My thirty-seventh birthday had just come and gone, the end of 2008 was approaching, and I was constantly aware of how little I had managed to accomplish.
AKHIL SHARMAFor me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
More Akhil Sharma Quotes
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I need to tell the things that are important but which don’t make sense in terms of the narrative, things that would destroy symmetry or narrative pace. This is my personal belief about what it means to write nonfiction.
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I realized that he was writing about good people doing good things. This did not match my experience of life and so I found my sentences stretching and becoming less plain.
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Intern will resonate not only with doctors, but with anyone who has struggled with the grand question ‘What should I do with my life?’ In a voice of profound honesty and intelligence,
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Even within my stories, people hold opposing views.
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There are also so many emotional aspects to money – feelings of inadequacy, feelings of security. I am not sure if there needs to be more about money in fiction, but the absence of this aspect can make a story feel somehow frictionless and unreal.
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It’s easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don’t want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.
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For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
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Certainly the details of our life are unique. Spending time thinking of how I am different from someone else, however, does not tend to be very productive.
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As a teacher, I can help my students see what is working and not working. I can show them certain solutions.
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People often need to describe things quickly and so they use a shorthand. The problem is that after they use a label, they begin to think only in terms of the label instead of the totality of the experience a novel provides.
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It is hard to write about physically difficult things without causing the reader to disengage.
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Also, I have to assume that readers are sophisticated enough to know that not every person in a community is the same, and so there are many people who would not force an abortion just because a fetus is female.
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I can’t have composite characters. I can’t attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.
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It is hard to create a first-person narrator that can be a child and yet is able to take in enough information for the narrative to be legible to the reader.
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I can guide them to books that will serve as role models. Largely, though, one learns to write almost like developing muscle memory, and this requires years of effort.
AKHIL SHARMA