Danielle Evans: Tips for Creative Writers

Last Tuesday, Danielle Evans visited Bloomsburg Campus to talk about short story writing and her collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. During her 7:00 reading at Monty's she read "Boys Go to Jupiter," featured on The Sewanee Review and in The Best American Short Stories 2018, edited this year by Roxanne Gay.  As a piece focused on where innocence trips into mistakes, "Boys Go to Jupiter" is a contemporary piece that challenges how we judge guilt and truth.

Writing Tips

Earlier in the day, Evans hosted a talk with Dr. Lawrence's short story writing class, where she offered some excellent advice for creative writing and her writing process.

According to Evans, there are four components to keep in mind while reading and writing short stories:

1. A good short story is a contained unit in of itself. 
The premise is that something - maybe about the character, or maybe about their situation or worldview - has changed in a permanent way, wherein there is a distinct "before" and "after."  There is an immediate question that gets answered by the end of the story, but secondary questions are left for the reader to ponder.

2. Compression does not necessarily equal minimalism.  
A short story is concise by nature, but it does not have to be minimalist and bare-boned.  If time moves, then pressure builds; Evans encourages understanding how time and flashback/backstory sequences move a story while keeping it compressed.

3. You can have a narrative where the loss of possibility is the pivot point.  
Evans stated that she is personally interested in "stories where the loss of potential" drives the plot.  While some stories are driving up to the point of a great moment of change, others look at the results after a particular decision was made, or ask where the realization was about a past choice.  Tension, in these cases, can also be given by giving information, not just withholding it.

4. The point of view makes a story distinct. 
For this point, Evans asked the following questions:

• Where does the narrative voice come from?
• Do we get scared to "fully inhabit" a point of view?
• How do we frame the contrast between doing and thinking (or internal/external performance)

Evans, a realist writer, says she likes to start writing while thinking of why a character would make a particular choice instead of starting with the character themselves.  Where could we empathize with a character, and when do we judge them?  Her stories like to challenge and blur these boundaries, as "Boys Go to Jupiter" attests. 

If you are interested in other interviews with Danielle Evans or would like to learn about her publications, you can visit her official website here.