Writing Advice

Last week was the Tin House Workshop held at Reed College. Every year I hop on my bike at least once a day and pedal through the summer heat to the auditorium or the amphitheater to I sit in on lectures and a few readings without paying the thousands of dollars to actually participate in the workshops. Sometimes the bike ride is barely worth it. Sometimes I walk away with a few gems. This year one of my favorite panel discussions was on Beginnings with Karen Shepard, Walter Kirn and Dorothy Allison.

Dorothy Allison listed the three top motivators in fiction as Fear, Lust and Curiosity. "If you can get someone scared, horny and uncertain you've got a franchise."

Walter Kirn spoke eloquently about how beginnings are about closing down your options, and letting the reader know, with confidence, how to read your story. "Beginnings are shadows that are cast across the whole of the story."

Karen Shepard gave perhaps the most useful nugget of advice and that was the simple idea of policing your sentences. "Interrogate them. What are they telling you?"