"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

In the last twenty years the colleges have been emphasizing creative writing to such an extent that you almost feel that any idiot with a nickel's worth of talent can emerge from a writing class able to write a competent story. In fact, so many people can now write competent stories that the short story as a medium is in danger of dying of competence. We want competence, but competence by itself is deadly. What is needed is the vision to go with it, and you do not get this from a writing class. -- Flannery O'Connor

I ran across this quote today on John Baker's blog. The odd thing is that O'Connor passed away in 1964 and yet, her words are even more on target today than when she first wrote it. Coincidentally, I read one of her short stories this week which shows what vision can do for a story.

The story was "A Good Man is Hard to Find". The premise was taking the wrong road and O'Connor turned that premise on it's head because every character in the story took the wrong road that day. She took an ordinary family trip and turned it into a tragedy so totally unexpected and yet you knew that yes, it could happen.

I loved O'Connor's voice and look forward to finding more of her work. One thing that did give me a chuckle though was reading her bio at the back of the anthology which said that "her works are filled with "tender" violence and grim Gothic humor." Oh, the humor was certainly there in the everyday thoughts and actions of the family but the violence, while off page, was not of the tender variety.

On a side note, there's a new story up at Beat to a Pulp, and here's the BSP, it's by me. I hope you enjoy my little side trip into the regions of Sci-fi.