Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann

In his book of short essays, Colum McCann  offers some practical advice along with meditations and philosophical reflections on the writing life. One thing he insists on is that fiction writer must get to know their characters with absolute intimacy. This way, the author automatically knows how they'll react in any situation, and thus ring true on the page. Indeed, authors owe them a debt for "ringing the doorbell of...imagination."

Tom Joad, Nick Gatsby, and Leopold Bloom are real, "or at least as real as the seven billion people in the world that we haven't met yet." Remembering a funny story, I'd like to add Jane Eyre to that all-male list. Touring in England, a Dutch-born philosophy professor called Peter (of Liberal Studies at SFU), was reading old headstones. Seeing the name Jane Eyre gave him a jolt. Excited, he called to his wife, also a fan of the Bronte novel. "Come and see who's buried here." She read the inscription, then looked up, puzzled. "But our Jane Eyre is not real." Peter realized his mistake, but the world had shifted. That moment of emotional elation followed by rapid deflation stayed with him, a reminder of the power of fiction and imagination.

Imagination, says McCann, "gives us access to the "deepest darkdown things." The powerful force of language is "for saying the things we knew, but hadn't yet made sense of." Calling mystery "the glue that joins us,” the author exhorts writers to do all they can to make the reader "the most complicit eavesdropper."

Commenting on structure, McCann says authors "rely on the human instinct for architecture," with stories filling the the structurally sound container "slowly built from the bottom up." Yet this foundation must remain the author's secret. No reader will want to see "the foundation, or the wiring behind the walls, or even the architectural plans." As for endings, he believes a story "should finish in the concrete, with an action, a movement to carry the reader forward."

Stories require research, yet he warns that facts are "mercenary things," and texture is "far more important." The secret is finding the odd detail "that only the experts might know." Then "use it, but don't draw too much attention to it."

Though the title seems to address the book to young writers, it is well-known that many novelists are on the far side of fifty, and they are by no means excluded. Using "young" is a literary reference; within the covers the author speaks to all who want to write, in tones that vary from kind encouragement to this sharp warning. "The most destructive force in your life is liable to be the unwritten story." No matter your age, "The work matters. The story needs to be told."

He also calls attention to the difference between writing non-fiction and writing fiction. You can liberate stories when you stop writing "directly about yourself." Paradoxically, only then will you "have written yourself. And you're the only one you can, or should change."

McCann offers an intriguing exercise on getting to know your characters. "Dear (character)," you write, "Why don't I know you?" Adapting this to "Why don't I know you better?" I wrote my protagonist’s answer quickly by hand. In ten short minutes I learned an astonishing amount of new information about my character. How? 'Tis a mystery. But I believe the indirect trick involved in this exercise gives access to the subconscious inner world where the story is already complete.