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The Detonator: The George Saunders Interview, Pt. 1, by Patrick Dacey

The first idea (“move towards the complicated”) is, I think, best understood as a habit of mind generally worth cultivating. Basically: steer towards the rapids. Say we’re writing “Little Red Riding Hood,” and we’ve just typed: “One day, Red’s mother handed her a picnic basket and told her to go see Granny, but not to talk to any strangers along the way.” So—should we have her meet a stranger? Yes. Should that stranger be potentially dangerous, like, say, a wolf? Sounds promising. Should Red engage with the wolf? (What a drag, if, at that point, she takes Mom’s advice and ignores the wolf: story over). Should the wolf she meets be evil, or a gentle, New Age wolf, who gives her some nice poems about daughter/granddaughter relations? Looking at a familiar story like that one, it’s pretty clear: a story is a thing that is full of dozens of crossroads moments, and if we make a habit of first, noticing these, and, second, steering toward the choice that gives off incrementally more power (or light, or heat, or throws open other interesting doors, etc.), this will, over the long haul, make the story more unique, more like itself, more incendiary. (Although even as I type this, I find myself intrigued by the poem-giving wolf… . )

—George Saunders. Read more from Saunders on writing process and technique in this Web Exclusive interview.

By way of The Detonator. Thank you.

  1. yellowsarong reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful and added:
    amazing, y’all. Check him out...you don’t already know.
  2. niceandsimple reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
  3. treatyoselfartie reblogged this from gematriya
  4. gematriya reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
  5. crashinglybeautiful reblogged this from bombmagazine and added:
    The first idea (“move towards the complicated”) is, I think, best understood as a habit of mind generally worth...
  6. syreetamcfadden reblogged this from bombmagazine and added:
    George Saunders is one of my favoritest short story writers in the whole universe.
  7. sarahwrotethat reblogged this from bombmagazine and added:
    I also am intrigued by the poem-giving wolf.
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