Following Karen Russell Beyond Swamplandia!

I recently read Karen Russell’s novel SWAMPLANDIA! and I can’t quite stop thinking about it. Much like HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, it makes me want to re-read it from my writer’s brain. The two books are so different, but both examples of great writing. HUNGER GAMES keeps pulling you forward with in-your-face stakes from the get-go. SWAMPLANDIA! draws you in with its rich, strange images. It keeps growing on me over time. After HUNGER GAMES, I had to read the rest of the trilogy. After SWAMPLANDIA! I wanted to get my hands on Russell’s short story collection, ST. LUCY’S HOME FOR GIRLS RAISED BY WOLVES, which I’ve just started reading.

There’s something liberating about Russell’s writing. The places are so fully realized and so wildly other at the same time. It reminds me of the worlds my brain would travel to as a child, though it is not children’s literature. It leaves me believing that, like the protagonist in SWAMPLANDIA!, I can leap off the high-dive into a pit of alligators and swim safely to the other side. It makes me want to take risks in my own writing, to pursue the crazy, out-there images that float through my brain without fear and see where they lead. That’s a trick worth celebrating. So, thank you, Ms. Russell!

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

Fearless Revision

“What if I rewrite the whole thing in first person?”
“What if I cut this chapter entirely?”
“What if death is the narrator?”
“What if there are 4 different narrators?”
“What if I write it as a blog?”
“What if she turns into a hippo instead of a moose?”

There was a time when I revised like an ancient, nearsighted clockmaker, turning over every word and phrase, tinkering with the minutest mechanism, making miserly revisions as if each change cost me and each letter was crafted from grains of diamond dust. I love treating words with so much affection and care, but I’m thankful that I have finally developed the courage to make more fearless revisions, skydiving, bungee-jumping revisions, the kind of revisions that change the entire landscape of a manuscript.

My whole critique group seems to have entered this phase of development together, which makes it ten times more exhilarating. When one of us announces, “I think I’m going to cut that whole section and move the important parts here instead,” we cheer, we exult. It feels like we’ve all gone cliff-diving together.

Perhaps the support and safety of this long-term critique group has given me the foundation of confidence to take those plot-shattering leaps. Or maybe this liberation comes with writing novel-length pieces. Perhaps it’s a function of exposing myself, over a period of time, to multiple critiques. Or maybe being in the habit of writing has made the words less scarce and therefore less precious, the process less like mining gold and more like cultivating a garden.

What is the most fearless, radical change you’ve ever made in a piece of your own writing? How did it affect the story?

If you’ve found yourself saying, “What if I ….?” or “I wonder what would happen if ….” then I challenge you to grab the hands of some fellow writers and take that vigorous plunge! What have you got to lose?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.