Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Quotation of the Week: Chang-rae Lee

"'Sometimes students seem shy about writing about people who do the wrong thing -- we're all taught to do the right thing and focus on the right thing,' [Chang-rae] Lee said. 'But all of literature is about people who do the wrong thing, despite themselves. What would the story be if they did the right thing? No story at all. Fiction wants to look at all the things that go wrong.'"
Source: "Acclaimed Novelist Lee Shares Meticulous Writing Approach in Classroom" (via The Book Bench)

3 comments:

Lisa Romeo said...

Great advice, and this applies so well to nonfiction too. Readers only care about first person nonfiction narrators who screw up, make a mess, can't figure stuff out, and even do the absolute wrong thing.

Erika D. said...

Interesting point, Lisa.

jublke said...

Nice quote, Erika. It reminds of the old adage "If you ain't fallin', you ain't learnin'."