Letter from Kelly

One of my favorite movie quotes is from Pulp Fiction, when John Travolta’s character is repeating to Uma Thurman a wild rumor involving her, a foot rub, and someone getting thrown out a window.

“Who told you?” Thurman asks.

“They,” Travolta says.

“They talk a lot, don’t they?” says Thurman.

“They certainly do,” says Travolta.

Lately, They seem to be talking to my students, with similarly unreliable, unhelpful advice. And I think They’re overdue for another debunking.

1. “Never write a story because you want to exact revenge.” Marion Roach Smith says this in The Memoir Project.

“Retribution masquerading as art inevitably fails at the foundational level,” writes Elissa Altman.

“Vengeance is a natural impulse,” writes Steve Almond, “but the reader always sniffs it out.”

What I think these writers overlook is that vengeance can fill you with passion and vigor and drive. And if you write a story fueled entirely by Red Bull and a thirst for vengeance, what you have when you’re done is a story.

But for all that is holy, do not publish that story on your Substack. Because the reader will sniff out that this is a grudge project. The reader will realize they’re just a captive audience to your personal drama. The reader will get bored.

Let vengeance power you through that first draft. When you’ve cooled down, revise it into a story for your reader, and not your rage. Make it into art.

2. “You need to get distance from your personal experiences before you can write about them.” Or, put another way, “Write from the scar, not the wound.”

Again, there’s wisdom here, but also the seeds of self-censorship. If you’re moved to make fiction or write a memoir or script a film about an experience that’s fresh, or even still unfolding, don’t silence yourself because They think you’re too close to it.

The Great Depression was still grinding on when John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, (published in 1939). The battles over desegregation in the American South were still raging when James Baldwin wrote The Hard Kind of Courage (1958).

Again, I think the smart approach is to write what you’re moved to write, just don’t rush to publication. The truth is, you might be too close to it. Show it to your beta readers. Listen to their feedback. Ruminate. Put it out there only when you know it’s ready.

3. “How did you decide what art form to work in? I love writing, and I love photography, and also I paint. They are telling me I have to choose one and stick with it.”

I don’t know who said that to my student recently. But I’d love to see Them try to tell Joni Mitchell she should stop painting. Or tell friend of Gotham Jacob Appel that he must choose between practicing medicine, writing novels, and researching bioethics.

You don’t have to choose one. In fact, working across disciplines has been shown, scientifically, to stimulate even more creativity. It makes both your mind and your art stronger.

4. “You’re too young to be a writer. Go get some experience and then try again.”

Good thing nobody said that to Gotham teacher Kody Keplinger when she wrote—and sold!—her first novel as a high school senior.

This one is just a sub-category of the bigger lie that all writers hear at some point: “Who do you think you are?

When it’s coming from someone else, it’s just sabotage dressed in a flimsy costume of Grown-Up Wisdom. When it’s coming from within you, it’s your imposter syndrome.

Either way, when that one pops up, you know what to do. Ignore Them, and get back to work.

Kelly Caldwell

Dean of Faculty, Gotham Writers