Interiority: When Your Editor Says, "I need MORE of YOU."

Courtesy of David Brooks, Alexander Chee & Rebecca Makkai

Photo by Max Felner on Unsplash

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Hi Everyone,

When I was getting my MFA at Bennington, we used to call my advisor Sven Birkerts “Mr. More” because of his penchant for writing “More” in the margins of our creative work. Since most of us were writing memoir, “More” was generally short for “More of YOU,” meaning more of our own emotions, more reflection, more depth and personal stakes. In a word: interiority.

The call for “more” applies to fiction writers, too, but in fiction it relates to the point of view character. More of their thoughts, attitude, anxieties, or twisted assumptions. More to bind the reader to their yearnings and dreads. Again: interiority.

You might recognize this call for “more of YOU” if you’re in a writer’s group or if you’ve ever worked with an editor. It’s what my agent told me when I submitted a first draft of my current memoir. And, to those of us introverts who are self-effacing to a fault, it’s a confounding comment. We equate writing about ourselves with navel-gazing, if not outright narcissism. Many of us have had at least one person in our lives who talks incessantly about themselves, and the last thing we want to do as writers is replicate that pattern. As a result, we unwittingly kneecap our own work.

This week I read posts by three very smart writers who faced this issue head-on. I found all three enormously helpful. Today, my mid-week mission is to share these posts with you, my paid subscribers, and invite you to join me in the chat to discuss your concerns about injecting “more” of yourself in your stories.