Ok, I'm not going to be the one to deal Carrie a chimp. She roared me, which I think means I get to share three things I think make great writing.
1. VOICE, voice and more voice. My teacher says the story IS the voice. Hear, hear. If the narrator has an interesting way of saying it, that's my siren song. I will follow that voice anywhere.I could read hundreds of pages of nothing, just for the pleasure of how it sounds. I used to have this box set of Kerouac readings. At the end of one there's a conversation among three or four people. Someone asks "What's more important, the idea or the prose?" Kerouac says. "Ideas a come a dime a dozen, It's the prose."
2. Story - I don't really want to read 400 pages of nothing just for the sound. And, I think there has to be a sound idea behind the prose, or what's the point. Tell me a good story, challenge the way I think, take me to a place I could never go without you. And surprise me, who wants to know the end with 200 pages left.
3. Truth. Without it why bother.
I roar:
Tracy
Jerri
Michelle O'Neil
Terry
Kario
*I want to Roar Jen Johnson, but she doesn't have a blog to post her answer.
Thanks for not dealing me a chimp, Holly! That is never pretty. Never. Pretty.
ReplyDeletei think my resistence to blogging might have something to do with the fact that you guys do things like ROAR each other. that being said, my three are: voice. my favorite books have such strong voices that i begin to mimic them in my own writing without even knowing it. happened with the man who fell in love with the moon by you know who and also with a book called the tie that binds by kent haruf. my journal entries sound like those guys for the duration of my read....number two: character. if i don't care about the people involved in the story, i don't care about the story. i mourn the passing of my fav. characters and wonder every so often what they're up to now. numero three: a healthy balance of truth and edge, edge being the thing that we all walk along to avoid the truth. so there, holly c. i roar GOD, Cormac McCarthy, and Sy Safransky
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