2024-09-24 short story writing class
#update
parents:: short story writing class
daily note:: 2024-09-24
- Orientation - Daniel Orozco
- Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin
- Where Are You, Dear Heart - Mariana Enriquez
- Character - James Wood
Thoughts
- I'm starting to get a sense that part of what makes a good story is leaving room for ambiguity
- In Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin, the author never really implies any moral judgements herself. Whether we think eating birds is bad or not? That's more a reflection of our biases.
- We can interpret it as a story about:
- Divorce and its effects on kids
- Vegetarianism: the contradictariness of our meat eating
- A dad reconciling with his daughter
- A dad just being a bad dad...
- We can interpret it as a story about:
- Similarly, in Where Are You, Dear Heart - Mariana Enriquez, even though, perhaps no matter how it's told it'll feel uncomfortable. But the particular way it was told maybe makes things feel a little relatable (if only on a conceptual level, not a real physical level).
- There's no moral judgement being placed on the narrator's actions.
- In Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin, the author never really implies any moral judgements herself. Whether we think eating birds is bad or not? That's more a reflection of our biases.
- Also, on the malleability of the definition of short story.
- Both Orientation - Daniel Orozco and Where Are You, Dear Heart - Mariana Enriquez stretch the limits of what a story can be. Neither really has conflict or resolution. Instead, both are just a process of us, the reader, learning more. Which in itself can draw us in enough to keep us captivated. At least in the case if a short story. Perhaps this wouldn't work as well for a novel...
- Meta thoughts
- Kinda interesting that character stuff has to be so... jarring.
- Questions
- [?] How to think about the whole palette of characters. What's a good distribution of fleshed out vs flat characters?