A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
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added by Jonathan Simcoe and · updated 6d ago
added by Jonathan Simcoe and · updated 6d ago
What struck me particularly about him was the mixture of a sort of innate natural ferocity with a similarly innate nobility—a mixture such as I have never come across in any other person.
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
In a well-told story, reader and writer are so close together that they’re one unit. My job as the writer is to keep the distance between motorcycle and sidecar small, so that when I go right, you go right.
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
But we readers will tolerate all kinds of reading states, even negative-seeming ones: periods of boredom, of perplexity, periods during which we are really hating Character X and wondering if the writer knows just how much. What we are saying, essentially, is: “Well, Franz, that bug thing is excessive but I’m going to allow it. Proceed. What are yo
... See moreJonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
A story that approaches its ending with nothing in its TICHN cart is going to have a hard time ending spectacularly. A good story is one that, having created a pattern of excesses, notices those excesses and converts them into virtues.
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
Turgenev has the contractor sing in a specific way (he’s a “shredder,” in guitar terms, amazing his audience via technical prowess), and through this, the contractor became a particular guy, and now stands for something.
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
A specific description, like a prop in a play, helps us believe more fully in that which is entirely invented. It’s sort of a cheap, or at least easy, authorial trick. If I am trying to put you in a certain (invented) house, I might invoke “a large white cat, stretching itself out to what seemed like twice its normal length” on a couch in that hous
... See moreJonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
This is an important storytelling move we might call “ritual banality avoidance.” If we deny ourselves the crappo version of our story, a better version will (we aspirationally assume) present itself. To refuse to do the crappo thing is to strike a de facto blow for quality. (If nothing else, at least we haven’t done that.)
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
Earlier, we asked if there might exist certain “laws” in fiction. Are there things that our reading mind just responds to? Physical descriptions seem to be one such thing. Who knows why? We like hearing our world described. And we like hearing it described specifically.
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago
We might imagine structure as a form of call-and-response. A question arises organically from the story and then the story, very considerately, answers it. If we want to make good structure, we just have to be aware of what question we are causing the reader to ask, then answer that question.
Jonathan Simcoe added 5mo ago