John Irving

On the first evening of AWP Joh Irving, the author of such contemporary classics as The World According to Garp, The Hotle New Hampshire, and The Cider House Rules, gave the conferences Keynote address. I have long been a fan of Irvings and the Mantras "Get Obssessed and Stay obssessed" and "Keep passing the open windows" Both from Hotel New Hampshire are repeated frequently in my life. I attended the address with the lovely Tiffany, the equally charming Pat/Gracie and the wildman of AWP Thom. After almost getting into a fight with the most obnoxious girl over my humming a few bars from a Pixies song we finally got seated and settled. Remember Tiff some people like some quit before the speaker comes on.
When John Irving came on forty minutes later he discussed the importance of plot in modern fiction. He told the audience that he knows the last sentence of the story first and from there works backwards to the beginning. This interested me because that week i had read an excerpt from Flannery O'Conner which basically said the exact opposite. Seeing i am a fan of both writers i decided thaqt both were right. maybe a story needs to unfold like O'Connor said, or maybe it needs to be carefully plotted out like Irving convincing discussed. I think in my writing I will try both and figure out what works best for me, either way if they turn out half as good as either of thier stories I figure ia m doing pretty good