A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
once heard the great Chicago writer Stuart Dybek say, “A story is always talking to you; you just have to learn to listen to it.” Revising like this is a way of listening to the story and of having faith in it: it wants to be its best self, and if you’re patient with it, in time, it will be. Essentially, the whole process is: intuition plus iterati
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
Characterization, so called, results from just such increasing specification. The writer asks, “Which particular person is this, anyway?” and answers with a series of facts that have the effect of creating a narrowing path: ruling out certain possibilities, urging others forward.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
When there was nothing in the story (before you started reading it) there was nothing that wanted to happen. Now that Marya is here, unhappy, the story has become restless. The story has said of her, “She is unhappy and can’t imagine any other life for herself.”
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
What a story is “about” is to be found in the curiosity it creates in us, which is a form of caring.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
Consider this sentence, which I’ll infuse with increasing specification: Some guy is sitting in a random room thinking nothing at all and this other guy walks in. An angry racist is sitting in a room, thinking of how unfairly he’s been treated all his life, and a person of another race walks in. An angry white racist named Mel, who has cancer, is s
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
A good story is one that, having created a pattern of excesses, notices those excesses and converts them into virtues.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
That’s really all a story is: a limited set of elements that we read against one another.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
“capitalism plunders the sensuality of the body.”)
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
The reader is out there, and she’s real. She’s interested in life and, by picking up our work, has given us the benefit of the doubt. All we have to do is engage her. To engage her, all we have to do is value her.