I believe that the use of proper nouns should be limited if one wishes to create approachable and readable fiction. Like I have already said in a previous article, I find that the use of unfamiliar proper nouns can have a detrimental effect on the reading experience. For instance, in Tobias Wolff's Old School, the…
A Writer’s Cure For Derivative Works
There is nothing new under the sun in the literary world. Most nearly everything has been done, and done quite well. In this day and age, the world of creative media is supersaturated. Anything we hope to create is undoubtedly influenced by any number of existing works. How, then, do we avoid the trap of…
Elliot Rodger: Loneliness In American Cinema Embodied
As anyone who follows this blog would tell you, I have a keen interest in the loneliness of the American male. Being that loneliness is the primary theme of my novel, I've studied its presence in movies such as Taxi Driver (1972), Falling Down (1993), One Hour Photo (2002), The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004),…
Writerly Attitudes: The Use of Pynchon-Like References To Music and Movies
I read Lorrie Moore's Amahl and The Night Visitors: A Guide To The Tenor Of Love and there are a few references to music from the 1960s. She writes, "Begin to hum a Dionne Warwick song," and later mentions the singer again, saying, "Actually what you've been listening to is Dionne Warwick's Golden Hits." There's…
Writerly Attitudes: The Right To A Reader’s Attention
In one of my fiction workshops, we took a look at Tobias Wolff's short story Sister. I possibly caught on to the keys to unlocking the meaning of the story, but my cohorts mostly scratched their heads. One reader said, "I didn't know what the point of the story was." And that killed me. I…
