WAKE UP AND WRITE
Don’t Box Yourself In
Don’t tell yourself what your style or what you’re capable of
Wake Up and Write is a regular advice column from Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Today, we have novelist Christina Baker Kline, who shared writing advice on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, hosted by Zibby Owens.
“Here’s another secret that’s not really a secret. I think that writing about the past in some ways makes plot easier because writing about the present is sort of amorphous.”
“If you’re writing about people in your own world, in a way, then you have to make terrible things happen, something has to happen in a novel. You put people through misery in one way or another. That’s sort of the plot of every novel. In some ways, writing stories set in the past gives you more of a frame for the story. That’s what I have trouble with. The words on the page are one thing. Really, the structure and the plot. I could just write and write and not have a plot, but that is not how a novel works.
I realized it’s terrifying to write about the past. I remember reading a book by Kathryn Harrison, a novel that was about foot binding, I think. She wrote contemporary books, novels and memoir. Then she wrote this book set in the past. My first thought was, why would she do that? That’s so weird. Then my second thought was, that’s way too hard. I could never do that. I would never presume to understand any culture other than my own. That seems ridiculous.
For Orphan Train, I was slightly terrified every second that I was writing the stuff set in the past, but I learned I could do it. Then the next book was a whole different challenge about Andrew Wyeth and the subject of his painting, Christina’s World. The Exiles was an entirely different challenge.
Writing Orphan Train made me realize — and this is a big lesson for aspiring writers — don’t box yourself in. Don’t tell yourself what your style is or what your subject is or what your interests are or what you’re capable of. You never know. If you take chances, you’ll surprise yourself, always. It might not always work. In the case of my writing these books, I wrote my way into learning that I could do it.”
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