Craft Advice with Brandon Taylor
Craft Advice with Brandon Taylor
On developing character, determining the core drama, retyping your entire book (more than once!), good dialogue, great sex scenes, and writing beyond what you planned. Plus, a two-pronged prompt!
Intimate conversations with our greatest heart-centered minds.
Brandon Taylor is a true master of craft. So much so, his first novel, Real Life, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. And Filthy Animals, a collection of short stories and the winner of The Story Prize, and The Late Americans, his second novel, have both become bestsellers. Brandon is the 2022-2023 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Iowa. His short stories and essays have appeared in Granta, Guernica, O, The Oprah Magazine, The New Yorker, London Review of Books and more. And he’s an Acquiring Editor at Unnamed Press.
In other words, Brandon knows his way around a sentence. And a paragraph. And entire gorgeous stories. There’s so much wisdom in what follows, I’m excited to put it into practice. I think you’ll be excited, too!
If you missed part one of our interview, you can read it here.
Thank you, thank you to all the paid subscribers who help support the beautiful The DeTommaso Dogs. We were able to make another generous donation last month which went directly toward helping a stray dog and her five puppies, who were fresh off the streets.
In keeping with my promise to myself to take quarterly breaks, Beyond will be back June 17th. So much good stuff awaits! Deep gratitude for your support and kindness. It’s felt! ❤️
Where do you write?
I write a lot in my living room. Sometimes I write on the floor, lying down. Or on my desk. Anywhere I can get a horizontal surface in New York City is a good day.
Are you writing on your laptop? Or pen and paper?