Welcome to StoryWorlds,
I am Junot Díaz.
By way of an introduction: I was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Parlin, NJ, and am now a professor in the Comparative Media Studies / Writing Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
I teach classes on creative writing, worldbuilding, and apocalyptic narratives — but what I really do, what I really am, is a writer (a slow one, but a writer nevertheless). My books include Drown, This Is How You Lose Her, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction). I occasionaly write short stories (mainly for the New Yorker), essays every now and then, and some book reviews. I used to write about food, too, even won the James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, but I don’t do much of that anymore.
For many years folks have been asking me to write down some of my ideas about the craft of fiction and worldbuilding. This page is a response to those kind requests, but let's be clear: I don’t consider myself the supreme expert on anything. To quote Frantz Fanon:
I do not come with timeless truths.
My consciousness is not illuminated with ultimate
radiances.
Nevertheless, in complete composure, I think it would
be good if certain things were said.
StoryWorlds is me attempting to say “certain things” about writing, about fiction, about worldbuilding.
StoryWorlds, I hope, will be a journey. All the best narratives are in a way.
There is a second part to StoryWorlds that involves a novel that I had been working on. Spent the last two years toiling on a draft that ran nearly 600 pages. Cool, right? What was not so cool was that the draft was not good all.
This isn’t the first time that I spent years on a book only to discover that it was trash. Such is the lot of the writer, or at least, this writer.
Anyway, I walked away from the book and now a year later I’m going to take another crack at it. Going to see if this broken weirdness can be mended. StoryWorlds will document that process, will discuss the struggles of writing novels, of fixing broken ones, of how one decides if a manuscript is worth saving or if one should just walk away before another two years disappears.
Whether you’re interested in the general conversation about fiction and worldbuilding, or the more specific progress of this strange broken novel of mine, StoryWorlds will be an illuminating journey, and I hope some of you will be moved to join me on this adventure.
THE DREAM
That StoryWorlds will be a sustained collaborative learning experience.
That StoryWorlds will be a dialogue that provides opportunities for sharpening craft and transforming perspectives.
THE PLAN
I intend to release StoryWorlds twice a week. (Caveat emptor: some longer posts will count as a double-sized submissions.)
I will share my writing / worldbuilding strategies, exercises, homebrew tricks, will discuss the writers and critics and texts that propel and inspire my art. I will talk about the perplexing exhilarating intricacies of fiction-writing and break down books / stories / movies / comics in ways that I hope will prove illuminating and generative.
Maybe I’ll even get around to talking about food.
USERS GUIDE
You are currently on the free list, which means you will receive a post a week and a taste of what’s happening behind the paywall, which is where we will be doing the nerdy dives and nerdy discussions -- where the wordcraft and worldcraft will get its most thorough exploration. Behind the paywall we’ll have special guests and Q&As and eventually regular Office Hours to discuss matters that are important to subscribers. Please do join us if you have the interest and the means; we will be glad to have you.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL
If we’re speaking modestly: To encourage deeper reading and weirder writing. To exult in a love of books and storytelling.
If we’re swinging for the fences: To encourage us all to become the readers and the writers we need to become in order to write the next chapter of our books and/or our lives.
