On Writing, On Fiction

Here are a couple quotes I saw recently about writing and what makes fiction work.

The first is from Lauren Groff, the editor of the most recent edition of Ploughshares (which I wrote a bit about here already). She rehashes the age-old idea of the lonely, pain-filled writer, with a bit of twist in her words.

"Writers are perennially lonely, and a writer's longing to connect is what fills her work with urgency." 

Key words: longing, connect, urgency. Of course, the other side of the debate, and one I struggle with, is how much importance do I place on making a "connection?" Isn't it more about just getting the story out there that I believe needs to be told, and to express myself in the artful medium I chose (or chose me if you want to get all whimsical about it)? You can read more about Groff and her writing process on Ploughshares ("She writes early drafts by hand, on legal pads. Once she has a complete draft of a novel, she throws the pages away, and begins again, writing the new draft (again by hand) from memory.").

I've also been flipping through the stories in 2003's The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories edited by Ben Marcus (Sea Oak by George Saunders was particularly great). In the intro, Marcus mentions: "This is a strange attribute of writing - its silence." He goes on to explore the idea of what "plot" means in its various definitions.

"The question we would ask about a story would be not: What is the plot, but What plot does it occur on?" 

Also:

"Good fiction is busy keeping secrets, protecting its plots." 

He describes the stories he chose for the collection thusly:

"They could be projected by megaphone onto an empty field and people would grow there." 

And one more:

"Stories are language-made hallucinations." 

Finally, and reading this sentence from 2003 twelve years later, carries even more significant weight:

"The sentence, as a technology, is used for so many rote exchanges, so many basic communication requirements, that to rescue it from these necessary mundanities, to turn it into feeling, is to do something strenuous and heroic."

Literature isn't usually described as "heroic." But I do agree that language be in need of saving. Don't get me wrong. I'm guilty of abbreviations and emoticons and all of that. But what I'm more guilty of is the rote exchanges that Marcus highlights. The rhetorical "how are you doings" and "isn't this lovely weather" etc. It gets to the point where conversation (and by extrapolation, language, and communication) becomes so limited that it can be likened to just two simultaneous monologues. To connect back with Groff, more than ever, the Internet and new technology has forged new ways for us to connect. But the definitions of connection are changing (for better or worse, the jury's still out). Which is how literature can be heroic, by helping to define how our lives, our longings, and our connections can change, adapt, and proceed urgently into the future, without stagnating one of the most important creations of mankind.