To me, and I'm sure for other writers, too, characters come back and they relive again, but what about those characters who only live for a page or two? Or for five pages or 10 pages. I like to think they're still out there - still living - but for me they kind of die, too. It's kind of sad. I don't think about them anymore unless I give them life again.
Peter OrnerI think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories.
Peter OrnerI agonize over things like this - the order of things, section titles, all this architectural sort of stuff. Takes me years to figure out.
Peter OrnerI have a friend who teaches yoga (or is it pilates?), and she said that I don't seem to live in the moment. And I said, "Exactly!" I'd go nuts if I lived in the moment.
Peter OrnerOne story I've been trying to write for years, and haven't been able to finish, is about a face I saw, just a glimpse of a face, in a max security prison in North Carolina. I'm still trying to understand what I saw in that guy's face.
Peter OrnerAlexis Coe rescues a buried but extraordinarily telling episode from the 1890s that resonates in all sorts of ways with today. That in itself would be an accomplishment. But this is a book that is truly riveting, a narrative that gallops. Lizzy Borden eat your heart out. Hereโs a real crime of passion. Or was it? I dare you to pick this one up and try, just try to put it down.
Peter Orner