Craft Advice from George Saunders

On how to maintain fresh eyes on the umpteenth edit, the power of the text, acknowledging what is, and presenting a weird concept in a hospitable way. Plus: a generative prompt!

Intimate conversations with our greatest heart-centered minds.

George Saunders’ writing desk.

George Saunders

possibly knows more about the craft of writing than anybody on the planet. And luckily for us, he loves to talk about it. He wrote A Swim In A Pond In The Rain in which he meticulously and earnestly (and with more than a few delightful dollops of humor) takes apart revered Russian short stories so we can learn to write our own short stories. He also writes the much beloved

Story Club with George Saunders

, inspired by his book, which offers an ongoing investigation of how the short story works.

For anyone who read last week’s interview with George, you’ll have noticed how he can transform pretty much any question into one requiring a craft answer. I love this about him! We’re so lucky to be alive at the same time he is. In this week’s conversation, the questions are more pointedly focused on craft.

Get full access to George’s advice, along with a forthcoming personal essay on the role of beloved objects in the dying process and questionnaires from Caroline Cala Donofrio, Anne Kadet, Emma Gannon, and more. Use this link for 20% off.

Do you write in the room you’re seated in now?

Yes. We bought this apartment in Santa Monica about a year and a half ago. This is just a little bedroom. Here’s a bookshelf. Some guitars. A little bathroom. At the other house, I had an actual shed that I shared on Story Club. But I'm good if just have a little area. I mentally draw down a certain curtain and then I'm doing it. So it can be loud. It doesn't matter. I can be interrupted. It doesn't matter.

Can you write anywhere?

Yes, I write downstairs sometimes with Guin, my dog. When I was younger, a lot of that CivilWarLand book was written or at least heavily edited on the bus on the way to and from work. If it’s relatively stable, and I have that feeling of excitement, then I can do it anywhere. Mostly, it's just reacting to what I've already written with a pencil. It’s not really getting up on the mountaintop and singing. It's just: fix, fix, fix, fix fix, which, once I draw that mental curtain down, I'm concentrating on only that.

How do you draw that mental curtain down? You edit so much: how do you not lose fresh eyes? That's one of the hardest things!