The Writer March 2014

WHAT ARE YOU SEARCHING for in your writing? That’s a question the best editors, writing coaches and our own instincts help each of us answer as we begin, develop, struggle with, angst over and complete – or set aside – our storytelling projects. In various ways, it is also the question at the heart of the articles and interviews in this issue of The Writer. Most directly, contributor and writing teacher Linda Lappin takes on the quest narrative as a way to explore character, place and plot. She offers formats for understanding structure, exploring sacred space (real and imaginative) and digging into the themes that inform penetrating adventure stories, whether in The Odyssey, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows or Eat, Pray, Love. Writing coach Don Fry takes the question…

I have been in the newspaper game for more than 30 years, which qualifies me as a card-carrying old fart. Years ago, I was on a panel at Harvard University, surrounded by earnest young people, most of whom looked like they were in a band. They were explaining the demise of old media and celebrating the ascendancy of new media, with its ubiquity and immediacy. One kid got up and said something to the effect that the best part of new media was that you could get information out so quickly. I pointed out that was all well and good, but that very often in the rush to be first, people get things wrong. “Then you just correct it,” the kid replied, looking at me like I had just stepped…

“The modern writer must be an adventurer above all, willing to take every risk, and be prepared to founder in his effort if need be. In other words we must write dangerously.”–James Joyce A legend of Irish literature, Joyce used his fearless approach to pen groundbreaking novels such as Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Take his advice in the next story, poem or essay you write. Experiment with language. Turn tradition on its head. Break conventions. Or simply approach the piece in an entirely new way. When you finish, analyze the writing to see what works and what tactics you can use again in the future.…

During the endless weeks of March, writers face roadblocks in their work, whether it’s a problem story, a silent muse or a creative slump. These novelists, nonfiction writers and poets share how they power through the rough patches in chilly times. There are times where it’s productive to push beyond what’s comfortable, but there are also great benefits to giving your mind a break and allowing the work to simmer in your subconscious. Sometimes this can take weeks or months, but what’s the rush? I think we often get frustrated when we don’t see immediate results, but if you’re interested in delivering a message and making quality art that matters, then it’s worth it to take your time. — Dexter L. Booth, poetry, Scratching the Ghost When I get stuck…

Is it legitimate to use first person if the character is a man and the author is a woman? Or if the character is from Russia and the writer is from the U.S.? Isn’t that what third person is for? Indeed, some writers choose third person when writing from the perspective of a character whose experience is very different from their own. However, a writer can craft a first person voice that is genuine, regardless of his or her relationship to that character’s world. Fiction is an act of invention. Russell Banks writes from the first person perspective of a woman in his novel The Darling. In Little Bee, British writer Chris Cleave writes from the perspective of a young Nigerian woman. Sara Gruen imagines her way into the male…

Catherine Barnett is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Game Of Boxes, winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced, which won the Beatrice Hawley Award. She is also the recipient of the Whiting Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers. Her poems are often deeply personal, describing, for example, her experiences with her parents or with motherhood, and some also have a surreal slant to them. In “In the Cabinet of What’s Expired,” for instance, Barnett writes: “Salves, creams, dreams in their shiny metal tins:/the balm of yes/is now the balm of no–/But it’s a pretty silver hope,/and I still swallow it.” WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU’VE LEARNED…