Excerpts from “The Opposite of Fate”

If I recall correctly, I think this is part of a commencement address she gave at Simmons College.

What I ultimately decided on, instead, are five writing tips, which you may find useful in areas other than writing, perhaps even in thinking about life, how you might conduct it in a manner that is interesting and worthwhile. Here is my list:

1. Avoid clichés. They are all around us, and they are anathema to original thought. Take these, all having to do with an acceptance of that: “That’s how it was meant to be.” Or “That’s our lot in life.” Or “History is doomed to repeat itself.” “Or “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” And how about: “Some things were just meant to be,” and “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” a cliché brilliantly parodied by Gilda Radner. And what about that great chestnut some say can be attributed to Nietzsche himself: “Shit happens.”

When you are told, “It was meant to be,” ask, “Who meant it? What does it really mean?” Is someone trying to make you accept an undesirable situation or one in which you have doubts? When you are told, “Shit happens,” remember that plenty of other things happen as well, such as generosity, forgiveness, ambiguity, and uncertainty. When you are told, “It’s simply fate,” ask yourself, “What is simple about it? What are the alternatives of fate? What is fate’s opposite?”

If you hear others using clichés, stop to think whether you’re being lulled into inaction or the wrong action. If you hear over-used expressions on the news, stop to think whether they are really meaningful. The spectrum of meaning is endless and fascinating and filled with humanity. Clichés are static, the emotion behind them long spent. If you are tempted to use them, here is a saying of my mother’s: Fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu-fang. Basically that translates to: “Loud farts don’t stink, and the really smelly ones don’t make a sound.” In other words: When you’re full of beans, you just blow a lot of hot air. If you want to have real impact, be deadly but silent.

Oh, also recognize the difference between a bad cliché and a good quotation. My mother’s saying is a good quotation. You should use it often.

1. Avoid generalizations. As a fiction writer, I distrust absolute truths, homilies, bromides, sound bites, and also shorthand advice of the sort I’m giving. I like specifics, the longhand version of a story in which it takes four hundred pages to answer a single question about a person’s character. Literary writers, unless they are writing fairly tales, learn early never to have characters who are polar opposites, one “good,” the other “evil.” That’s not believable. People are more than just good and evil. Intelligent readers will demand that you not reduce people to such simplistic terms, or resolve situations with “Good always conquers evil,” “Might is always right,” and so forth. And while such resolutions are common in murder mysteries and action stories, they are feeble in literary fiction, which is supposed to reflect subtle truths about the world. Better to be subtle rather than overbearing, subversive rather than didactic.
2. Find your own voice. As college graduates, you have a good start. Your own voice is one that seeks a personal truth, one that only you can obtain. That truth comes from your own experiences, your own observations, and when you find it, if it really is true and specific to you, you may be surprised that others find it to be true as well. In searching for your own voice, be aware of the difference between emulation and imitation, inspiration and intimidation.
3. Show compassion. Many beginning writers think sarcasm is a clever way to show intelligence. But more mature writers know that mean-spiritedness is wearying and limited in its one-dimensional point of view. A more successful story is one in which the narrator can treat human foibles, even serious flaws, with depth and hence compassion. Imagination brings you close to compassion. Practice imagining yourself living the life of someone whose situation differs entirely from yours-living in another country, having another religion-and the more deeply you can do so, the more you become that character as you write. You cannot help being compassionate.
4. Ask the important questions. What makes a story worthwhile is the question or questions it poses. The questions might be: What is love? What is loss? What is hope? Those three could take a lifetime to answer. My story is one answer. Your story is another.

Another question posed in literature concerns intentions. What are people’s intentions, particularly as they relate to the well-being of others? What if their intentions lead to unexpected and undesirable consequences for other people? Who bears the consequences? Who should be responsible? How long do those responsibilities extend? The ultimate answers are found no just at the Supreme Court, or even among our leaders. We need personal answers, all the stories, as many as we can get. But to find them, you first must ask the questions. You need to ask yourself: What is important? What is at stake? In knowing what questions you are asking, you also know your individual voice, your own morality.

Those are the five writing tips: Avoid clichés, avoid generalizations, find your own voice, show compassion, and ask the important questions. I hope that you find them useful, if not for writing the next Great American Novel, then for thinking about your life and the world around you. What you do wit your careers will be only one part of the whole of your lives. Your thoughts, your evolving answers to the important questions, are what will give you interesting lives, make you interesting people capable of changing the world.

And later in life, as more interesting answers come to you, you may look back with deep gratitude to Professor Gregory, and all those other dedicated teachers at Simmons College, who gave you nightmares but also the basis for thinking about the world and your role in it. Perhaps one day you will even think that Nietzsche was one of the most useful classes you took. You will have that dream in which you have to take the test, but you will not feel at all unprepared. You will be able to see the questions and say, “I’ve been thinking about the answers for a very long time, and here they are.”

I wish you all interesting lives. (295-298 )

more excerpts to come. DW