So. We lost a literary titan on Monday, Ursula K. Le Guin, who, at 88, died at her home in Portland, Oregon. Her son confirmed the death, and while he didn’t specify a cause, he did say she’d been in poor health for months. Le Guin was an influential and immensely popular author who brought the world the Earthsea epic fantasy cycle, as well as her science-fiction opus The Left Hand of Darkness.
Le Guin was a prolific author, whose pointed use of speculative fiction helped elevate entire genres to the level of literary fiction. A trailblazer in the truest sense of the term, Le Guin thrived in an environment in which she should have failed, forced to employ genre conventions that belied her vision and voice.
Throughout her productive writing career, Le Guin spent an extraordinary amount of time teaching as well. She published a guide to the craft of writing called Steering the Craft in 1998, and she was incredibly forthcoming in interviews with the Paris Review, in an essay published in the Los Angeles Times and later on her website titled “On Rules of Writing, or, Riffing on Rechy,” as well as in a blogpost called “Navigating the Ocean of Story” for BookViewCafe.com.
We could spend years analyzing her work, showing how she inspired so many of the modern literary greats like Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, and Patrick Rothfuss, but today I want to take a look at five insightful thoughts she shared on writing over the years.
1. Begin with a Clear Sense of One Character
In her essay The Wave in the Mind, Le Guin argues that a novel should begin with a clear sense of one character. The best way to start?
“With a voice. With a voice in the ear. That first page I wrote, which the novel progressed from, is simply Lavinia speaking to us—including me, apparently.” –Ursula Le Guin, from The Paris Review
2. Our Characters Must Fascinate Us
“the characters of a novel and short story fascinate us slowly, deeply, by their passion, their pain, their moral and psychological complexity” –Ursula Le Guin, from “On Rules of Writing”
As writers, we need to understand that it’s Character that draws us into Story. The characters provide the requisite emotional connection, which then propels us along the journey of the story. Above, Le Guin provides us with the “how” as writers to create that connection with the reader.
3. Exposition isn’t Wicked
“the fear of ‘distancing’ leads writers to abandon the narrative past tense, which involves and includes past, present, and future, for the tight-focused, inflexible present tense. But distance lends enchantment.” –Ursula Le Guin, from “On Rules of Writing”
Here, Le Guin is lamenting the movement toward the immediacy of the present tense. The use of this tense limits the writer in her mind, and I tend to agree. She argues in the essay the “show, don’t tell” writing cliché has sent the writers in her workshops reeling away from exposition, a necessary element in world building.
As writers, we need to fully envision our worlds and our characters, and the past tense affords us the room to explore the complexities of these elements. It’s the exploration of these elements that lends enchantment to our stories.
4. Find a Rhythm
“I want the story to have a rhythm that keeps moving forward. Because that’s the whole point of telling a story. You’re on a journey–you’re going from here to there. It’s got to move. Even if the rhythm is very complicated and subtle, that’s what’s going to carry the reader.” –Ursula Le Guin, from The Paris Review
As writers, we need to find a groove and settle in. Similarly, what we’re trying to do with our stories also requires a groove. It’s a simple idea, but it’s an archetypal one. We have a predisposition to this journey as readers and writers, and we need to embrace it.
5. You Do You
“where I can get prickly and combative is if I’m just called a sci-fi writer. I’m not. I’m a novelist and poet. Don’t shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don’t fit, because I’m all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.” –Ursula Le Guin, from The Paris Review
Le Guin fought and overcame stereotypes throughout her career. By all accounts, she shouldn’t have been as successful as she was, being a female voice in the male-dominated world of speculative fiction in the 1960s and 1970s. Her perspectives on identity and society, her deliberate treatment of race and gender, all of these things helped her breakout of the “sci-fi author” pigeonhole. And thank God she did.
As writers, we need to embrace our Voice, our perspective, and tell the stories we need to tell. We can’t worry about the labels, or pigeonholes, that we or our stories receive later. We have to be true to ourselves. And let our tentacles spread out in all directions.
Here are a few bonus thoughts from Le Guin:
- Reading is Fundamental
“Real writers read” from “Navigating the Ocean of Story”
- What’s our greatest tool as writers?
“imagination working on observation” from “On Rules of Writing”
- Get to work!
“You can’t waste time” from The Paris Review
- Because…
“Skill is the product of experience” from “Navigating the Ocean of Story”
- Be Who You Are!
“When people say, Did you always want to be a writer?, I have to say no! I always was a writer.” from The Paris Review
Archetypes are recurring patterns (plot structures, symbols, character types, themes) that occur in mythology, religion, and stories across cultures and time periods. They embody universal meanings and basic human experiences and can evoke unconscious responses in a reader. For writers, archetypes are tools to employ that can deepen a reader’s understanding and emotional connection to a character or a story.
Author K.M. Weiland examines 
It was the philosopher Aristotle who first defined an ill-fated protagonist as a Tragic Hero. Aristotle suggested that a hero of a tragedy must evoke a sense of pity or fear from the audience. The Tragic Hero is someone whose misfortune is brought about some fatal flaw. The Tragic Hero’s fatal flaw initiates his downfall, but not before he achieves some kind of transforming realization or wisdom.