The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House
by Francine Prose
12 popular highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House:
“Fans of the Peanuts comic strip may also remember Snoopy beginning his novel again and again, always starting with the line 'It was a dark and stormy night' ... In fact, since 1982, San Jose State University has run a writing contest inspired by 'It was a dark and stormy night' ... Charles Dickens opens stave one of A Christmas Carol with 'Once upon a time' ... Similarly, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man begins: 'Once upon a time' ... and Madeleine L'Engle begins A Wrinkle in Time with the very words 'It was a dark and stormy night.' (From Intro by Francine Prose)”
“I never conceived of myself as participating in some Oedipal anxiety about literary predecessors. Perhaps this is one of the great gifts of being a feminist: you’re off the hook from all that crap.”
“The right wing runs on rage, which is the fuel of convenience when you run out of truth.”
“the best comedy is rooted in the capacity to face unbearable emotions and to offer, by means of laughter, a dividend of forgiveness.”
“the capacity to face unbearable emotions and to offer, by means of laughter, a dividend of forgiveness.”
“Stories aren’t about things. Stories are things. Stories aren’t about actions. Stories are, unto themselves, actions.”
“A historian has to do with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event. A historian, describing a battle, says: the left flank of such-and-such army was moved against such-and-such village, cut down the enemy, but was forced to retreat; then the cavalry, going into the attack, overthrew . . . and so on. The historian cannot speak otherwise. And yet these words have no meaning for an artist and do not even touch upon the event itself. The artist, using his own experience, or letters, memoirs, and accounts, derives for himself an image of the event that took place, and quite often (in a battle for example) the conclusion which the historian allows himself to draw about the activity of such-and-such army turns out to be the opposite of the artist’s conclusion.5 Despite that, though, Tolstoy also notes that”
“A few years ago, I listened to a rabbi give a talk and she was explaining what a blessing is. It is a naming of something, she said. What you are blessing already has to be latent in the person, otherwise it doesn't mean anything. But if it is (latent), and you bless what hasn't yet come forth - the fruit - it is a very powerful action. Think of your writing as bestowing a blessing. I'll leave you with that. (Aimee Bender, "On the Making of Orchards")”
“There's an exercise I'll do sometimes with a class in which we'll start with a word; I'll give everyone a word, and they'll write based on that word, and as they're writing I'll interrupt often and tell them to write more on the setting they're developing. I'll stop the process again and give intrusive instructions about developing the character in the setting, and on and on. The purpose of this is to allow the development of the fruit that is already in seedling form on the page. There can be an urge and an anxiety to skip ahead, to get to the action, to get to plot, or to go to the familiar. But plot is a process, and its beginnings can come from very subtle and unexpected places. Story movement and form are going to feel false if they do not happen from some kind of progression, even if (and this is important) the writer is not aware of this process in the moment, even if, as with the Nabokov excerpt, the events happen fast. (Aimee Bender, "On the Making of Orchards")”
“We weep for characters, and then we go brush our teeth and have to face the fact that the world is warming at such a rapid pace that a terrifying number of amphibians are vanishing every month. And so through plays, through soccer games, through novels, through movies, through video games, through political elections - through story - we rehearse feelings we might eventually need in our own lives. ... Through drama, in the moments of greatest suspense, when the hero is hanging by a support from above, swaying to and fro ... we rehearse anxiety and longing more profoundly than any other emotions. ... And longing is the reach, the extension, the wild desire to attain the next stable platform at the end of the high wire. It's the hope against hope that the water shooting out of the fountain will stay aloft forever. (Anthony Doerr, "The Sword of Damocles: On Suspense, Shower Murders, and Shooting People on the Beach")”
“A more generous, more useful interpretation of the phrase is that we should write about what we know, *however we come to know it,* whether by vision or sensual experience or reading or conversation or passionate imagining. (Andrea Barrett, "Research in Fiction")”
“Research serves fiction best when it's dissolved entirely into the work, reprecipitated only to be embodied in characters, images, and the sensual details bringing the scene alive for the characters and hence for us. Research serves fiction best when it transcends the given facts and moves into the realm of the imagination. (Andrea Barrett)”
