After reading what O'Connor had to say about writing short stories, I feel just as I did before. It's just one more person saying "Well, this is what I think." Be that as it may, I think that I agree with a lot of what she says. I think that writing short stories just happens naturally. I love when she wrote about her writing of "Good Country People" because she didn't even start off with the girl with the wooden leg and the bible salesman. They simply appeared in her writing process.
I also love that she states that she didn't know what a "frame-within-a-frame" short story was because that is the type of thing we learn about in school. It makes me wonder sometimes if the best writers are those who just do it, and those who can't do it learn all about technique and all that (okay, I take it back, I know most English majors would kill me for saying that!).
I still think that writing short stories is just natural. As O'Connor says, it's one of the "Most natural and fundamental ways of human expression" (87). I hate saying that you just have to do it to know it, but I feel a little better knowing that that is exactly what O'Connor said. The less you know about what you are writing the better in her mind (though that is the exact opposite of how I roll. I always have to outline and all that crap before I write anything!).
Tags: Chelsea Oaks, Short story