Replay: Ann Hood shares Five Things She's Learned about Finding the Story Growing in Your Heart
Check out the first five minutes of her recent class.
“No story is one story, but every story is two stories: the one on the surface and the one bubbling beneath. The climax is when they collide.”
“Anecdotes don’t make a story—they’re what you tell at a cocktail party. A story that works has some kind of arc. It has conflict. It isn’t just anecdotes strung together.”
“You write a sentence and then the next sentence. You’re going to revise those sentences. It is okay that each sentence isn’t perfect, because as the poet William Mathews said, revision isn’t cleaning up after the party—it is the party. If you hold perfection up as your ideal and goal, you’re not going to be able to write.”
“One of the things I’ve learned is that not writing can be as important as writing. Sometimes stopping and putting pages away is the only way to figure out the story you’re trying to tell.”
“One way to find your story and write it is to have an activity that is absolutely separate from writing, which calms your brain. We think we have to stick with it, that we have to push through writer’s block. But I say don’t force it. Do something other than write—for me, it’s knitting.”
—Ann Hood, Five Things I’ve Learned about Finding the Story Growing in Your Heart
Last week, Ann Hood joined us on Five Things to share all she’s learned about finding the story growing in your heart—how to bring the characters, conflicts, and plot points that keep you up at night from your heart to the page.
Five Things I’ve Learned about Finding the Story Growing in Your Heart helps writers discover and tell the stories growing in their hearts by offering practical advice, inspiration, and tools to overcome common writing challenges. Through engaging activities and real-world examples, participants will gain fresh insights and tangible next steps to bring their stories to life.
Ann is the author of more than a dozen novels, including bestsellers like The Knitting Circle, The Obituary Writer, and The Book That Matters Most. She has also penned five memoirs, such as Fly Girl and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of Entertainment Weekly’s top ten nonfiction books of 2008. Her essays and short stories have been featured in prestigious publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, and The Atlantic, among others. A recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, as well as awards for Best American Food, Travel, and Spiritual Writing, Ann is a celebrated voice across genres. Her latest novel is The Stolen Child.
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