Where a story begins in the mind I am not sure—a memory of haystacks, maybe, or wheel ruts in the ruined stone, the ironies that fall out of the friction between past and present, some casual phrase overheard. But something kicks in, some powerful juxtaposition, and the whole book shapes itself up in the mind…
American novelist, short story and non-fiction author (b. 1935)
Edna Annie Proulx (born August 22, 1935) is an American journalist and author, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Shipping News and her short story Brokeback Mountain.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Native Name:
Edna Annie Proulx
Alternative Names:
E. Annie Proulx
•
E.A. Proulx
•
Edna Ann Proulx
From Wikidata (CC0)
The construction of short stories calls for a markedly different set of mind than work on a novel, and for me short stories are at once more interesting and more difficult to write than longer work. The comparative brevity of the story dictates more economical and accurate use of words and images, a limited palette of events, fewer characters, tighter dialogue, strong title and punctuation that works to move the story forward. If the writer is trying to illustrate a particular period or place, a collection of short stories is a good way to take the reader inside a house of windows, each opening onto different but related views—a kind of flip book of place, time and manners.
Place and history are central to the fiction I write, both in the broad, general sense and in detailed particulars. Rural North America, regional cultures in critical economic flux, the images of an ideal and seemingly attainable world the characters cherish in their long views despite the rigid and difficult circumstances of their place and time. Those things interest me and are what I write about. I watch for the historical skew between what people have hoped for and who they thought they were and what befell them.