A Midwestern Identity
What does it mean to be a Minnesotan writer? In this age of placelessness—sitting in a Starbucks or Motel 6 or airport lounge or on a Facebook page, you could be anywhere—even our literature is without landscape or regional identity. Especially literature from the Midwest, which, when compared with New York City writing or the work of Southern writers seems bland in its vernacular and hard to locate. “There is nothing worse than the writer who doesn’t use the gifts of the region, but wallows in them,” wrote Flannery O’Connor, the ultimate advocate for regional voices. “An idiom characterizes a society, and when you ignore the idiom, you are very likely ignoring the whole social fabric that could make a meaningful character.” What is Minnesota’s idiom, our social fabric? Many years ago I read an essay by David Mura in The View from the Loft; it struck me so much,…
Reflective Writing
The best literature revolves around a central core of an idea or emotion—what I like to call the heartbeat. The heartbeat pumps life into every artery and vein of a story. It unifies. It doesn’t prevent the inclusion of other themes and motifs, but it does rise to prominence. This heartbeat almost never reveals itself during a first draft. Our work during revision involves looking for hints of this heartbeat and drawing them forward. One helpful technique for doing this is to write with the voice of a distanced narrator. Rather than immersing yourself in the character who is your younger self (the former you, who experienced the events of your story), step back and reflect. What do you make of these events today? Why are you sharing them? What’s at stake for you? What might be at stake for your reader? Whether or not these reflections get included in…