the literary life23 POETS & WRITERS^Suggested Reading:
Elements of Fiction
(Grove Press, September)
by Walter MosleyIn his previous writing guide,
Th is Ye a r Yo u Wri te Yo u r N ovel
(Little, Brown, 2007), the au-
thor of more than fifty criti-
cally acclaimed books offered
the basic tools and practical
advice needed to write a novel
in a single year. In this conver-
sational follow-up, Mosley
breaks down the art of fiction
to its essential ingredients:
character and character de-
velopment, plot and story,
voice and narrative, context
and description. Drawing on
his own writing methods and
supplying engaging examples
from his own work, Mosley
provides tips, tools, and ad-
vice for writers, from blank
page to first draft to revision
after revision.Poetry: Ghost in the Skin
In “Sisters,” from Brian Evenson’s story collection Song for the Unraveling of the
Worl d (Coffee House Press, 2019), the narrator recounts her sister’s observations
of an unfamiliar holiday: Halloween. “The carving of pumpkins into the shapes
of those rejected by both heaven and hell, the donning of costumes (by which
she meant a sort of substitute skin affixed over the real skin, though in this locale
they used an artificial rather than, as we were prone to do, an actual skin), and
the ‘doorstep challenge.’” For the family of ghosts new to the neighborhood, the
contemporary customs of scary costumes and trick-or-treating are defamiliarized,
and the reader is presented with parallels between humans wearing costumes—
“artificial” skins—and the ghosts’ tendency to inhabit real human bodies, or
“actual” skin. Write a poem in the first person that explores the idea of slipping
into another’s skin. Invoke both horror and humor as you consider what might
become unfamiliar once you experience the world through someone else’s eyes.Fiction: School Days
“When you’re in boarding school you imagine how grand and fine the world is,
and when you leave you’d sometimes like to hear the sound of the school bell
again.” In Fleur Jaeggy’s 1989 novel, Sweet Days of Discipline, translated from
the Italian by Tim Parks and recently rereleased by New Directions, the adult
narrator recounts her experiences as a fourteen-year-old boarding school student
in postwar Switzerland, a time of conflicting desires and emotions, repetitive
routines, and confusing power dynamics. Write a story that takes place in a
school, inspired by memories of your own school days. Aside from the knowledge
gained from textbooks, what were some of the lessons you learned about
relationships and social dynamics? You might choose to integrate narration from
an older, more removed character with scenes from an adolescent’s perspective.Nonfiction: The Illegible Layer
In Marguerite Duras’s 1985 essay, “Reading on the Train,” from the collection Me
& Other Writing (Dorothy, a publishing project, 2019), translated from the French
by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan, Duras writes about reading the first half of
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace while on a train and feeling that in speeding through
the story, she had sacrificed a more intense, less narrative-driven understanding
of the book. “I had realized that day and forever after that a book was contained
between two layers superimposed with writing, the legible layer that I had read
that day as I traveled and the other, inaccessible.” Write an essay about a beloved
piece of literature in which you discuss both the legible layer and attempt to
decipher or articulate a deeper resonance of the writing. What can you glimpse—
in the story and in yourself—when you delve beyond the literal reading?Writing Prompts and Exercises
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