Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

jaymickef t1_ixyqn8o wrote

There’s just enough information to trigger your own imagination. Carver really understood that writing is a dialogue between writer and reader, not a monologue from the writer. Everyone brings their own experiences to reading and Carver allows you to be a big part of the process as you fill in the blanks, so to speak.

14

Valuable-Elevator511 OP t1_iy1279g wrote

"writing is a dialogue between the writer and the reader" is an absolutely beautiful expression. I love that. It actually has exposed a major flaw in a lot of my creative endeavours because I love a monologue so I'm very guilty of it. I'm wondering to myself now if it's actually something you can learn because it seems to me that understanding is what made him so special and that's not something everybody can just do or understand. I'm gonna be thinking about this for a while. It's a great answer. Sorry about the late response

1

jaymickef t1_iy16wg7 wrote

That’s a good question, if you can learn it or not. I used to think it was too bad that learning to write couldn’t be more like learning a musical instrument, before you write your own songs you learn to play someone else’s. Then I read an interview with Elmore Leonard (one of my favourite writers) who said to learn to write he would start by typing the beginning of Hemingway story, maybe half a page, and then then continue in his own direction trying to see if he could capture Hemingway’s voice. This was long before fanfic which I now think is a good way to learn, much like playing other people’s music is for learning an instrument. I have worked in two writers’ rooms on TV shows and in some ways it’s kind of like writing fanfic, you need to be able to capture the voice of the show runner.

Anyway, I think you can learn to write the way you want to but you do have to trust the readers a lot. And you have to write a lot.

As for Carver, there is a lot of discussion about how much he was edited by Gordon Lish. That’s the other thing, every book we read was also edited by someone other than the author.

https://blog.pshares.org/raymond-carver-gordon-lish-and-the-editor-as-enabler/

3