Writing Excuses

Téa Obreht is a short story writer and novelist. Her debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction, and was a 2011 National Book Award finalist and an international bestseller. In our conversation, we focused on revision and character consciousness. Téa talked to us about the difficulty of the idea-generation stage of writing, how to cultivate layered characters, and how she writes event-first. You can learn more about Téa Obreht here. Thing of the Week from Téa: Deadwood (TV Show)Homework from Téa: Write an opening paragraph (roughly 3-6 lines). It could be something new, or an opener that you had already written. The paragraph should introduce some key pieces of information to your readers. Consider the information that's contained in your paragraph and then rewrite the whole thing two more times, ultimately conveying the same information, but in three different ways. How you do this is completely up to you! Maybe it’s in a different voice, maybe it’s from a different perspective,