PEN Center USA

Amy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and teaches creative writing at Bennington College and Harvard University. Here is an insightful interview addressing poignant questions on every writer's mind.

Her Strategy for Short Story Writing:
"Take on a large subject or concern and find a small, personal way in."

On Talent:
"It is not about talent... necessarily. It has more to do with how badly you want to do a thing, and if you will work harder than the next person because you want it more."

What She Looks for in Stories:
"I will read stories where the stakes are high. I will read any story about somebody getting through a hard thing. I want to know how that person did it."

On the Importance of a Good Sentence:
"I don't like to see a bad sentence on the page. What if I was hit by a bus and that's what people saw? They wouldn't know I was trying to make it better. They would think that was the best I could do."

At workshop a couple of nights ago, Antoine asked us if we were planning extra time for revisions before the final review. The manuscripts are due at the end of this month. There’s just one more workshop, early next week. The weekends will have to be marathon writing sessions. Other than that, I don’t have large blocks of time I can allocate to revisions. The only solutions I can think of are to block off shorter segments throughout the day and to set writing dates. Writing dates are something I learned about from Mae, an Emerging Voices fellow.

We have now been doing writing dates for close to three years. It started when our kids were still toddlers. I was so sleep-deprived in those days that it was hard to start writing again on a consistent basis. Writing dates were something that Mae had heard of from a friend who learned about it during an MFA program. There’s not much to the notion, but there is a method.

Once you have a partner, you need to decide on the logistics of the writing date. Mae and I chose to devote a forty-minute block of time for one evening every week. It’s important to always stick to the same day and the same beginning and end time. In this way, a habit is formed and you always know that no matter what is happening in your daily life, that chunk of time awaits your writing life.

The next component of a successful writing date is to set up a routine as to who is the initiator and who is the time-keeper. The initiator is the person who calls at the agreed-upon time. During this call, it’s important to exchange writing goals for the block of time you’re about to begin. Even if you plan on spending the time doing a writing prompt, it needs to be stated. I’ve found that verbally committing to an activity keeps me focused and accountable. It’s less tempting to get side-tracked by a different story or to switch from, say, drafting to revising.

The time-keeper is the one who (obviously) times the writing session and then calls the other writer at the end. During the closing call, it’s imperative to be honest about how it went. There are some days that are filled with fabulous focus and the writing goal is achieved. There are other times, when the writing didn’t go as well; maybe it was like walking through molasses. Either way, it’s all part of the process and that’s all right.

Writing dates transformed my writing life. They’re instrumental to building momentum. There’s something about being accountable to another writer that makes a person rise to the occasion—even if they’re sleep-deprived.

The first decision a writer has to make is “who exactly is telling this story?” And, in many ways, the entire book becomes about answering this question. Since the traditional narrator, 3rd person omniscient, has largely fallen out of favor in modern literature, close-third or first-person narration has become the new standard, meaning we’re seeing the story through the eyes of our main character. Which also means the person telling the story is the story that the story is about. Get it?

Not only that, but also many authors employ an alter-ego narrator, meaning they’re writing versions of themselves, making a conscious effort to mirror their own lives, to explore real events or people through the filter of fiction.

In my alter-ego explorations, I’ve discovered one of the pitfalls tends to be my tendency to obscure the very things that I should be illuminating, hiding from a deeper truth that I have a hard time facing about myself. Such are the hazards of navel-gazing, I suppose, but it’s a well-worn path many writers I admire have taken and, now that I’ve started, I’m not sure I can go back.

Some writers will purposely alter their alter-egos, creating a parallel life, at least on paper. Willa Cather in My Antonia uses a male alter-ego, perhaps as a way to connect closer to the truth of her life as a lesbian at a time when to write honestly about it would have been too controversial. John Updike’s Rabbit shares a lot of Updike’s personal history, but becomes a used car salesman, an exploration of “What would happen if…?”

Another method is to employ an alter-ego as a secondary character, such as Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, who appears in several books and whose biography changes throughout each one.

And then there are alter-egos that sit so closely to the writer, it’s hard to identify them outside of it, such as Bukowski’s Chinaski or Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar, whose descent into madness closely mirrors Plath’s own.

A big decision writers have to make about their alter-egos from the get-go is whether or not to make them writers. On the one hand, it feels more truthful, like, all right, this narrator isn’t bullshitting us, he’s admitting to being a writer, which, duh, he must be, since we’re reading his book. On the other, it’s become a cliché, and how interesting is it to read about someone who spends most of their time writing?

Some get around this by portraying the alter-ego in their formative phase, showing what inspired them to become writers. Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby is one famous example of this, as well as Sal Paradise in On The Road. Another tactic is to employ a writer alter-ego who’s a lot less successful and prolific than the writer himself, like Updike’s other alter-ego Henry Bech.

In the end, it comes back to story and which method returns the greatest result. An author’s alter-ego can still tell a story that has little to do with writing, leaving their writer-selves as more of a background element. In Junot Diaz’s recent collection, the final story, “The Cheater’s Guide to Love,” is, as it states, mostly about love and the effects of a breakup. In the end, a friend suggests the narrator should write “The Cheater’s Guide to Love,” and it becomes clear that, well, yes, he has, and we just read it.

I’m not sure the story needed that self-reference, but it is about the only redemption the character gets. He’s fucked up his whole life, and it’s still a bit of a mess in the end, but at least he got a book out of it…

When I was in middle school, my mom and I were part of a mother-daughter book club. I haven't thought of this club for years and I don't remember a ton of details, except that we gathered on Saturday afternoons and talked about books like The Golden Compass and Farewell to Manzanar with other girls my age and their mothers. We always had trouble settling on what book to read next and I remember feeling, for the first time, surprised at how differently people could interpret the same book.

In high school, I took a literature course at UC Berkeley which covered the history of the novel from its inception to present day. Some of the texts were dry and difficult to get through. But from this experience my mom taught me to take a step back and appreciate what it is that I'm getting to do. She has taught me to recognize the fact that, even when reading or writing feels like work--when it's stressful, or not going well, or I'm late for a deadline--it's a wonderful thing to pour one's time and energy into endeavors one loves.

Through their examples, both my parents have taught me a good deal of things related to reading. They've taught me not to worry if a book gets tattered, that it's preferable that a book be well-read rather than pristine. They've taught me to give and accept recommendations. They've taught me that the best sort of vacation involves a suitcase filled with at least five novels. And, through shared experiences, they've taught me that it's strangely fun to be around other people, reading.

In the spirit of Mother's Day, I am especially grateful to my mother for showing me, through her example, that reading is a pleasure and a privilege. Now that is the ultimate way to show, don't tell.