Blog 8 - Danielle Swanson - Relationships, relationships, relationships

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote, "As a writer, I think my most important habit is to read, and it's one I stick to daily." I still think this and have continued to read all summer. From reading, I learn so much and Beach Reading has expanded my knowledge simply by allowing me to enter the worlds of these works.

This class has forced me to read books that are outside of my norm; a majority of these books, I never would have picked up if they weren't required reading. Still, each of these books have taught me something. I have learned about writing interior thoughts, about sharing secrets, about creating unique settings from several of the works we read. I will never forget Olive Kitteredge and the way the short stories come together to paint a portrait of a character or Balram's tale and how a protagonist can change across the pages of a novel.

While each book has offered me something different to put in my writer's toolbox, consistently the books we have read have allowed a view into the interworkings of relationships in creative writing. We began the semester with the simple relationships of Hemingway and his fellow writers, each developed almost as an individual scene, worked our way through the lonliness of the sea, saw several disfunctional relationships, and finally landed on perhaps the greatest relationship book we have read this semester: the magical tale of a poor conceirge and a 12-year-old girl.

I was once told that some books are driven by plot and some are driven by characters. One of those two things has to be great in a book to keep readers turning the pages. Maybe this is true; however, I would argue that all books have to be driven by relationships. If a book does not have sturdy, true connections between its characters (or even between a character and him/herself) than the reader will not want to continue. Early on they will leave the book and will, perhaps, lose out on those great characters or that great plot.

While I may not have enjoyed every moment of reading these works, there is not one I can say I regret reading. I am appreciate what I have learned from them and hope that I can incorporate what I have learned about relationships into my own work, which already has several connections. I'm going to look back and make sure those relationships are developed the way they should be, the way the relationships were in the books we read this semester.