By
Laura P. Valtorta
Yesterday I watched an interview with Stephen King on PBS’s News Hour. He’s always a fun interview. King’s
thrillers are page-turners, but the book of his I enjoyed most was his 2000
autobiography, On Writing.
During the television interview, King talked about learning
how to write. Oftentimes, he said, writers read their favorite authors and
emulate them.
One of my favorite authors is the Canadian fiction writer,
Margaret Atwood. From Handmaid’s Tale
to Blind Assassin to The Heart Goes Last, her accounts of
women’s superiority, struggles, and triumphs never fail to be inspirational,
entertaining, and funny. Each book is different. Right now I’m re-reading the
dystopic trilogy – Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam. I’m studying Atwood’s balance
of description and dialogue, her use of complicated vocabulary and invented
words, and how she employs humor to make a point.
No one can be better than Atwood, I think. And then I read
Donna Tartt, whose writing is not as well-crafted as Atwood’s, but who makes me
visualize situations I’ve never dreamed of. I agree with almost everything that
Atwood writes. Tartt and I don’t agree on anything – and yet I adore her
fiction.
A trait that Tartt and Atwood share is that they take great
pains to describe the habits and appearances of their characters. I can see
Atwood’s Oryx very clearly, and I know a lot about her childhood. Tartt’s
character, Harriett, is a girl I could recognize racing past me on her bike,
with her swingy black hair and sarcastic voice. Neither Oryx nor Harriett is a
photograph.
Providing just the right description, while leaving the
reader hungering for more, is a gift. I wish there were a word-scale I could
use. A passage that sounds good when read aloud might not contain enough
description.
This kind of research – reading my favorite fiction writers
– is something I’ve immersed myself in since childhood. Reading is one of the
greatest pleasures in my life. For that, I have to thank my mother.
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