The Art of Writing Whatever You Want: A Chat With Hilary Leichter
In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” Michael Woodson sits down with author Hilary Leichter about writing genre-less books and more.
In publishing, we spend a lot of time talking about genre, and a lot of authors know exactly what genre they're interested in writing in. But what if your story idea doesn't easily fit into any one genre category? Should you shift your story to better fit a marketing mold? Or, should you keep writing whatever you want and have faith that your unique story idea will find the right home?
In this episode of "Writer's Digest Presents," content editor Michael Woodson chats with author Hilary Leichter, author of Temporary and Terrace Story, about ignoring craft rules, not thinking about your readers, and when to ask yourself what you're afraid of.
About the Author
Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper's Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. Terrace Story has been named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. Hilary teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
From the Episode
"I have something controversial to say, which is that I don't think about my readers at all. And I mean that from a place of deep, deep respect. I think that for any book, the only two people that exist on the page are the author and the reader. The characters are not characters. They're words. There's no one in a book. There's just text and paper. If we're talking about fiction, there's no one with real feelings. There's no one with real experiences. The only real with a capital R people are me and whoever is on the other side reading it. And I don't want the reader to be thinking about me. I want then to be thinking about the book. And so, for the same reason, I don't think about the reader. And what that looks like in terms of writing is making every decision about what the experience of reading the book would be for a person, but not thinking about the person who's reading it. And frankly, not thinking about if anyone will ever read it. If it's liberating for anyone listening to not care about the reader, but to love them. That's how I feel."
"I think there is an idea that we are suppose to write about what we know and write about the world that we live in. But the world we live in is constantly changing. And the person you are when your book comes out is five people past the person you were when you wrote it. I think my books are always kind of this arrow shot into the future. I'm always thinking about things that I don't have or haven't experienced or am wondering about."
"I think if you're worrying about craft rules, or if you're worrying about anything that isn't in the world of the thing you're writing, then I think it's worth sitting back and asking yourself what you're afraid of. I think when those voices come in—like, Oh, I can't write this, or I can't write something this short, or I can't write something this long, or This is took much like this other thing that already exists, or anything like that, that's not really about the thing. you're writing. I think it's a signal that youa re circling the red-hot center of whatever you're writing, and it's terrifying you. Shifting to like, Well, what am I so afraid of putting on the page? Then the answer to that question is what your book is about a lot of the time."
