All language subtitles for Masterclass Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story - 10.Reading and Studying Writing

I wouldn't be writing the way I write

now if I hadn't read Lewis Carol. And I

wouldn't be writing the way I write now

if I hadn't read James Joyce.

I read Czechov when I was probably 18 or

19. And Czechov made a strong impression

on me. I also read Emily Bronte

Weathering Heights when I was about 15

and that made a strong impression. All

writers have mentors

who begin when they're children and

they're aware of writing. They're aware

of books that they love.

Like is it the the Phantom Toll booth?

Some children love that. So they say the

Phantom Toll booth along with Alice and

Wonderland where the wild things are and

for older children JK Rowling's u the

Harry Potter novels they they all exist

in sort of like a a stratosphere

that allows the young person to read

work that is established and very well

done. So when the writer starts to

write, he or she's drawing upon some of

these these mentors.

I would say almost dogmatically that you

can't be a writer unless you're reading

all the time and reading with purpose.

Not just reading to waste time or

reading something on the internet, but

reading crafted work. If you just sit

down and read a little novel by Gene

Ree, which is like wide sarcastle sea,

it's like maybe 120 pages,

that nolla, that short novel is so good

that when you start writing the next

day, you're going to be writing better.

You're not going to be imitating her,

but you'll be writing better than you

would be if you hadn't read her. And so

reading is the springboard to writing.

What you read and how with what

intensity you read is going to determine

probably what you write because you all

all human beings are imitative primates.

We belong to the big primate family like

apes and and chimpanzees and and monkeys

of all kinds. You know, monkey see,

monkey do. We are very imitative

species. So when you're a little older,

you may want to read classic writing.

You may want to read Faulner, Hemingway,

James Joyce, Kafka, Thomas Man, Virginia

Wolf. You Henry James. You may want to

aim very high because the more you read

and the more you're absorbing when you

start to write, you're going to write on

a higher level than you would be if you

if you didn't read these people. And so

it's like the old saying, if you want to

learn how to play tennis, you play

tennis with somebody who's better than

you. You don't play tennis with somebody

who's not as good as you because you're

never ever going to learn anything. So

reading Ulisses by James Joyce, take a

whole summer, just spend time reading

it, and you'll first of all, it's a

great work of art and it's enthralling.

It's difficult, but it is truly

fascinating. And you'll find that as the

weeks go by, your vocabulary will start

to improve. Your sense of language will

elevate. And when you write, you may

sound nothing like James Joyce. Nothing.

But yet, you sound much better than you

would have if you hadn't read James

Joyce.

There are two kinds of readings that are

really helpful to young writers. One of

them is spontaneous and improvised where

you simply find a book maybe in a

library or in a bookstore and you can

even be drawn by the cover and just

start reading it and be plunged into a

world you didn't anticipate. You might

really love that book. It might change

your life or it might not be too

important. Then the other kind of

reading is systematic. You decide very

you decide very clearly that you're

going to read all of the young Hemingway

short stories because it's mostly his

short stories I think that are helpful

to writers rather than the novels.

Hemingway's novels are are good novels

but it's the short stories that he was

really a master at. So you just say to

yourself, I'm going to read 25 short

stories by Ernest Hemingway and I'm

going to read them more than once and

and learn from them. So that that kind

of reading is what you may get in a

university course or community college

or your own, you know, maybe it could be

a course online or whatever. It's

systematic. But the other kind of

reading is just spontaneous. And I've

had so many extraordinary experiences

with just um improvised reading. In

fact, one day I was just looking at a

book maybe in a library. I'm not even

sure that it was a book I that I picked

up. I It was basically on a library

table. I think I was looking at a

history of America, maybe popular

culture. And I turned a page and there

was a picture of a girl about 16 and she

had brown hair and a very pretty face

though not glamorous. And I wondered

like who's that? She looks like my

mother or she looked like girls I went

to school with. So I thought it was

Norma Jean Baker the woman who would

become Marilyn Monroe.

And I was just astonished at this

snapshot of this girl because she looked

nothing like Marilyn Monroe. She didn't

have that blonde hair and she wasn't

radiantly beautiful. She was just

pretty. And so I thought, well, maybe

I'll read about her. So it was just

totally an accident. So eventually I

wrote a 1400page novel really based on

just the accident of seeing that

snapshot, which is amazing because I I

might not have gone into the library

that day. I might have done something

else. I might have decided I didn't want

to look at that book. So it was really

an accident. So I think along with the

systematic and purposeful reading you

have to have a lot of accidents.

Obviously the reading is the first

experience and if impressionistically it

made a really strong impression on you,

you want to reread it. So then you

notice the second time through how it's

based, how it's structured. A writer is

seeing how it's put together. So I

always notice like what's the title?

What's the first paragraph, the first

sentences, is the first chapter very

short, is it long, is it divided into

sections? To to me, all those formal

qualities of the work are very

interesting. But I wouldn't expect when

my mother was reading my work, I

wouldn't expect my mother or my father

to have any interest at all or to be

aware of any of that. Like my mother

wouldn't say to me, "Oh, Joyce, I love

this structure of your novel." And when

I was on the Oprah show some years ago

for my novel, we were the Mulanies.

There were a number of women on the

Oprah show with me. And all of them

talked about my novel to me, but not one

of them talked about the formal

qualities. They only talked about the

characters. In other words, most readers

are reading for character and then

they're reading for a plot, but the

writer has to present that in the most

coherent way possible, in the most

effective way. So, it's like you're

making a film. People look at a movie,

they sit back in the seat, and they see

this movie and they really enjoy it and

they love it. They have not one

millionth idea of all the work that goes

into it. They don't know how the movie

had pre-production, how there was

research, how years went by. They don't

know how many people worked on it, who

the script writers were. They don't even

know who the directors. I mean, most

people have no interest in the formal

qualities. But if you're in that world,

the formal qualities are really the only

ones that matter. Like, how did how did

James Joyce put Ulyses together to me is

very interesting. Whereas to a reader,

maybe not so much. So, if you're going

to be a writer, it's like if you're

going to be a cabinet builder, you have

to look at a cabinet and you have to go

to the cabinet maker and say, "How did

you make this wonderful cabinet?"

Because I can't see it with my eyes. I

have to somehow learn about it.

The formal qualities of a work are most

obvious when one spends time maybe

discussing them with other people. I

think learning by yourself is not so

effective. Most of my learning

about Hemingway Faulner and James Joyce

I did alone. I didn't really have a

structure.

But I think if you could take a college

course, take a course in writing, a

writing workshop where with other people

sitting around a table, you're actually

thinking and talking about Hemingway,

it could be Jodie Picot, who is a

wonderful contemporary writer, a popular

best-selling writer. We have people like

in a book club. So you have people

sharing something that they read and

somebody says, "Well, I really like this

passage." somebody else said, you know,

I don't like this character and then

discuss it or what don't you like about

that character or I really like the

ending of the novel or somebody else

says I didn't like the ending and to

sort of discuss it in that formal way

rather than saying I liked it or didn't

like it is too simple but like why what

did you like about it? Those are things

that you learn by you know reading it

more than once. But I I think the best

way to to enjoy literature is with other

people.