Sometimes I write from the point of view of characters whom I would dislike as people, not as a perverse exercise, but because this cracks the story open and makes me see it in a way I would not see it naturally.
Interpretation
Writing from contrasting perspectives enhances creativity and storytelling depth.
Mary Gaitskill highlights the importance of exploring diverse viewpoints in writing. By adopting the perspectives of characters that one may personally dislike, a writer can unlock new insights and dimensions to the narrative that might otherwise remain undiscovered, ultimately enriching the story's complexity and depth.
In practice
In a writing workshop, one might use this quote to encourage students to explore unconventional character viewpoints.
What is faithfulness, anyway? Can you be unfaithful to your own feelings and faithful to someone else? Is it faithful to lie in bed night after night with someone you love but no longer desire while ardently dreaming of someone else?
A sad person who is so involved with his sadness that he mistakes it for reality will have a hard time seeing himself as anything but sad. For him, the sadness is not a feeling that he experiences - it is him.
What are you thinking?” She asks. -That you are beautiful. That not everyone could see it. I almost became the kind of person who could not.
The world is filled with archaic objects - mailboxes which look like alarm boxes, banks which look like places to break out of rather than places to enter.
For me, the way to approach a subject such as Vietnam is through storytelling.
It's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave.
The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.
Elegance is not an outer quality, but a part of the soul that is visible to others.
I couldn't play ball. I couldn't dance. Luckily, the girls didn't want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.