The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates.
Interpretation
Being specific helps ideas resonate more deeply with others.
In this quote, Jacqueline Woodson emphasizes the importance of detail and specificity in communication and creativity. She suggests that the more clearly and specifically we articulate our thoughts and experiences, the more universally they can connect with others, as it is the details that give our words depth and relatability, allowing for a stronger emotional impact.
In practice
In a creative writing workshop, this quote could be used to encourage participants to incorporate more specific details in their narratives.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it's a cinch. Decisions Determine Destiny.
If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.
Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.
Pity sidesteps complexity in favor of narratives that we're comfortable with, reducing the nuances of a person's experience to a sound bite.
Mankind's greatest error, the biggest deception of the past thousand years is this: to confuse poverty with stupidity.
You must have a place to which you can go in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not owe anyone and where no one owes you - a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.