“I’ve often cautioned against going in with a machete before you’ve figured out what the story is truly about. Once you do that, you may make cuts, but you will have trimmed a story that now knows the reason for its existence.”
For someone who's thinking of sharing fiction in addition to my other stuff, this was such a helpful and encouraging article! My stories tend to develop a mind of their own and run away from me at times, but I've found that it takes letting go of control to find what the heart of the story really is. Thanks for your insights!
Nov 16, 2023·edited Nov 16, 2023Liked by Kathy Fish
The idea of meandering reminded me of a passage from an essay by Jane Hirshfield ["Poetry and the Art of Concentration"]:
Difficulty . . . is not a hindrance to an artist. Sartre called genius “not a gift, but a way a person invents in desperate circumstances.” Just as geological pressure transforms ocean sediment to limestone, the pressure of an artist’s concentration goes into the making of any fully realized work. Much of beauty, in art and in life, is a balancing of the lines of forward-flowing de-sire with those of resistance—a gnarled tree, the flow of a statue’s draped cloth.
I love The Art of Meandering. Rather than flying straight as a sparrow, be a hummingbird free to change in any direction or suspend movement in the air.
Kathy! First let me say, I'm so happy you offered a subscription option! It sprinkles creative acknowledgement all around...because writers deserve to be paid for their work. Yay! And thanks so much for this post and the story links. I was particularly captivated by Alligator...loved the structure and the pacing...and the use of that repeating line creates a sound memory in my mind that gathers all the threads of the story into a visual wholeness. In my own writing, I have recently noticed how curtailing my own natural tendency to meander has often resulted in shooting myself in my artistic foot. Especially in early drafts. I love the puzzle and adrenalin rush of time constrained flash competitions, but when I receive helpful feedback about how the story might be expanded, I'm left with an empty jar! I can't find my way in to the story again because I've squeezed it so tight. Note to self...let those shiny distractions go for a while and sit tight with the meandering spirals!
Hi, I'm Rick, a young writer from India (16). Can I get a little help from you? I'm trying to improve my writing and I recently wrote a piece of flash fiction. Can you provide some feedback on it?
Oh, this is so good, Kathy. I'm putting the final touches to the draft of my book and the feedback I'm getting is that the reader wants me to meander more in places, especially when I'm writing memoir-style passages, and the reader wants me to digress less! Conflicting or what?! I have to figure it out and do my best to please the reader as well as taking those risks you refer to. Thanks for this post, it has given me courage. And I love Calvino!
“I’ve often cautioned against going in with a machete before you’ve figured out what the story is truly about. Once you do that, you may make cuts, but you will have trimmed a story that now knows the reason for its existence.”
Yes 🙌 🙌🙌
For someone who's thinking of sharing fiction in addition to my other stuff, this was such a helpful and encouraging article! My stories tend to develop a mind of their own and run away from me at times, but I've found that it takes letting go of control to find what the heart of the story really is. Thanks for your insights!
The idea of meandering reminded me of a passage from an essay by Jane Hirshfield ["Poetry and the Art of Concentration"]:
Difficulty . . . is not a hindrance to an artist. Sartre called genius “not a gift, but a way a person invents in desperate circumstances.” Just as geological pressure transforms ocean sediment to limestone, the pressure of an artist’s concentration goes into the making of any fully realized work. Much of beauty, in art and in life, is a balancing of the lines of forward-flowing de-sire with those of resistance—a gnarled tree, the flow of a statue’s draped cloth.
I love The Art of Meandering. Rather than flying straight as a sparrow, be a hummingbird free to change in any direction or suspend movement in the air.
Kathy! First let me say, I'm so happy you offered a subscription option! It sprinkles creative acknowledgement all around...because writers deserve to be paid for their work. Yay! And thanks so much for this post and the story links. I was particularly captivated by Alligator...loved the structure and the pacing...and the use of that repeating line creates a sound memory in my mind that gathers all the threads of the story into a visual wholeness. In my own writing, I have recently noticed how curtailing my own natural tendency to meander has often resulted in shooting myself in my artistic foot. Especially in early drafts. I love the puzzle and adrenalin rush of time constrained flash competitions, but when I receive helpful feedback about how the story might be expanded, I'm left with an empty jar! I can't find my way in to the story again because I've squeezed it so tight. Note to self...let those shiny distractions go for a while and sit tight with the meandering spirals!
Hi, I'm Rick, a young writer from India (16). Can I get a little help from you? I'm trying to improve my writing and I recently wrote a piece of flash fiction. Can you provide some feedback on it?
https://rickbarooah.substack.com/p/me-and-the-beggars
I'm struggling with my writing and your help means a lot to me. Thanks.
A really insightful article, Kathy. Thank you.
Oh, this is so good, Kathy. I'm putting the final touches to the draft of my book and the feedback I'm getting is that the reader wants me to meander more in places, especially when I'm writing memoir-style passages, and the reader wants me to digress less! Conflicting or what?! I have to figure it out and do my best to please the reader as well as taking those risks you refer to. Thanks for this post, it has given me courage. And I love Calvino!