Monday, October 13, 2014

Monday Musing: A Quote

Last night, I found myself reading an old interview with John Irving (The World According to Garp, In One Person, and one of my all-time favorite books, A Prayer for Owen Meany), and he had this to say:

"Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep searching for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties."

That's terrific, isn't it? "Writing a novel is actually searching for victims." It calls up images of police dogs sniffing the woods, or firemen digging through rubble--not happy images, to be sure, but how many successful books are about happy people? While I certainly try to make things worse for my characters as my stories progress, I haven't ever quite thought of it this way before. Perhaps I need to keep this notion a little more front-and-center when I write.

What about you? Do you consider your characters as your victims? Please share.


5 comments:

  1. I guess I never really thought about it like that before, but yeah, they are! Victims are tortured and I certainly do my best to torture my characters. Maybe not (always) the blood and guts kind, but mental torture is just as bad.

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  2. This is good! Might help me too - the biggest thing holding me back is my inability to keep my characters well and truly miserable :)

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  3. I've never really viewed characters as victims as much as people with a story to tell and obstacles to overcome. A good story has to have emotional and physical obstacles to get through before the happy ending. So, I guess I'd agree and say they're victims. :-)

    Sia McKye Over Coffee

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  4. That's how I feel when writing fan fiction. That is a very interesting quote you shared today Jeff.

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  5. Yeah, I put my characters through some rough stuff. I'm frankly alarmed at my sadistic side sometimes. :P

    Also, I really need to read A Prayer for Owen Meany.

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