Richard Dominico

I had long been teaching other people's stories. I noticed that people listened to me when I talked. I wondered if I could get that same attention with my own written stories. As well, I have this great respect for writers and writing that help me identify with characters and their situations. Most of all, I have feelings of gratitude/awe when a certain passage finds me saying, "Hey, I've experienced that, too. But I never understood it so well." It's called the shock of recognition. An author has put something important into words. He or she has brought clarity to some aspect of life. Like most serious fiction writers, I, too, want to tap into the universality of common human experiences, find the words to make those experiences ring true, and create stories which help readers recognize their own lives.

I have no idea what the story will look like until I am finished. I sit down and write every day whatever comes to me. I do not plan my stories in advance. Many writers like John Irving apparently do that but it does not work that way for me. I may begin with a basic idea, or with one character, and then start with that character having some kind of problem. Every day when I sit down to write, I have very little idea what is going to come out on the screen that day. It really does seem as if my characters tell me a little bit of the story day by day. That is both frightening—I have no idea where this is going—but also liberating: I don't have to know what's going to happen next. I only have to show up each day and get to work. My role is to write down what comes into my mind. The story evolves and I have to accept it. Many an author may judge that I am nuts but that's the way I write. I have read many authors who talk about how they write and there doesn't seem to be any one way one has to write. I figure you ought to do what comes naturally and hope that something of value comes of your own particular method.