Finding Material

Where does one find the sort of material that will move him to more fruitful, more effective writing? How does he do it? The answer is anticlimactic‑the way differs for each writer. The trick is to try anything‑everything, to experiment within the limits of one's capabilities, to learn what those capabilities are. Talents differ. Some writers are more gifted stylists; some handle ideas more effectively‑ideas as drama; some have and convey greater feeling; some create more complex characters. Some are enormously inventive; some are more technically proficient. Talents lie within talents; you must learn the geography and archaeology of yours.

Let me conclude with a few thoughts that come to mind to convey to those of you who are consciously on the hunt for something worthwhile to say. Finding it may become the work of a lifetime‑a true seeking always. is‑but even as one seeks he must say what he knows presently as though it were worth saying, although some writers would warn you, "There's nothing to write about. Amuse yourself. It's all words and nothing but words." Others translate "something worthwhile to say" into "something new." But I'm sure you understand that novelty‑being a la mode‑at the heart of the scene, is not necessarily being where a writer ought to be. On the, other hand, to experiment implies concern with newness, though best as originality. That means it is your business to try to present your material, if you possibly can‑‑‑‑‑we are back to talents within talents‑to present it in new forms.

Obviously the major source of fiction ideas is the self's experience, your lives, individual to collective. I want to say a word about the collective, but first let me qualify what I said about originality by adding that one ought to say what he can say‑although it has been said, written, untold times before. To throw out experience because it isn't unique (theoretically individual experience always is) is to throw out the baby with the water. One has to begin at the beginning‑with what one is and knows.

from "Finding Your Voice" in Talking Horse by Bernard Malamud