12 Quotes by David Mura

Writing comes out of the rift between what we have experienced and the language we've been given to express it. We write to bridge this divide, to find word adequate to our sense of reality...Creative writing is the search for and creation of a language that will express what the writer unconsciously knows but does not yet have a language to express.

For now, if you are a white writer writing about a character of color, here is one consideration: Do you have friends or colleagues of that race who would openly and freely tell you if you are failing in that task and how and why, and would you be willing to seriously consider their critiques?

When a person comes from a family or a group that has been marginalized, when she is one of the "subalterns," the silence such a person confronts about herself and her experiences within the greater culture is a political condition. In such cases the very act of writing about herself and her experiences becomes a political act.

The writer must then see that once the protagonist lies, either to herself or to others-the lie will create its own repercussions, its own penalties and circumstances of revelation...A simple principle therefore is to create situation where the protagonist is forced to lie.

We know this world intimately and that is its uncanniness. We cannot bear our knowledge.

To devise situation where the protagonist is force to tell a lie, a useful figure for the writer is the Devil. Like the Devil, the author actively searches for flaws in a protagonist's character and seeks to exploit these flaws...As an author, your job is to find ways of exposing the lies of your protagonist.

Does the protagonist deny the irreconcilable conflict? Does she lie about it- to herself and others? Does she make a choice between two irreconcilable desires? Then clearly her choice of one over the other reveals something essential about her that was not apparent at the beginning of the story. The protagonist-sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously- must reckon then with a new understanding of her character and who she really is and her place in and relationship to the world.

In the realm of culture in America, white European culture has held the floor for centuries; just as with any one-sided conversation, a balance can only be achieved if the speaker who has dominated speaks less and listens more.

Imagination is intervention, an act of defiance. It alters belief.