All language subtitles for Masterclass Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story - 02.Principles of Writing Short Fiction

Everybody has at least one story to

tell. It may be about a mysterious event

of the childhood. It may be like why did

this person disappear from your life? If

it was a divorce in the family,

why did that happen? You know, everybody

has a fantastic story,

often a mystery story, because when

we're really young, adults are

mysterious. We hear them talking a

little bit in their bedroom. We hear

them walking out and we don't know why

the door slam. We hear our mother

crying. We hear somebody arguing. We

don't know what adults are doing and

they're hiding it from us. So that

impulse to be a writer I think springs

from that air of mystery like what are

these people doing when we're little

tiny babies in the crib we look up and

we see these giants looking down on us

we have no idea who they are but we know

one thing that they're much bigger than

we are and then when we get a little

older ourselves where these little

people and where these giants are around

us and we're always trying to monitor

them and figure them out. And so I think

in my own writing I'm still trying to

monitor like what is society? What is

the patriarchal society? What is what is

patriarchal religion? What are these

strictctures and invisible boundaries

that keep many of us in thr

looking up at these people? But I'm also

like Alice in Wonderland and she's

saying, "I'm not afraid of you. you're

big, but I'm smarter than you and I'm

going to write about you and I'm going

to analyze and I'm going to dissect you.

In other words, the writer has to have

that feeling that he or she though

intimidated by adults and by society,

nonetheless, the writer has the power to

analyze and dissect and understand the

society. So, the the writer is both

humble but also very uh very independent

and self-sufficient. So, it helps to

think of yourself as a writer standing

on the edge uh on a marginal plane.

There's a plane here of other people and

you're standing on the edge and you're

looking at them. So, if you're a writer,

think of yourself also as a photographer

with a camera and you're looking through

a lens. And when you have your magic,

you have your magic camera. That's your

writing. In other words, you turn this

camera around and with the lens you see

the subject, but the camera is your

writing and that's your position, your

perspective, and that gives you the

power. But to be able to do that, you

have to have the language and the craft.

You have to have someplace to put it.

You have to know how to divide it up and

you know how the sentences work.

So I start thinking about a story from

the point of view of a character. I

always my writing is all about people.

So I'm only really interested in people

and personalities. I think our uh

personalities are mysterious and

fantasmagoric because many of us have

buried lives and secret lives and lives

that they've never been explored. So, I

got to know the characters as if they

were people from my past. Sometimes

they're composite characters. Sometimes

they're based on something that happened

to me. And as you're thinking or

daydreaming, you're thinking about a

character, you start to get to know the

character. Like if you think about you

have a cousin or a sister or someone

whom you haven't seen in a while, is to

think about that person. If you spend 45

minutes thinking about that person, you

have sort of like a collage, you know,

of different things a person's done. The

characters generate the plot. If you

have a strong willed character and

another character that interact with

with one another. So I suggest to my

students if they have a story with a

number of people in it, I'll say that

what is this person doing like why is

that person there? If they can't answer

that, then I say you have to get rid of

that person. You know, it's like hiring

actors in a in a play. You have to pay

them. You pay you pay five actors and

you're only using three actors. You

know, like you can't afford those

actors. So, I make them leave. Or I say

you have to combine the two. I try to

make my students see that this is a

practical matter and you can't distract

the reader by having characters who are

not important. So, if you can conjoin

characters, that's that's ideal. But

most of my stories just focus on a

couple of people. You begin with a

character, something happens, character

meets somebody else, then the plot

follows after that.

That's how I work out a story. So I

begin with a character.

Well, all art is based upon this

principle of synctity. In other words,

you're choosing and selecting. I once

wrote a novel about Marilyn Monroe and

Marilyn Monroe had a number of

miscarriages and she was in a number of

orphan at least two orphanages and a

number of foster homes. So when I wrote

about her, I only wrote about one

miscarriage, I wrote about one foster

home and one orphanage because if you're

writing about six foster homes or six

miscarriages, it you can't really make

that powerful. So this art of synctity

or choosing selecting one stands for the

whole that is the principle of all all

art. I mean that's not just my writing

that's that's basically all art. If

you're cramming with real life you know

people get up in the morning and they

brush their teeth like how many

thousands or tens of thousands of times

have people brush their teeth in a

lifetime? Well, you're not going to put

that down in your journal every day

because it would be absolutely n numbing

and stalifying and nobody would read it.

But one day, you know, one day you get

married or one day somebody dies or you

get a new a new puppy or a dog that the

momentous things in life that then stand

for many other days. Like if some

profound things happen one day out of

25, that's the day you write about. So

too with a short story, most of my short

stories focus on people at climatic

moments of their lives like it's the one

event in their whole lives that's that's

really momentous. That's what I'm

writing about. I'm not writing about

anything else. One can take an idea and

develop it, of course, in a sort of

horizontal way and and add a good deal

of development and add people to it. If

it's if it's an idea you can express

with only one or two people, that's

probably a short story. If it's more of

a a largecale idea like a political

sociological thematic ideal that takes

place over a period of time that would

be populated by more people that's

obviously a novel. These are just sort

of I think the common sense decisions

that people make. But some experiences

are very narrow and intense and so

that's good for a short story because

it's just one one unit. Ideally the

short story is read in one sitting. So

Edgar and Po said the ideal form is that

which you read in one sitting which I

think is true. If a short story is too

long and you have to put it down it sort

of breaks a spell whereas a novel no

almost nobody reads a novel all in in in

one sitting.

First draft should be very very rapid. I

would I would

make the comparison to wildfire. It

should be just just flaming around and

you get a new idea for the ending like

the fire's over here. you just

let it all come out right away and don't

try to edit because that's that's so

important. I would really recommend to

write the whole draft as fast as you

can. Just set set the whole afternoon or

a whole day and try to write through the

whole novel or the whole short story,

whatever the unit is, and try to get

everything through even if it's very

very very sketchy. And if you can do

that in one sitting, that's very

helpful. I suggest to my writing

students that they write the whole story

out. And if it's not perfect, oh that's

fine. I tell them, don't spend a whole

lot of time on it. Get the first draft

because once you have the first draft,

it's such a good feeling. Then with your

first draft, you really you have such a

feeling of power and you can go back and

work on the title and you can work on

all parts of it and take weeks and weeks

to write it.

I rewrite things countless times. I

mean, I don't have any sense of how many

times. I really have no idea. It could

be a hundred times that I I don't know.

I keep rereading the beginnings of

things, especially if you're on a

computer or have something on your cell

phone. When I'm traveling on a train, I

I have my work. I just keep scrolling

through it. I go back to the beginning

and and read it over and over again and

I see something that might be added. I

take some notes. I see something that

might be taken out. You know, I've done

that so many times. By the time I

finally finished something, I probably

looked at the beginning a thousand

times. I mean, because the beginning

gets better and stronger and you think

of a sentence that's a little more

interesting

and because you're reading it faster and

faster, you're more more like a reader.

The first time through, it's very slow.

But by the time I read something for,

you know, the 40th time, I'm reading it

as a reader. It reads pretty fast. I see

that maybe some of it's too sketchy and

I have to add a little more. So I often

go back and add things because it's

moving moving too fast. The pacing is

something that comes with the reading a

little bit later. I should emphasize to

you that writing is not done all at

once. It's a process. So whatever you do

on the first day, it's not anything like

what you'll be doing on the 40th day.

Just, you know, say you're going to be

writing for the next year and you have a

whole lot of time. There's no hurry and

no rush. So, it's like something you're

just working on all all the time.

There are two ways of looking at

writing. One way is that you're telling

a story very transparently. The other is

that you're telling a story with

language and and language is the point.

Another George Orwell said that pros

should be like a window. It should be

very clean. And when you read George

Orwell like 1984, you're just reading a

wonderful, terrifying story about a

dystopia, you know,

called 1984.

Now we were way past 1984, but still

1984 seems to be like a metaphor for our

time. So Orwell's idea of pros was that

there is nothing between you and the

reader.

I don't necessarily think that that is

the way that I particularly want to

write that way. I'm much more interested

in language being present and many

people like Nebbleov or James Joyce or

Oscar Wild or Faulner or Hemingway,

they're more interested in the language

of the story. So just assume that you're

interested in telling a story that has

language in it, then that's going to be

a little slower. And so do you want your

paragraphs to be this big? Do you want

them long? Do you want them short? You

have to make a decision. How fast do you

want your story to read? If it reads too

fast, then it might be superficial. If a

person reads it in five minutes,

it's all over. Now, do you you want it

to be a little slower so there's more

description, there's more gravitas,

you're more inside the person's head a

little more, and then that makes it

slower so the reader is with you longer.

That might that story might be more

powerful.

As a young writer, Hemingway would sit

in a cafe in Paris, literally on the

street, and he'd be at a little table

and he have wine and he's sipping his

wine and he's writing in longhand and

he's remembering Michigan, northern

Michigan when he was like 10 years old,

11, 12, 16 years old. He's remembering

his own past. He's having some wine.

He's looking out at all the bustle in

the street and he's writing. He's not

being interrupted because his young wife

is at home in the flat with the baby.

You see, Hemingway is a quintessential

male writer who had freedom to do his

thinking because some woman was

somewhere with his baby taking care of

him. The only thing that's bad for

writing is being interrupted.

You have to have time to write. And

while that seems obvious,

you probably are you probably living a

life with a lot of interruptions.

And you say, "Well, I'll try not to be

interrupted." But that that's probably

the great danger right now of creativity

is being interrupted a lot. Some of it

is self-interruption and maybe looking

at a cell phone or looking at Twitter or

looking at the news or email or whatever

it you elect to interrupt yourself. So

the brains the neurological continuity

keeps getting

jostled. We don't have the concentration

that the 19th century people had. We

can't sit and read War and Peace for six

hours. And if you're in a relationship

with somebody and you're in a family or

have a husband or have children, they

make all these inroads and

interruptions. Now, you love them very

much, but you're going to have to get

away from all these interruptions. You

can't possibly work or create anything

of worth if people are constantly

interrupting you. And in a family,

people always want if you're the woman

and you're, you know, the wife or

mother, you you're always being called

upon to help other people, you know, and

it's like this constant giving and being

available. So, you have to at some point

go into a room, you close the door and

tell people not to come in. If you can

do that, if you can't do that, you got

to run away and go for a long run, you

know. But constant interruptions are the

are the destruction of the imagination.

Your enemy, your worst enemy

will have your most beloved face. It's

going to be the child you really love.

It could be a dog or a cat. It's some

presence in your life that you love

because that person or presence is

somebody you can't say no to. We all

have people we can't say no to. So, we

have to sort of run away from them and

hide. The great enemy of writing isn't

your own lack of talent. It isn't your

own lack of of industry. It's being

interrupted by other people.

Writing is a matter of experimentation

and all writers do a lot of revision. So

first you might write a paragraph and

then you might rewrite it. You might

rewrite it again and then you might

write a page and then basically you keep

rewriting to find the rhythm and the

voice that's suitable for that story.

And at a certain point I think it's very

helpful to have other people read your

work. have a a community of of writers

who are also reading your work and maybe

a writing workshop which could be formal

at a university or a college or could

just be at a book maybe book clubs have

writing um like a a writing element to

the book club but to have other people

reading

because with other without other people

your writing doesn't have much of a

resonance. You may be writing um you may

be writing something that's that's

wonderful but you don't know it because

nobody says that. So you might feel very

lonely. And sometimes I read work by

student writers and they say oh I hated

this and it wasn't finished and I I

don't like it. And I read it and I say

you know this is actually wonderful but

it's not finished. You know so they need

a little bit of a outside external

uh assist to see what they're doing.

or somebody says this,

this is the way I began my story.

I couldn't think of any other way to

begin it. I might say, "Oh, but your

real beginning is on page three. Let's

try this. Put this in the beginning."

And that's your that's your beginning.

And so that's helpful to get another

person looking at it. reading and

writing all by yourself is is very

necessary. But working with other

people, I think that's that's that's

wonderful. And I started being in a

writing workshop when I was about 19

years old and I was a student at

Syracuse University. So that was a big

experience. I'd been writing all alone,

probably since I was 14. I was writing

novels.

My grandmother gave me a typewriter. the

same grandma who gave me my Alice and

Wonderland books. So I was actually

writing novels but nobody read them. And

then when I went to college suddenly

other people were reading my work and

that was very intimidating and scary

but it was also exciting. So I started

hearing people saying they would say

things like quote I don't understand.

So that's something that you only hear

from another person. Like when you

write, you think you know what you're

doing. Somebody else will say, "I just

don't understand what that sentence is."

And that's helpful. In my workshops at

NYU and at Princeton and UC Berkeley

that I teach variously at these

universities, it's very helpful when a

student learns that other people just

didn't know what happened.

So the student might say, "Oh, I didn't

want to be too obvious."

You know, you can be very obvious and

your editor can always take it out.

There's a very important u psychological

a neurohysiological effect of finishing

something. When you finish something and

you're satisfied with it, you get a

little u spurge of of energy. when you

don't finish something, say you're

working on a novel, which I don't

recommend for for beginning writers, I

think the novel can be very exhausting,

but uh short stories, short monologues,

poetry, what IC plays, things that you

can finish

and then show other people, maybe you

can get them published.

That's very satisfying and necessary for

a writer to say, "I finished this." If

you start working on a novel and it

takes 20 years, your whole life is going

to have a cloud over it. You may never

finish it and it's so tight heavy and

exhausting. What we all need is the

satisfaction of this little uplift that

we get psychologically from finishing

something.

If you fail to publish something, that

may be a very good thing because if it

had been published, it wasn't that

great. It was it was not the best it

could be. So, if it comes back in the

mail, you sent it out and it comes back.

Look at it again with colder and cooler

eyes and see maybe it wasn't that great

and I can write it over again. I've had

the experience several times that

something that's been rejected came back

to me and I used that um I used the

opportunity to revise it and a couple of

times it was just remarkable how lucky I

was it wasn't published. In one case my

editor actually wanted to publish

something and I looked at it again and I

thought it just wasn't that good and I

could rewrite it. So failure to to be to

publish too soon can be very beneficial.

If I had time, I would tell you about

all the writers from James Joyce on to

people you don't know who are very lucky

that their first novels were rejected.

James Joyce's first novel was rejected

and he was very lucky that it was

rejected.