I always say writing fiction isn't something you teach. It's something you do, and only experimentation - i.e. doing it, either badly or good sometimes - can help anybody get any better or worse at it. Peter Orner More Quotes by Peter Orner More Quotes From Peter Orner I think what I'm after, a lot of the time, is just honesty. What accounts for the fact that the stories we tell ourselves - the story we carry around and think of most often - are the dark ones? Maybe we have to wander around in the darkness to understand it? Peter Orner honesty dark thinking I agonize over things like this - the order of things, section titles, all this architectural sort of stuff. Takes me years to figure out. Peter Orner titles order years A collection, for me, is a book of very diverse stories that somehow speak to each other, across wide geography, across time, years, decades. Peter Orner stories book years I'm constantly trying to figure out how to crack that mystery; how to make a novel that has a sense of immediacy of a short story. I try to do that and I'll try it again, but I'll never get it. Peter Orner mystery novel trying I feel like there are too many words in the world, and I think silence is so much more powerful than the glut of words. Peter Orner powerful silence thinking We don't want emotion handed to us - that's not emotion. You have to build and come from the reader's soul. Peter Orner emotion soul As a professor I can't teach writing. Peter Orner teach writing People have to follow their own strangeness. The minute they start making their own vision of the world flattened out so everyone can read it, they lose. I encourage people to be as awkward and odd on the page to capture their own way of seeing the world and not trying to see the world for other people. Peter Orner awkward vision people I'm pretty tight - I rewrite, in some cases, 70 to 80 times before I show it to people. Peter Orner people I write by hand in my notebooks and number the drafts, so I know how crazy I can get with this. Some writers, like my teacher Marilynne Robinson, she only writes one draft. I've thought about this a lot; I think it's because she writes it 80 times in her head before it comes out. Peter Orner notebook crazy teacher I write when I have something to say and not when I don't. My time is better spent if I know I have nothing to say. I don't consider it writer's block; I just don't have anything to say. Peter Orner block writing A novel is like a long relationship and a short story is a brief one that lingers - it lingers powerfully and maybe more powerfully. I think that's true in a lot of cases, most long-term relationships compared to some of the briefer ones - the intensity of those brief ones that end, I think a short story is kind of like that. There's a certain level of intensity that I think is different. Peter Orner different long thinking What you can do with a short story that you can't do with a novel is punch someone in the gut, in the best of ways. Peter Orner short-story guts novel I sometimes wonder if our memories are a myth. We think we remember, but we are remembering the story and not the actual event? Peter Orner remember memories thinking There's a great Anton Chekhov quote. He says, "The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living." That scene has always been something that I have held dear. When something happens, the first thing you want to do is tell it. That's almost more exciting. It's almost simultaneous with the experience; you are already telling something incredible while it's happening. The stories that everybody carries around and repeats, I am really interested in that. Peter Orner incredibles scene exciting I agree with the Lev Tolstoy quote completely, but I also feel like there's more to it. What is a happy family and an unhappy family? We're probably both of those things at the same time. Peter Orner agree happy-family unhappy I usually have a location and then I put the character there. I love place names. I think I'm tricking myself by being so specific - it suddenly becomes real to me. Just because I say it's Chicago, Illinois doesn't mean it's true, but place names sort of make me grounded and then I can put some people there. Peter Orner real character mean Maybe my work is somewhat divided into family stories, things I know intimately, and then everybody else in the world - the strangers who I am totally fascinated with. Peter Orner stranger world To me, and I'm sure for other writers, too, characters come back and they relive again, but what about those characters who only live for a page or two? Or for five pages or 10 pages. I like to think they're still out there - still living - but for me they kind of die, too. It's kind of sad. I don't think about them anymore unless I give them life again. Peter Orner giving character thinking I try not to read my own books just because I would rather read somebody else. Peter Orner trying book
