7 Writers Interviewed by The Paris Review Give Writing Advice
In my early days on Twitter, I followed some accounts for writing inspiration including those I had never heard of. One of them was The Paris Review.
I would often come across tweets of their interviews with remarkable writers of the 20th century. It struck me as odd, “how long has this magazine been in existence?”. Well, roughly 67 years.
The Paris Review was founded in Paris by three American novelists: Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton.
The literary magazine’s main aim is to “emphasize creative work—fiction and poetry—not to the exclusion of criticism, but with the aim in mind of merely removing criticism from the dominating place it holds in most literary magazines.”
The Review’s series “Writers at Work” features interviews with hundreds of notable writers.
Below are eight writers that gave terrific advice in the course of their interviews:
1. Maya Angelou — make the words sing
i. I try to pull the language in to such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy. Of course, there are those critics—New York critics as a rule—who say, Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer. Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing.”- Maya Angelou
Going by the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Easy reading is damn hard writing”, Angelou remarks on the effort put into stringing words together to give a melodious effect in the minds of her readers.
Don’t hesitate to kill your darlings, it’s one of the greatest sacrifices expected of an exceptional writer.
ii. “I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.”- Maya Angelou
How far can you stretch the work before it feels perfect?
Our best work will most likely be crap in the eyes of E. B White. Should we then decide to keep our manuscripts unfinished because they don’t fit the standards of a better writer? I think the answer is no.
Our expectations should be defined by our standards, not those of others.
2. P. G Wodehouse — act the novel out
i. “The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. I say to myself, if a big name were playing this part, and if he found that after a strong first act he had practically nothing to do in the second act, he would walk out. Now, then, can I twist the story so as to give him plenty to do all the way through?”- P. G Wodehouse
This principle calls for imagination; imagine how a real actor would feel if asked to act your novel out.
The thing to know is that each character is playing a scene in the heads of your readers. If the context of the scenes doesn’t provoke emotions, your characters won’t thrive.
Books are like plays we watch in our minds.
3. Ezra Pound — try the technique test
i. “Technique is the test of sincerity. If a thing isn’t worth getting the technique to say, it is of inferior value. All that must be regarded as exercise.”- Ezra Pound
The art of technique brings life to stories. When you have something interesting to say, you put it out in the best manner you could think of.
Other stories may not mean much to you, and so it comes out sloppy and uncared for.
The trick is to notice how much effort you’re putting into molding the story to a likable shape. That way, you know if it’s worth publishing.
4. Katherine Anne Porter — start at the end
i. “If I didn’t know the ending of a story, I wouldn’t begin. I always write my last lines, my last paragraph, my last page first, and then I go back and work towards it. I know where I’m going. I know what my goal is. And how I get there is God’s grace.”- Katherine Anne Porter
Outlining a story gives you the drive to follow through with it, especially when the ending entices you.
However, writing is a spontaneous process. As you write, you may discover that things aren’t going according to plan.
Don’t hesitate to set your outline aside, and go where your story is leading you.
5. E. B White — delay and discipline are essential
i. “Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer—he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along”- E. B White
Tactful writing begins with innate readiness.
Delaying to start allows for the machinery within you to set the wheels of creation in motion.
Imagine a predator waiting for the right opportunity to attack, the writer waits for that surge of readiness to carry him through the work.
ii. A man must sit down and get the words on paper, and against great odds. This takes stamina and resolution. Having got them on paper, he must still have the discipline to discard them if they fail to measure up—he must view them with a jaundiced eye and do the whole thing over as many times as is necessary to achieve excellence, or as close to excellence as he can get. This varies from one time to maybe twenty.”- E. B White
Hemingway rewrote the last page of A Farewell to Arms 39 times before he was satisfied that he got the words right.
What makes a man a writer is beyond the usual words of talent and ability. A man must possess discipline and perseverance to be a writer of consequence.
6. Aldous Huxley — have a knack for words
i. “Well, one has the urge, first of all, to order the facts one observes and to give meaning to life; and along with that goes the love of words for their own sake and a desire to manipulate them. It’s not a matter of intelligence; some very intelligent and original people don’t have the love of words or the knack to use them effectively. On the verbal level, they express themselves very badly.”- Aldous Huxley
When asked about what makes a writer different from other people, the above was his reply.
There is a deep appreciation of words that is only felt by writers. The desire to manipulate and wield them to narrate your story in a voice that is unique to you; I daresay every writer can relate to this.
ii. “I think that fiction and, as I say, history and biography are immensely important, not only for their own sake, because they provide a picture of life now and of life in the past, but also as vehicles for the expression of general philosophic ideas, religious ideas, social ideas... In fiction, you have the reconciliation of the absolute and the relative, so to speak, the expression of the general in the particular. And this, it seems to me, is the exciting thing—both in life and in art.”- Aldous Huxley
7. Ernest Hemingway — best training for writers
i. “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.”- Ernest Hemingway
Writing well is extremely difficult to pull off. Try your best to write something worth reading even if it begins with a story of your downfalls.
ii. “From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows?”- Ernest Hemingway
I had a renewal of energy and purpose after reading Hemingway’s interview. It reminded me of the indelible mark every writer leaves behind him even after his death.
Writing demands the art of creating, the science of observing, and the patience to keep persevering against all odds.
For more interviews and writing advice, visit The Paris Review website. Thank you for reading!
