Several years ago, I had the great (okay, and somewhat terrifying) experience of studying with Tim O’Brien at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He gave our workshop the single best piece of advice I have ever gotten as a writer, advice I’ve tried to find quoted in his writings, to no avail.
My lame attempt to describe the advice in an interview when The Wednesday Sisters released in hardcover: Tim O’Brien … said something in workshop about what we should all be shooting for in our writing, the gist of which, if I remember it correctly (why didn’t I write down his exact words?!), was to use the extraordinary (in your characters’ actions) to illuminate the ordinary (emotions we all experience). That advice had a huge impact on me, and is what I now try to do.
Now here it is much more eloquently put in “Telling Tails” in The Atlantic:
“Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behaviors and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary.”
I would submit as exhibit A the wonderful scene in chapter 15 of his novel, July, July, starting at p. 191 in the hardcover (yes, I keep it tabbed and handy, for inspiration), in which Dorothy Stier visits her neighbor Fred. I’ll say no more so as not to spoil it, but it is perhaps the funniest and most heartbreaking scene I have ever read. – Meg
