Writer. Contributing Editor at The Discarded Image. Digital Content Strategist. Here's where I publicly explore the books I'm reading, the projects I'm working on, and other current interests. Well Said: “don’t write angry”
Fiction writer Maggie Shipstead’s take on writing what you know:
…Six or seven of my previous stories were set there. “Via Serenidad” is, however, my first story about the place where I grew up, my first in which Orange County isn’t just a backdrop with a nice climate but is a medium for my ire, ambivalence, wistfulness, and affection. Now that I’ve moved away, and my brother’s moved away, and my parents too, and all my friends from high school, I’ve developed a soft spot for the place…. That distance was necessary for me. I needed a time out before I could follow the ancient and incomplete advice to write what you know. I had to go away and stay away until I could write what I think I know but suspect I don’t know at all in a way that took advantage of my complex feelings about Orange County rather than using it as an easy target.
As far as the craft of writing, all my blathering about my hometown and high school boils down to this: don’t write angry. Sleep on it for a few years or a few decades. If you’re writing about someone or somewhere only to prove how silly and despicable that person or place is, your written world will have the flatness that comes from small-heartedness. A story should not be a means of carrying out a vendetta, but perhaps a story might be a way to lay one to rest.
Read the rest of her essay from the latest Glimmer Train Bulletin.
