George Saunders Can Read

Cunningham, Powers, Brady, my wife and I went to see George Saunders at the Rutgers Student Center last night, and I'm happy to report that not only can Saunders write great stories and sentences, but he's also a thoroughly entertaining reader . . . he reminded me of a miniature and less profane version of George Carlin; here are a few of the interesting things he said about writing in the Q & A:

1) a short story needs to be a "powerful mechanism" . . . which is certainly true these days, as the literary short story is basically a forgotten and ignored art form, and to capture someone's attention in this format requires something deliberately compelling and evocative; boilerplate isn't going to do it when you can watch Black Mirror;

2) Saunders described the Hot Wheels track he had as a kid and the "gas stations" that ran on batteries that he would carefully place in certain sections of the circuit, so that they propelled his cars just far enough to reach another gas station, and so on and so forth, until he had created a track that would race the car for an infinite amount of time (or until the batteries ran out) and he likened this to writing a short story: you need enough "gas stations" to keep the reader going;

3) he said it was a revelation in his writing when he realized that dialogue shouldn't sound like how people talk-- people talk in abrupt half finished sentences that rely on tone and body language to convey meaning-- but dialogue in a story should sound great on it's own, be rhythmic and fast-paced, and most importantly, avoid being too on the nose . . . people tend to "talk past each other," they half-listen, but then inform their reply with whatever is brimming in their brain . . .  this is how I imagine this lesson in a concrete format;

do you believe in God?

why yes I do . . .

it would be better to write:

do you believe in God?

how can there be a God when property taxes are this high for a 1500 square foot house?