French novelist Francois Mauriac was a believer in "a certain distance in time" for a fiction writer. Mauriac said it was absolutely necessary except in journaling, so he opined, "A young author has almost no chance of writing successfully about any other period of life than his childhood or adolescence."
If we take Mauriac's declaration literally, Carson McCullers proves him wrong when she created The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, whose the memorable characters Spiros Antonapoulous, Jake Blount, Biff Brannon, Dr. Benedict Copeland, and John Singer were older than her 23 years. Other examples are abundant.
Nevertheless, Mauriac makes a strong case for distance in time between experience and memory. As time passes, we better understand the setting, people, and situations that influenced their motivations and actions. Writers must write what they know, and they know more with distance in time.
If we take Mauriac's declaration literally, Carson McCullers proves him wrong when she created The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, whose the memorable characters Spiros Antonapoulous, Jake Blount, Biff Brannon, Dr. Benedict Copeland, and John Singer were older than her 23 years. Other examples are abundant.
Nevertheless, Mauriac makes a strong case for distance in time between experience and memory. As time passes, we better understand the setting, people, and situations that influenced their motivations and actions. Writers must write what they know, and they know more with distance in time.
