingston, Ontario, is always special for me. When I first decided that I was going to write, be a writer—go for it—I began by attending a workshop here. That was about 25 years ago.

Returning to Kingston always brings back memories of that long-ago self, memories of my longing to be a writer; of walking along the shoreline, lost in thought; memories of my flying elation over my instructor's encouragement. Memories of attending the inspiring readings given by writers — writers I regarded with awe, writers who are now my good friends.

Each time I return, I add another layer of experience. For two years I've been coming to the Kingston WritersFest.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Joan Thomas, whose book Curiosity I mentioned earlier in this blog (a novel now long-listed for the Giller!). Her workshop on narrative voice and point-of-view has me thinking, considering loosening the fixed "narrative distance" I've imposed on the novel I'm writing now.

Last night, Jane Urquhart interviewed Joyce Carol Oates on-stage. Oates had finished a novel and 1:00 that morning. She said that for months it had felt like crawling across a floor pushing a peanut with my nose. That, believe me, resonated!



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Construction site revision

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Years ago, I came upon a slender little book titled My Editor, by M.B. Goffstein. It's a poem of few lines, with simple, geometric illustrations, describing the process of working with an editor on revision.

I loved it so much I bought three, thinking of people I knew who might love it too. Now I only have one.

I've been thinking of it a lot, of late, going though the revision of The Next Novel, working with The Taskmaster (editor). The poem evokes the rewriting process as a construction site:

I begin to dig again, and lose myself in the excavation. 

Of course the new creation isn't quite right at first, and his editor sends him back to revise.

... my building worries me. It's stone cold, and I cry, "Why not have left it wobbly?"

There is a feeling of integrity in the early drafts that is initially lost in revising, until, with time, a new integrity emerges.

Take it apart, and suddenly see how it goes. 

This book is a treasure, and greatly heartening.



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A lovely video interview with Eudora Welty

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Research overload

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It's fall, and time for me to begin thinking of what research books I'm going to take south with me this winter. What am I going to need as I continue work on The Next Novel?

The technology changes so quickly, my database and library systems have radically changed. Now I note which books are searchable on Amazon.com and which on Books Google. Other books are fully on-line or downloaded onto my computer.

I've a towering stack of books that I've already read and marked with notes. I'm considering photographing the pages: put into EverNote (or DevonThink, possibly?), they would then be searchable. I could scan, but that takes longer.

My luggage lightens, and my computer swells. And as for my head? It's about to explode!



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