A Quote by Colum McCann
I'm not so sure that I can teach people how to, you know, write dialogue or create plot or anything like that. But if I can get them and grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, you can do this, and if I see that fire in their eyes, that's when I think I know a writer.
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People can see a picture of my body from the neck down and know who it is because of my beauty marks or whatever you call them, moles. I've always had them, and I've always loved them. Obviously you have to be careful with that; I get them checked regularly and make sure that they're healthy.
People always say, 'Do you get bothered by what people say or blog or write about you?' I only do if I know them. If I know them, and I have a relationship with them and they write that, then that would surprise me a lot. Usually the people writing the negative stuff don't know me at all.
People always say, "Can writing be taught?" I always think, I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to do dialogue, how to do character, but I can't teach you how to be a decent person, and I can't teach you how to have something to say.
I don't know how far, I don't know where I'm going to be or where I'm going to go, but I know this - if a team comes to grab me, I know they're going to get a special player, and I'm ready to show them what I can do and make sure I can contribute.
You can teach almost anyone determined to learn them the basics required to write sentences and paragraphs that say what you want them to say clearly and concisely. It's far more difficult to get people to think like a writer, to give up conventional habits of mind and emotion. You must be able to step inside your character's skin, and at the same time to remain outside the dicey circumstances you have maneuvered her into.
I don't have anything to say about the guy [Muddy Waters], you know. Treat me all right. But I can this: they are jealous hearted, you know. Are jealous hearted musicians, you know. See, if you can't do like your songs, get kinda jealous of you. Like you, like they think you better than them and all that, but I don't fool with those kind of peoples, you know. I ain't got the time.
If there ever is a need or if anyone's hurting, I'm the person they come to because they know what they're going to get. They know I'll pray for them. They know I'll encourage them. It's amazing that I get to be there for people. I'm sure I'll hear later on how God was working in it all, but for me, it's really about loving people well.
Some people say, 'Well you're a man; how do you write about women or girls when you don't know about them?' Well, I've got my imagination, and I can write about women. Yes, I'll never be pregnant and give birth to children, but I can imagine a bit of what it's like. When you create characters, it's just about making them really real to people.
For some people, I got away with something. And you know what? That's a fair thing to say, for them. I'm not saying I agree with that, but I can see how they can say that. But it's a matter of just like...you know, I'm really fortunate. As a journalist, I don't have to agree with you to talk to you. My job is to figure out why you think the way you think. I want to get to the root of why you think the way you think. That's what I find most fascinating as a storyteller.
With a novel, you have the reader with you a lot longer, and you owe him a lot more. Obviously you have to have a plot - I say "obviously," although I think a lot of fiction doesn't, and nothing seems to happen. But to me, there should be something that happens, and it should be at least vaguely plausible. And because the readers are going to be with these characters for a long time, you have to get to know them and like them and want to know what happens to them.
Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
It strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day - you can think you know them - and then you f?nd out you hardly know them at all.
If you have let pride get the better of you, then you have already lost, but if you grab pride by the scruff of the neck and ride it like a stallion, then you may have already won.
I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it.
Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience. To think of a plot that is, as Aristotle says, surprising and yet inevitable, is a lot, lot, lot of work.
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