Sometimes I write from the point of view of characters whom I would dislike as people, not as a perverse exercise, but because this cracks the story open and makes me see it in a way I would not see it naturally.
Interpretation
Writing from contrasting perspectives enhances creativity and storytelling depth.
Mary Gaitskill highlights the importance of exploring diverse viewpoints in writing. By adopting the perspectives of characters that one may personally dislike, a writer can unlock new insights and dimensions to the narrative that might otherwise remain undiscovered, ultimately enriching the story's complexity and depth.
In practice
In a writing workshop, one might use this quote to encourage students to explore unconventional character viewpoints.
What is faithfulness, anyway? Can you be unfaithful to your own feelings and faithful to someone else? Is it faithful to lie in bed night after night with someone you love but no longer desire while ardently dreaming of someone else?
A sad person who is so involved with his sadness that he mistakes it for reality will have a hard time seeing himself as anything but sad. For him, the sadness is not a feeling that he experiences - it is him.
What are you thinking?” She asks. -That you are beautiful. That not everyone could see it. I almost became the kind of person who could not.
A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.
If you ask me, I alternate between truly bizarre, what you would call 'Hollywood' movies and truly bizarre, what you would call 'arthouse' movies.
I write in a noisy, distracting world so the books can be read there.
I don't do a comic book thinking there is a movie. I just want it to be as good a comic book as it can be.
Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.
Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.
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