Ask the Author: Richard Russo
Answered Questions (8)
Richard Russo
Hi, Zaina (if I'm intuiting your first name correctly). Flow, as you call it, derives (I suspect) from concentrating on small things and ignoring big ones. Novels (and even most short stories) are just too big to hold in your head at once. And even the biggest novels are a series of small, true moments. Concentrate on those and the whole will take care of itself. In other words: small bites, chew thoroughly before swallowing, repeat. To that end, write every day, but only a couple hours. Seven days times two hours is fourteen hours a week. That's much better than binge-writing for fourteen hours on the weekend. All that does is make you dread weekends.
Richard Russo
A few writers do spring to mind, Mark. Howard Frank Mosher, to whom Everybody's Fool is dedicated, is one. His novels set in northern Vermont are terrific, and he has a wonderfully malicious sense of humor. And Kent Haruf's novels, every single one of them. And of course there's the great Richard Yates, especially his brilliant short stories. And I suppose Winesberg, Ohio started this particular American ball rolling. I'm guessing you've probably read Raymond Carver?
Richard Russo
Good luck with your tenure, Rosie, though I'm not sure what would entail, exactly. For Lucky Hank, tenure meant safety and the loss of a certain kind of struggle that's necessary, at least for him, for ambition. To him, risk (of loss) is a vital part of the game. I don't see a sequel to SM in my future, but then I see one to Nobody's Fool, either, until it happened. What means the most to me is that so many readers would like one. Thanks for that.
Richard Russo
Hi, Shelley. Thanks for the kind words. I wrote Empire Falls at a period in my life when I was terrified for the safety of my daughters. They were both great kids, but I was coming to understand that they had inner lives and there were things they could no longer share with their father. Also, real-world dangers I couldn't protect them from. I gave all that parental dread to Miles Roby in Empire, who'd gladly give up his life for his beloved daughter's, but also realizes that life won't give him that choice.
Richard Russo
Dear Diane--
I have special affection for Straight Man, too, but mostly because it was by far the easiest of all my novels to write. I'd been storing up academic lunacy stories for a good decade and they all just gushed out. As to my other novels, couple stand out not so much because of what's in them as where I was when I wrote them: The Risk Pool written as my father was dying, Empire Falls when my daughters were teenagers and I was terrified I wouldn't be able to protect them from the world's cruelties.
I have special affection for Straight Man, too, but mostly because it was by far the easiest of all my novels to write. I'd been storing up academic lunacy stories for a good decade and they all just gushed out. As to my other novels, couple stand out not so much because of what's in them as where I was when I wrote them: The Risk Pool written as my father was dying, Empire Falls when my daughters were teenagers and I was terrified I wouldn't be able to protect them from the world's cruelties.
Richard Russo
I had no intention of ever writing a sequel until I started actually doing it. It wasn't a matter of a single moment or realization. I think I was reluctant in the same way you worry about meeting an old friend you haven't seen in twenty or thirty years. What if you don't have anything in common any more? What if they're pissed at you for not staying in touch? But then there they are and you realize that you were wrong to worry, and you somehow pick up the conversation right where you left off so long ago.
Richard Russo
Unfortunately, the last couple really good books I read were advanced readers editions of books that won't be out until later in the year. But keep an eye out for David France's How to Survive a Plague, and Maggie O'Farrell's This Must be the Place. And if you're a fan of either Ross Macdonald or Eudora Welty, have a look at Meanwhile There Are Letters.
Richard Russo
I don't do much to prepare. No outline, little research. I'm not sure what you mean by world building, but I'm pretty sure I don't do it, at least not as preparation for writing. Mostly I just try to go slow, see and hear everything I'd see and hear if it was really happening and I was really there. Small bites. Chew thoroughly. Repeat.
About 카지노싸이트 Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the 카지노싸이트 community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
