A master class for all writers
Carol Shields, author of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning Stone Diaries, left a big hole in CanLit when she died in 2003.
Now, we are able to read and hear some new thoughts from Shields in Startle and Illuminate, an eloquent collection of essays, speeches and letters penned by the Chicago-born Shields throughout her career. This refined collection of Shields’ creative musings is the passion project of her daughter, novelist Anne Giardini, and Shields’ grandson, Nicholas Giardini.
The unifying element of Shield’s personal and professional papers — carefully selected from the literary archives of Library and Archives Canada — is her clear, resounding and unmistakable voice.
Writers can be a competitive and secretive lot and Shields’ legendary generosity and openness sets her apart. While I didn’t agree with all of Shields’ advice, I remained intrigued and captivated as each new chapter unfolded.
If writers want to hone their skills, Shields offers up hands-on, useful advice on how to structure a novel or refine a sentence. Shields’ disciplined production formula is simple to emulate: write every day, at least a page, and then at year’s end, you’ll have a completed novel. Since riding public transit was a great source of material for the author, Shields urges writers to be attentive eavesdroppers.
Shields shared Jane Austen’s 18th-century view of literature as a vehicle for moral instruction.
A dedicated stylist, she polished her prose until it gleamed like the family silverware. She insisted her students practise the fundamentals of writing. “I guess I really do believe that writing succeeds or fails at the level of the sentence.” She also demanded much from the manuscripts that crossed her desk. Her eloquent and encouraging critiques, detailed in the final chapter in a series of letters to students, (mercifully) favoured the concrete over the esoteric. Ardent and curious students of writing must read Startle and Illuminate. It’s a Master Class — served up posthumously — thanks to the efforts of Shields’ erudite descendents. Patricia Dawn Robertson is a Saskatchewan writer.