Eric Olsen's Reading List

"Yes, that’s what I love about it. This whole book is, “Look! Here’s how to be a better writer.” I love how he uses one story, The Governor’s Ball , and his own experience of writing that story, to talk about the process of writing. What I found fascinating too is that he does such a neat job of talking about letting the story write itself. Here’s a guy for whom each sentence that came next was a total surprise. It was an exploration – he was just following the story as it went along. When I’m doing my writing, this is what I long for – those moments when I don’t know what is going to come next, and the story tells me what comes next. I write novels, which I don’t think write themselves quite in the way a really short story, like the one Ron is writing about, might. But I just love his very clear and precise description of the way he puts the story together. Yes, that’s really interesting, as is his emphasis on the importance of detail, and the inventory that he talks about. This is a terrific book for any young writer or even a not-so-young writer. Even if you’ve been writing for years, it’s good to be reminded of these things now and then. Ron talks about three sources of story idea. In describing how he wrote The Governor’s Ball , Ron talks about how he drew on his own experiences, the experience of others, and stuff he just made up. Some of the authors, like Joyce Carol Oates, are, I think, of the school that serious writing is done from your own personal neuroses and experiences and fears and torment. That’s where the serious stuff comes from, or so we’re told by serious, “literary” writers. The guys that write science fiction and mysteries, they just make everything up, and that’s not as important as the other kind of writing. I’m not sure I’d go along with that. Yes, and when I was at Iowa as a young writer, in the mid-1970s, I didn’t want to write about myself, or my life. I got some crap for that in the workshops, because the real serious stuff was supposed to be people writing about their dysfunctional families. Because when you’re 22 years old and starting to write, what can you write about from personal experience except your own dysfunctional family? I didn’t want to write about my dysfunctional family. I wanted to write science fiction. But you couldn’t submit science fiction at Iowa (except Joe Haldeman, who’d already published). It was forbidden. So I would write other stuff, but it was never about me, or drawn from my own experience."

"Now I’m getting into my dysfunctional family. My old man had some issues with alcohol, too. I remember once, when he was on the wagon, that he also had a momentary lapse involving mouthwash. Yes. Yes. This book is like Ron Carlson’s only three times longer. What I love about it is that King really takes you into his own process, and then leaves you these little titbits of “how to” stuff. There was one in particular I made a note of, on page 175. “Good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind.” That struck me. A lot of writers pile on details. This notion, just pay attention to your own thought process. What are the first details that come to mind? Those may be the best. That’s tremendously helpful advice. It had never occurred to me before, and I’ve been writing for 30-odd years. This book is full of little things like that about how he works, just tossed off. Oh, everybody hates adverbs! Yes, all writing teachers hate adverbs. I don’t know why. What’s wrong with a little adverb every now and then? Actually, somewhere not too long ago I read a defence of adverbs. I don’t know what to think of adverbs. Why does our language have adverbs if we’re not supposed to use them? My feeling is that it gets back to writing as discovery. For instance, I’m working on a novel at the moment, as I always am, and I’ve been trying to outline it. Even though I’m trying to outline it, I know that’s a mistake. For one, if an outline gets too detailed it takes away the discovery. Two, when I start to write, if it goes well, I end up tossing the outline. Stories have plots, you have to have a vague idea of where you’re trying to get, but I think what King is getting at is that you have to be open to discovery. When I interviewed John Irving for our book, he told me that he writes the last sentence first. And then he writes towards that. I imagine that’s exactly the opposite of what Stephen King does. Maybe what King means is that if, as Ron Carlson describes, you really open yourself and let the story take over, it will plot itself. For example, the novel I’m working on is a murder mystery. From the start, you have to know the particulars of the murder, so you can work your way toward it. But along the way, even though I’m trying to get to a particular end, I’m praying for those moments when the story starts telling itself. Out of that, however chaotic and uncertain it might be, you get a plot. But the plot is the structure of the narrative. Things happen to people, you have surprises, and you have a beginning, a middle and an end. In a way it’s how King defines plot. I don’t know if I’ve addressed the issue of the fossil or not – but I think it means openness to the possibilities. I love that stuff. No! But we were always asking one another, where do you work? When do you work? What is your room like? What is your desk like? Trying to get clues… I love it when writers talk about where they write, when they write. In the book, I ask people about it, and then I tried to take pictures of them, sitting at their desks. Joyce Carol Oates, in her book, talks about where she writes, which is a big glassy, open porch. I’m sure she looks out on trees…"

"When I started reading it I thought it read like something she might have tossed off on a Saturday morning. Actually, it’s a series of essays that she wrote over several years. It’s a little bit like King’s or Carlson’s books – it’s her talking about how she works and it’s full of really nice little details. With Joyce Carol Oates, you’ve got to figure, OK, whatever she’s doing, it’s the right thing to do for a writer! She also talks a lot about other writers. Yes, and there’s a chapter in there called “Reading as a Writer” which, for me, is the best part of the book. I really recommend it to young writers. The whole book is about reading as a writer, and all the stuff Joyce Carol Oates has been reading. When does she find time to read? It’s about what she’s reading, how it influences her writing and what insights she gets about the creative process from what she’s read. She not only reads all these great writers, but she also reads their diaries and criticism about them. She just has a wealth of insight. She emphasises again and again just how important it is for a writer to read. And to read not only good writers, but bad writers as well. Stephen King says the same thing. There’s nothing more heartening for a young writer than to read a bad published novel, because you read it, and you think, “My God! I can do better than this.” How exhilarating! “This got published? I can get published too!” So you read good writers to see how they do it, and bad writers to see how not to do it. It seems so self-evident, that if you’re going to be a writer, you need to read. But a lot of the people I interviewed for our book teach writing. Several of them commented that many young writers don’t read that much, which seems insane. I reread the chapter “Reading as a Writer” last night, and by reading what she says about her reading, you can see how as a writer you’re supposed to read, which is just a nice thing to be reminded of. Poor Steve, he’s a terrific writer, and writes a lot, but the mainstream literary world doesn’t take him all that seriously. I haven’t read anything by him in a long time, but what pieces I have read by him I really liked. I like science fiction and mysteries – that supernatural kind of stuff just never did it for me. But, like Oates, whatever King is doing, it’s sure working. Let’s learn from him!"

"This whole book is about all the things that writers are afraid of. I think if you’re a young writer you have all these anxieties, which just gnaw at you constantly, and you think, “My God! What a neurotic wreck I am.” But what you get from reading Keyes is that all writers are neurotic wrecks. And beyond that, you need to be a neurotic wreck to be a good writer, because the fears and the anxieties you have energise the prose. That’s Keyes’s whole point. It’s really an interesting thing to read about. I love the fact that a big chunk of the book is this inventory of fears, and all the things that writers are worried about and scared about. Right now we’re at the stage with our book, We Wanted to be Writers , where I’ve already gone through several different fears. Now it’s been printed, I’m scared to death that the first call I get from somebody who knows me is going to be, “Hey! Did you know about the typo on page 38?” Because then, for the rest of my life, the only thing I am going to remember about this book is the typo on page 38. Keyes talks about that particular fear. There are dozens of things writers have to be afraid of, from the start to the finish, and I got a big kick out of it because it was so true. To have someone articulate these fears for you, and list them, is comforting. It’s not nuts. This is what it means to be a writer. So I think it’s a really good book. Then he has a section about how to put the fears to work. I’m not sure that section works quite so well. It’s more words of comfort: “OK, you’re nervous, you’re facing a blank page, you’ve got page fright (like stage fright). Use that anxiety to focus your work on the moment.” It’s easier said than done. But it’s comforting to know that you’re not alone."

"Yes, and some did and some didn’t. A couple of the people in here are people I interviewed – they were my classmates when I was at Iowa, like TC Boyle and Jayne Anne Phillips. Frank wasn’t the director of the workshop when we were there, but I got to know him later when he was. This book is all over the place – each person’s contribution is unique. A lot of the writers talk about the workshop itself, the experience, the workshop method. I think for a young writer in particular, who may be contemplating going to the workshop, it’s a good book to turn to, to give a taste of what it’s about. Because I don’t think it’s changed all that much. There’s one chapter, by Francine Prose, called “On Details”, which is one of the most “how to” chapters. Like Carlson and King, her chapter talks about the importance of detail and how you handle detail. This is a particularly useful chapter, again, for young writers. In picking these books I was thinking of young writers, but every time we start writing something, we’re starting out again, so in a way we’re all beginners. My son is an investigator for a public defender’s office. His job is to interview alleged perpetrators of crimes and victims and witnesses, and get their stories. He’s dealing in detail all the time. They’re always looking for ways to get their clients off. How do you know when a person is lying? If you’ve been accused of a crime, you have the right not to talk. But he says that people always start talking and talking, thinking they can talk themselves out of the rap. They give all these details, and they start lying. You can tell a person is telling the truth when the details are fairly limited. Usually when we experience or observe something, we don’t really remember that much. When you’ve done a lot of these interviews, you begin to know that when there’s a paucity of detail – maybe just one or two little details that stand out in the person’s mind – you can be fairly confident that this is the truth. But if there are a whole lot of details it’s usually a lie. That is exactly what Francine Prose is talking about, when she writes about good detail in fiction. It’s exactly right. How do you know if you’ve got the right amount of detail? Which goes back to Stephen King and what he said about detail – that usually the first details that come to mind are the right details. Once you have those, stop layering on. Which actually is good advice to liars, too. The first details that come to mind, as you lie to the police, are the best details. Stop there. Stop elaborating. Otherwise they’re not going to buy it."