The art of rough drafts with George Saunders (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Adam Grant:
Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to ReThinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

My guest today is George Saunders. He's a writer beloved for his short stories in The New Yorker, as well as his novellas and books, including his bestselling novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. Originally from Texas, George held odd jobs in his youth and took a bit of a winding road toward becoming a writer.

But today, he's won more awards for his writing than I can count, and been honored with Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships. He teaches creative writing at Syracuse, and I'm a big fan of his newsletter, Story Club, where he shares wisdom on writing, creativity, criticism, and character. Those are the key themes of our conversation today.

George, are you ready for this?

[00:01:00] George Saunders:
I am, Adam.

[00:01:02] Adam Grant:
Well, I've been looking forward to this for a while.

[00:01:03] George Saunders:
Me too, you know, I was on a flight, one of your talks was on there, and I turned it on and I was just mesmerized, so I was so excited when you showed up in the inbox.

[00:01:12] Adam Grant:
Well, that's an honor. I've been mesmerized by your words for a long time.

[00:01:16] George Saunders:
Oh, thank you.

[00:01:16] Adam Grant:
I guess for starters, I'd love to hear a little bit about your career arc. It is not every day that a beloved fiction writer spends an early career as a roofer, a doorman, a geophysical prospector, a technical writer. How did this all happen? How did you land where you are?

[00:01:32] George Saunders:
It was kind of, you know, a little bit of slight intention. Like, I sort of knew I wanted to be a writer from a young age, but because I didn't know any other writers, I didn't quite know that you could, you know. There was, there was a sense of like, well, I, I'd like to do this, but I have no idea how to start. So it was kind of just, uh, yeah, clumsy, clumsy, you know, groping in the dark kind of thing.
I think at first I was kind of seeking, like, the accoutrements of a writing life, like to do, do exotic things. And, you know, and I thought maybe if I just, for example, went to work in Asia, then I just type it up afterwards, you know, and that would be a, a novel. So, it was definitely a slow, kind of an awkward beginning, you know.

There's something, I think it's in Hemingway, where he talks about somebody who went broke gradually and then all at once. Like, I sort of was stumbling towards writing and then I got really sick in Asia. I, I was working in the oil fields kind of writing a little bit at the camp when I could find the time and then I got really sick.

I went swimming in this river I shouldn't have been swimming in, and it just was like being 98 years old instantly, though I was 24, 25. And so there's a kind of that moment where you're like, well, you know, I've always said I wanted to do this. I don't have a whole lot of great other options. So maybe I should sort of double down and at that point I, I just happened to be at this crazy wild party in Amarillo, Texas and on a table, there was a People magazine that mentioned that Syracuse had an MFA program, or at that time was an MA program.

And I was like, “What? You can get paid for writing?” So just on a whim, I applied there and a couple other places, got into Syracuse. So I, I’d say it was kind of a path of one, gradually knowing more what I actually wanted and two, having circumstances line up so that I could actually, you know, make, make a run at it. But it was, you know, like a, a 10 year attempt, even to get to that point.

[00:03:13] Adam Grant:
I think I first became aware of you in a way that was, I guess, deeper and bigger than your, your stories, uh, about ten years ago. I had just come out with my first book on givers and takers. And a just an unbelievable number of people sent me the graduation speech that you gave on your biggest regrets being failures of kindness. And I thought that was such a profound observation. I, I’d love to hear a little bit of the origin story of how you landed at that regret.

[00:03:41] George Saunders:
I first wrote a speech like that from our daughter's graduation. And that was a very sort of special writing moment because I thought, ah, it's just for the small group of people that I love, especially for my daughter.

So it came from a different part of the writing mind than usual. You know, usually you construct a certain writing identity and then execute. But in this case, because it was, I thought, a one off, I was actually really honest. And, and as I was working through it, I thought, well, why should an old fart like me have the right to give advice to these kids who haven't made any big mistakes yet?

And when I really scrolled through that, I thought, well, the only reason is I have regrets. Time equals regret. So what are they? And I scrolled through a few that actually weren't that sincere. And then I finally thought, oh, yeah.

And I remembered one incident back when I was a kid. This new girl came to our school and she really struggled. She was kind of an awkward person and got picked on and kind of light bullied, you know, nothing too egregious. But you could see she was suffering, and I just logged that as a genuine regret that I hadn't had a little more guts and stepped up and, you know, kind of intervened for her. And I also remember that very strange feeling of kind of bargaining with myself, like, “Yeah, you could do that, but you're going to get nailed. So maybe you just do what everybody else does and kind of look the other way.”

So I wrote a speech about that for our daughter's class, and then I think about eight or nine years later, my university asked if I would talk at this graduation related ceremony, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, I'll just do that speech again.”

So I waited till about three days before and then found out I had lost it. It was somewhere in my disorganized file system. So I kind of just rewrote it from memory, and I think what was unusual about it maybe was that I kind of took that semi-academic moment to talk about something that isn't normally, at least at that time, wasn't taken as a serious academic idea, i.e. that kindness is an actual thing, and we can get better at it, and it's actually the way the world is kind of lubricated, you know, with, with small and large acts of kindness. So I, I gave the speech, and really, there wasn't much reaction, it was kind of a hot gym, you know, and everybody was anxious to get to the party.

And at one point it was sort of pathetic, because I thought it had gone pretty well, you know, and I really liked it. And I'm roaming around this sort of after party among all these strangers, and I'm like, waiting to be recognized. And at one point this guy said, uh, “Hey, dude, did you, did you give the speech just now?”

I said, “Yeah." He goes, “Oh.” You know, and that was the whole, the whole reaction. So I went home and then a friend of mine at the Times just posted it and it kind of went viral. And, and so that was the beginning of, uh, I guess this mode of being the kindness dude, which is, it's sort of a mixed blessing.

[00:06:16] Adam Grant:
Well, I think one of the things you did for a lot of people was you reminded them that kindness is not weakness. It's actually a source of strength.

[00:06:23] George Saunders:
Not only is it a strength, but it's also really difficult to cultivate. I mean, we all have a sort of natural ambient level of kindness, whatever it might be, ranging from none to a lot, but to sort of move the meter and become kinder is difficult for me, partly because in a lot of sort of rarefied air situations, it’s hard to know what kindness might consist of.

I mean, if somebody is about to get hit by a car and you grab them, okay, that's, that's good. But you know, I always talk about if you walk into a coffee shop and you see that the barista has been crying and you want to be the kindness person, well, it's kind of an open question of, you know, would it be kind to just leave the person alone, or is there an opportunity for engagement? So thinking about that in kind of a serious way made me think, well, it's actually then about a next virtue, which is alertness or awareness. Like in a given situation, how well can you discern what might make things better, which in turn is related to your own preset?

If you're like me and you're a former Catholic with a kind of savior mindset, you’re always rushing in where you shouldn't. You're always quote-unquote “helping” and maybe making it worse. So, it seemed to me that a kindness as a goal, very good aspiration is a gateway to a lot of other really interesting questions that I'm certainly still trying to puzzle out.

[00:07:37] Adam Grant:
One of the things that reminds me of is a, a classic psychology experiment. It's a Darley and Batson study where seminary students are on their way to give a speech about being a good Samaritan. And they see somebody who looks like they're in trouble and, and might need help. And it turns out if they're just in a hurry, uh, and they're running a little late for the speech, it's enough to prevent them from being good Samaritans.

[00:07:59] George Saunders:
Wow.

[00:08:00] Adam Grant:
That just, to me, puts a point on the idea that alertness is a major driver. If you don't notice that somebody is in need, it's awfully hard to help them or, or show them kindness.

[00:08:08] George Saunders:
Yeah, and that is, I hadn't heard that before. That's amazing. But I think it also speaks to your work because, you know, it seems to me like we have habits that come to mind in certain situations that we then honor because they're normal.

So if I'm rushing to an event, The normal habit is get to the event, and it, it dwarfs everything else. I think kindness in the American mind often equates with niceness, which means non-percussiveness, which means non-conflict mindset. It does for me. I mean, that's one of the reasons this kind of stuff comes natural, because I'm sort of a naturally passive person.

So, I'm finding myself at 64 working a little bit on that periphery where kindness might actually mean engagement, even if it's a little uncomfortable. You know, to say to somebody, “No, actually I disagree,” or, “You’ve got to stop doing that.” It's just amazing how, how these big moral questions come down to the decision of a moment or the impulse of a moment or the training of a moment.

[00:09:01] Adam Grant:
I think the distinction you're raising between being nice and being kind is not something we talk about enough. I think that for me, at least, being nice is about making people feel good today. And being kind is often doing what's going to help them do better tomorrow.

[00:09:16] George Saunders:
Yeah.

[00:09:16] Adam Grant:
And those two things do not always go hand in hand.

[00:09:19] George Saunders:
Right. Right. In the Eastern traditions, I think they're kind of ahead of us on this, which is they understand that our teachers can be quite wrathful at times and, you know, they're just trying to get you off the bad track and onto the other one. But it also occurs to me that this whole idea of like, even that, oh, so, so I meet somebody and I think, how can I benefit them long term?

For me, that quickly gets into a sort of arrogance where I'm the one who's going to see what they need and fix them. But it's just a tiny turn of the dial, you know, and some days I can feel like, yeah, I'm there. I'm listening. I'm not being over involved. Maybe my listening is helping and other days I'm like, “I'll tell you what you got to do.” So that, so that's another place where I think this desire to be kind kind of can lead us to a bigger question, which is, well, you know, to what extent can we know what's beneficial? And that's a real tough one, I think.

[00:10:08] Adam Grant:
You’re reminding me of the, the Silicon Valley line where I think it was Gavin Belson says, “I don't want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than I do.”

[00:10:19] George Saunders:
That's really funny.

[00:10:21] Adam Grant:
It’s such a great example of, uh, of benevolent narcissism. But I, I wonder if, if often, you know, people with a white knight complex or sort of a savior mentality are missing out on the fact that you don't have to assume that you're the person who's gonna fix the problem.

All you have to do is, is recognize that everybody has knowledge worth sharing. And I, I guess I've started to think about helpfulness more as, as an act of gift giving. When you give someone else a gift, you're not assuming that you have the, the answer to all their prayers. You're just assuming that you, you know, you have a perspective or an idea or access to a resource that they might appreciate and value.

[00:10:59] George Saunders:
Right.

[00:11:00] Adam Grant:
Um, and I wonder if that shift makes it easier to, to think about a long term contribution to say, “Do I know something or someone that might be a, a useful gift to this person?”

[00:11:09] George Saunders:
Yes. And you know, Adam, that's exactly the mindset that I try to go into when writing something. If you have the, uh, “This story will change everyone's mind and fix things,” that’s going to be a, usually a boring story is what it's because it's a, it's a sermon. You know, I think Lewis Hyde wrote about this in his book called The Gift, you know, the idea that I, I hope I can make an offering to somebody that hits them at the right moment so that it does something even incrementally positive for them.

Just to say humbly, I, you know, uh, “Here’s a joke,” you know, “Here's a small moment that you might like.” That, that seems to me the right idea and it back filtered into the actual method because in the method of writing, what I find is it works best if I can keep my mind very quiet. And so I don't have savior complex.

I'm not thinking about, well, really no thinking about anything except the text in front of me that I've written yesterday, and I'm reading it to see how it strikes me today. And I'm making even the smallest little changes to make myself like it better. That's almost free of intention. It's almost all reaction in real time.

And depending on your mindset, if my mindset is, “I've got to get this thing done,” that’s not pure. That's not pure. If it's, uh, “This has gotta rocket to the top of the best seller list,” that’s not pure. If it's, “I've got to do better than this other writer,” that’s not pure. Any trace of kind of coaching in, in that mind is dangerous because really what I want is the, a pure reaction to what I've written.

So I think there might be an, an analogue into that barista scenario where I'm just trying to keep my mind quiet so I can see what, if anything, is needed and that thing will come out of the part of my mind that isn’t, I guess, ego-based as much as possible. So the thing I've loved about being a writer is it teaches me day after day that there is a mind greater than the one I'm talking to you with right now that actually reliably function, and I can access it. I can access it reliably, and it's smarter than me. Which gives me hope for the other 22 hours of the day.

[00:13:01] Adam Grant:
Well, this, I think this goes to one of my favorite posts that you've written for Story Club, which is about the courage of uncertainty. And how, when you sit down to write, you're not sure that you have something to offer, and you're not always even clear on where the story is going yet, and the difficulty of embracing uncertainty, I think, is amplified in those moments, but it's something we all grapple with. How have you learned to be both patient and, I guess, tolerant in those moments?

[00:13:29] George Saunders:
I think it's just experience, because in that narrow realm of being at the writing desk, I, I've been doing it a long time, and I know that patience is an active virtue, like, like, to not need to decide right now.

We have a story where, uh, it's late in the development, and I know there are six places that are undetermined right now, and that's frustrating. But after all the years, I know that I have to let those six places kind of percolate a little bit. It, it's the one part of my life where I have sufficient experience to, to notice some pretty nuanced things about the way my mind works.

It's kind of weird and thrilling, and I think it's kind of Buddhist actually to be able to say, okay, I’m both the mind that says, “I hope this story is good.” That mind is accessing the subconscious mind that doesn't care. That's just reacting and responding in, intuitively. And there's a third mind that's kind of like the train conductor that's coaching those two minds.

I love to dip my foot into that pond every day a little bit just to remind myself that what's true at the writing table is also true out there. And so what we call George is a multiplicity that's pretty ornery and strange and, and swirling around, and…

[00:14:37] Adam Grant:
As you're describing that, you know, sort of the multiple selves that are active and, and trying to get to the, the pure reaction, I'm thinking of the, the quote that I guess it originally traces back to either Graham Wallas or E. M. Forster or both, which goes, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”

[00:14:54] George Saunders:
Yes.

[00:14:54] Adam Grant:
And one of my teachers, Karl Weick, used to advise us to basically sit down and enact our way into ideas. So, you know, you're staring at a blank page, you wait to see what ideas come, and every once in a while, I find that that's an extremely powerful experience.

And the rest of the time, I feel like a complete idiot afterward. I'm like, “I can't believe I've ever written a word!” And I vow that I'm not going to sit down in front of a computer until I have an idea and I know what I want to say, and then the words flow. And so I, I feel like there's this tension between having clarity and sitting down to write with it. And then using writing as actually a tool for gaining clarity. Um, do you also experience both of those modes and how do you navigate them?

[00:15:37] George Saunders:
Yes. And that's beautifully said. I, I think what, I think the highest level thing is to recognize that both those modes are always switching on and off. I'll get into a mode where I am just reacting, just something's just coming through me, boom.

Then, the next second you go, “Okay, based on that, what's the next thing?” There you're having an idea, you know. So I think for me, the highest level is to go, “Yeah, of course, the mind has many modalities.” My job as the train conductor is to accept them all in turn. And if one is coming when I don't need it, I'm gonna just gently shoo it away.

You know, you can actually do that. You kind of toggle between a very intuitive reactive mind and one that's a little more analytical. That's the highest truth. Now, in a lot of the, the talks that I give, I, I'm emphasizing the intuitive one because I think most people, as they approach writing, overemphasize the analytical, the pre-decided mind, the one that thinks you have to have an idea and then execute it.


The, this idea about finding out what you think by writing, for me, that always involves a lot of iteration, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. And the beautiful side effect of that is, you know, your initial idea can be stupid. I mean, really stupid. It can be intentionally stupid. It can be just, uh, an incoherent phrase.

So that takes all the pressure off that beginning moment. All writers know that moment of “I can't start until I have a good idea because then the end product will suck”, but that's an amazing burden. Have a good idea that will rank you right up there with Dostoevsky. Oh, good luck. You know, that's going to be a long day.

So I think the better thing is to say, “Well, of course, my, uh, early ideas are dumb. Of course they are. That's coming off the top of my head, but I'm going to put it out there.” So the subconscious, that holy thing can mess with it over and over and over and over, and that's the article of faith is that that's not a random process if you let your subconscious and if you have trained your subconscious to look at something, and it always tells us things by way of opinions, small opinions.

That phrase is better than this one. That's actually… that phrase right there that I've loved for three weeks? Actually now that I look at it, it’s false. Cut it out. You cut it out. That makes a little linking place for something else to come in. So that process I think is maybe a, a prolonged version of what we're talking about where we write to find out what we think.

I don't think the initial blurt has much value, in, in, fiction anyway, you know, I've literally just sometimes had a sentence come to me in a kind of a dream state that's a completely meaningless thing. Put it on the page and then start hitting it with the subconscious and over time, over a lot of time. It starts to be something that's coherent, you know, that's very, it's so mysterious.

[00:18:07] Adam Grant:
Like any writer, you've had to face criticism, and I'm curious about how that's evolved over time. So occasionally a critic might tell you that something you produce sucks. Uh, does that still bother you?

[00:18:18] George Saunders:
Oh, yeah.

[00:18:18] Adam Grant:
How have you learned to, to manage that?

[00:18:20] George Saunders:
It still bothers me. And I think at, at heart I'm kind of a stoic, which I think, okay, I'm going to have a lot of thoughts in a day and a lot of inclinations. Let me just honor the ones that I want to honor, that I think will be useful.

So, with criticism, like, and this is a little bit full of shit because I don't always do it, but, but I try to say, “Let the criticism fall on me, and let whatever is going to be helpful stick.” Which it tends to do, and let the rest of it fall away, and I know that it takes some days, like if I get a really harsh one, I'm like, okay. I’m in for three days of refuting this thing. Blah, blah, blah, okay. But then, when the dust settles, sometimes, in a good review, there'll be something that hits you, because it basically came from inside your head.

You know, I had one critic say one time, in a pretty negative review that really was hurtful, and I was really had my dukes up about it, and it said, he said, “Saunders writes better from love than anger,” and I don't even remember who the critic was, but I remember that line, because he was right, you know? And it's helped me many, many times when I thought, “Oh, I'm just gonna launch a broadside against this or that.” That phrase has come out of my head and I thought, “Oh yeah, I could spend my time better in a different way.” Well, what are your thoughts on criticism?

[00:19:24] Adam Grant:
The, the most valuable lesson that I've learned on, on facing criticism has really come from participating in the peer review process as a social scientist, where you get usually three thoughtful experts and then an editor telling you what's wrong with your work and, you know, hopefully pointing you toward ways to make it better.

And, yeah, when I first started writing responses to reviews, they were all rejection letters, and I was trying to fight with them and tell them they were wrong and I was right. And I didn't learn anything from that process. And as I started getting invitations to revise my papers, I realized, okay. My job is not to convince the reviewer that they're wrong and I'm right. It's to create a better version of my work.

One of my mentors, Jane Dutton would say, “You've got to dance with the reviewers. They're leading you in a particular direction and you don't have to follow them on every bid that they make, but you do have to show them that you're willing to dance.” I guess it started to become second nature at some point to say, okay, whatever criticism someone's bringing me, that's an opportunity to sharpen my thinking and get a different reaction the next time, whether it's on an iteration of this project or whether it's on something else I produce. Sort of imagining myself in a dance with the critic is my favorite place to go. And I can't dance. So this is a bad metaphor for me.

[00:20:38] George Saunders:
No, that's beautiful. And you know, I, it always sometimes this idea of, of critiquing your critics is a little bit like when you ask somebody out and they say no, and you try to, you try to negotiate.

Well, you know, what I do, we do workshops. So these really talented writers at Syracuse; we get 700 applications and pick six people to come. So they're incredibly good. And then we have a class where a student puts up an excerpt from a novel or a story, and then we all talk about it in a workshop format. And it's interesting because in that setting, what you can trust is if all six students identify something on page eight, as either great don't touch it, or terrible take it out, you know there's something there. You know that there's some kind of energy there. And I've often said it, the most useful feedback for a writer would be a color chart that is somehow hooked up to the reader's brain, and it prints out green when everything's great, yellow when it's, they're starting to pull out, and red when the energy has been truncated.

And you don't even have to actually articulate what's wrong with it. But it's just a drop in energy that makes you aware that there's an issue. And nine times out of ten, the writer, the writer's subconscious is so far ahead that she's going to know what to do better than any critic will.

[00:21:45] Adam Grant:
It dovetails with something that I've, I've often found myself telling my students, which is that the, the reason that other people can see problems you can't is you're too close to your own work, and they have distance.But that same distance makes them terrible at solving your problem—

[00:22:00] George Saunders:
Uh-huh.

[00:22:00] Adam Grant:
—because they often don't know what other problems they're creating. I guess this is another toggling challenge. To be close enough to your work that you know how to solve problems but far enough away from your work that you can see the problems.

[00:22:11] George Saunders:
That's really a beautiful way of saying it. You know, when I was a younger, uh, teacher, I thought, okay, a student brings me a story. I've got to take it from wherever it is to 11 so that they can publish it, which may have meant a lot of covering the page with notes, but conversely, not much they could actually use. So as I become more experienced, I'm like, okay, if I could say one thing that helps the writer get to, from draft 11 to draft 12, that's really valuable. You know, no one can foresee where this work of fiction is going in a year. You know, with all the iteration.

[00:22:45] Adam Grant:
You really are guiding them to chart their own path. As, as opposed to telling them, “Here's exactly the, the set of steps that you need to follow.”

I wonder if you have guidance on this distancing skill. I think one of the things that, that I see a lot with all kinds of creators, not just writers, is that they over identify with their work. And they think that somebody's criticizing them. I always want to tell people, “No, that's just a critique of something you produced. You created it, but it's not you.”

[00:23:11] George Saunders:
I think that's something I, I have to work on myself all the time. I mean, the process of revising really helps with that. When I sit down to work later today, I'm gonna read something, I'm gonna mark it up. From whence is that marking up coming? It was perfect yesterday.

So, there is something out there that's helping us. It, it, it’s sort of a daily practice in getting some distance between you and your work because the work that right now is sitting over here on my left hand side perfect, is gonna prove itself to be imperfect in about an hour. And it's so powerful, because then, if you say the work is something that is delivered unto me, you know, by some force that is not me. Boy, you're open as can be. You know, you, you just want it to be better.

I do a lot of work with Deborah Treisman at the New Yorker, and one of the things that she does so magical as an editor is her edits always seem to come from that place. It's never any sense of anything but disinterested love of the piece at hand and the desire to make it its best self. And when, and so many times when I get her edits, she serves the function of saying, “Okay, George, if you weren't so close to this, you would see that this is actually your intention,” and to read those and just go, “Oh, shoo,” like a sigh of relief. Somebody caught it. That's really kind of wonderful.

I always tell my students that it’s, a work of fiction is kind of like it's perfect somewhere, like in your subconscious. It’s a perfect sheet of glass, so beautiful. Then in trying to tell it, you drop it. And it hits the ground and it shatters. Now, revi-revising is the process of putting it back together. So that means you have to be really patient. And you have to look for the connections.

[00:24:45] Adam Grant:
You just used a phrase that I think is an incredibly powerful seeming oxymoron, uh, which is disinterested love.

[00:24:51] George Saunders:
Hm.

[00:24:51] Adam Grant:
Tell me a little more about that.

[00:24:54] George Saunders:
It's that you have high hopes for the story, or the kid, or the student. You recognize that your emotions are creating a haze through which you can't see. So, you love it because you have the highest hopes in for it and faith in it, but you have to preserve a, an attitude of disinterest so you can actually see what it is so you can guide it. For me, emotion... Attachment to, to one's work, even ambition can be fog producers, you know? The, they stop you from seeing what's actually on the page because if I want this piece, for example, to be published this month, I, I’m not going to accept certain defects.

I have to ignore them. I have to deny them. And denial energy is something in writing that's really dangerous. There's a great Chicago writer named Stuart Dybek, and h-he always says, “The story is always talking to you, but you got to learn to listen to it.” You know, so if you have denial or you have an agenda, that energy is totally designed to help you not listen to your own story or, you know, your own partner or your own kid or your own colleague.

If you know the way you want things to turn out, and someone throws a complication at you, there's a pretty natural tendency to go, “No, no, no, we already dealt with that,” or, “That’s not relevant,” or, “I can't hear you right now.” And then, you're not in direct contact with the thing that you're doing anymore.

[00:26:15] Adam Grant:
This is, this is such a great paradox that the, the very attentional filters that we raise to stay productive also keep out our best and most creative ideas.

[00:26:26] George Saunders:
So it’s tricky. I mean, writing, it, it’s really so much about the mind state before you start. You know, when you sit in front of a blank page or computer. The mind is already leaning in a certain direction. It sort of has a, I guess, an acquired idea of what it should be like in order to soon start writing.

But I think that idea of where your habits are, they're certainly pre-verbal, I would think, right? Even in a quiet mind, I think there are habits floating around, you know? So that's pretty deep stuff.

[00:26:58] Adam Grant:
Well, this is a good segue to the lightning round. So, I have a, a series of rapid questions, uh, looking for a word or a sentence. You can skip if you like. Are you ready?

[00:27:09] George Saunders:
I’m ready.

[00:27:10] Adam Grant:
Okay, first question. What's a book we should all read?

[00:27:14] George Saunders:
Resurrection by Tolstoy.

[00:27:17] Adam Grant:
Is there something you've rethought lately?

[00:27:18] George Saunders:
My passivity. My habitual agreeability.

[00:27:24] Adam Grant:
George, what’s the, the worst piece of writing advice you've ever gotten?

[00:27:28] George Saunders:
You know, I don't think I've ever gotten a bad piece of writing advice. I, because even the bad ones, you go, “Bullshit.” I heard a story once, a teacher, a visiting writer came in to teach a class, and she was very full of this kind of, uh, dictatorial, you may not, you should not, you cannot, or you can't start a sentence with the proper noun, blah blah. And the students were so unhappy about it, and they complained, and the, they were in this pitch battle the whole semester. The next semester, the students reported that actually they had a quantum leap in growth just from the process of opposing all that quote-unquote “bad advice”.

So I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but she solidified their actual beliefs because she, she forced them into a corner, you know? So I'm not, I can't really think of a piece of bad writing advice really.

[00:28:16] Adam Grant:
What do you think is more important? The beginning of the end of the story?

[00:28:19] George Saunders:
The end.

[00:28:19] Adam Grant:
Good. I'm glad to hear that.

[00:28:21] George Saunders:
Yeah.

[00:28:21] Adam Grant:
Briefly, why do you think the end matters more?

[00:28:22] George Saunders:
Well, I mean, on a practical level, it's because the ending is actually bringing the beginning home. They’re, they’re really the same thing, but the end just happens—in linear time—later. When you're saying, “Is that a good story?” your opinion is heavily weighted to the last page.

You know, how did it send me out into the world? How did, but that makes sense because you're saying, how did the story justify itself? How did the story make the case that all along it was an organic system? You know, a highly functioning machine. If the ending doesn't work, then the beginning doesn't work either. It’s the whole thing doesn't work.

[00:28:54] Adam Grant:
Given that you have mastered the short story, is it really t-true that it takes longer to write a shorter letter?

[00:29:01] George Saunders:
Yes. Well, to write a shorter good letter, you can write a shorter crummy one pretty quick, but no, it's really true because the, um, to, to, to take a thought down to its essence is also to get closer to the truth. Which then makes more problems for you because you've just said a truth that maybe you didn't intend to say in that short letter. So I, I think that's absolutely, absolutely true. Yeah.

[00:29:24] Adam Grant:
What's a question you have for me as a psychologist?

[00:29:27] George Saunders:
Well, I, okay, here's what I'd like to know. One of the, the difficulties with writing is that there are all kinds of habits that are hard won. I've learned to write a story a certain way by trying and trying and trying and getting it. How then, at this late stage, does one mechanically strip away those habits and see what else there might be? Are there ways to sort of challenge one's existing mindset when approaching a task?

[00:29:56] Adam Grant:
I never thought about framing it this way, but this was very much what I was trying to explore in, in my last book, Think Again. And I think the biggest thing I took away from all that research was that it's helpful for all of us to think a little bit more like scientists and say, okay, as a writer, if my opening move is a hypothesis, there are alternative hypotheses I haven't tested yet, and I need to figure out what those are so that I can then run experiments with them.

What's been most helpful for me to, I guess, to break form, um, is to really internalize the styles of other people that I admire and say, okay, you know, like if I were to sit down and try to, y’know, mix up or shake up my writing style, I would start by asking: how would George Saunders write this story? How would Margaret Atwood tell this story? Um, and even, like, how would Stephenie Meyer tell this story? Uh, you know, really just to try to bend styles and genres quite a bit. And so, I wonder if actually internalizing other people's moves is a way to get out of your own.

[00:30:53] George Saunders:
Something I've told my students is, you know, you're actually trying to kill the father. So if you love Hemingway, you do your best to master Hemingway. Someday you're going to find out that you're always going to be a couple of feet below him, you know, because he, he pioneered it and then you say, “Okay, Ernest, what do I know about life that you don’t?” Meaning where, you know, when I'm reading your work closely, where do I feel the slightest tug of resistance that you're leaving something out that's real to me?

That’s kind of where a person's originality is often centered. I mean, most of us, you know, we love our, the writer, a certain writer, and we don't want to disrespect that writer. But there is that moment when you're allowed to, to say, okay, be really frank here. If you could have Hemingway in the room, what would you chew him out about? You know, what did he miss about your life?

[00:31:37] Adam Grant:
This is such a fun experiment to run to not only internalize the styles of different role models, but also to ask yourself, well, what fight would I pick with each of them?

[00:31:45] George Saunders:
We can get better at discerning our micro opinions. These very tiny resistances that we have when, for example, reading a work or listening to someone or being in a conversation, those little tiny moments when we slightly fall out of agreement, those are really valuable.

And in my work, when I find one of those, I really say, “Oh, good,” because if my feeling of liking the work has gone from an 8 to a 4, then that 4 is a place with a TBD sign on it. Like, okay, some, this story is waiting to tell me something really important, but it's not ready yet. It's shy. And it's shy because I'm only on draft 80. And if I keep working on it, eventually at draft 106, that moment will want to reveal itself to me.

[00:32:29] Adam Grant:
You have written that fiction writing is the practice of coming to despise nobody. Why and how?

[00:32:36] George Saunders:
You have a character. And the character has to do something bad, you know. Your job, first of all, it has nothing to do with empathy.It has to do with function. I've got to make Adam believe that this bad guy is real. I've got to put this bad guy in three dimensions. And weirdly, what I found is that if I work on making that language interesting and energetic and fun and, and make it come to life, that is exactly equal to increased sympathy or empathy.

[00:33:06] Adam Grant:
So, maybe, maybe trying to channel a little bit of that lens. What would you say to the, the parents and politicians who are currently trying to ban books and are busy attacking librarians?

[00:33:18] George Saunders:
I would just make a strong argument for the idea that ideas are not scary. If we are good readers, if we train ourselves to be good analytical critics, no idea is scary. And even the worst ideas aren't scary because we can collapse them with close reading. And I would make the case that if they want to protect their kids, you have to teach them close reading because then, like, that's a superpower. No bad idea can get into your head if you're a good analytical reader, you absolutely have, have fail safe defenses.

Whereas if you take away the scary books or the books, the books that you don't agree with, your child has been left with no perimeter. Any idea can come in there and knock them in the head and they go, “Oh, that sounds good.” Whereas if you’re someone who's trained to read analytically, you've got a perpetually alert guard at the gate.

You don't want your kid to go into the world unprepared. So for sure, expose them to stupid ideas. And you talk about Lincoln and all, all the founding fathers. They had an innate trust in our ability to analyze and deflect bad ideas. That's the whole. That's the whole program. So this move is actually profoundly anti-democratic because it's gonna make us stupider and it's gonna make us afraid.

Also, I would just point out to them in my gentle jocular way that about 70 or 80 percent of the books that are being banned or made more difficult to get involve people of color and LGBTQ people. Is that random? You know, and then I would finally say, “How many of those books have you actually read?” And the answer is gonna be none.

So then we conclude you're banning them on the basis of content, and you're making a very important artistic mistake because form and content can't be separated. At which point they would say, “George, you know what? You're right. You are right.” That’s how that would go.

[00:35:06] Adam Grant:
Okay. I think the conversation would play out exactly as you've scripted it.

[00:35:09] George Saunders:
I think so. I, you know.

[00:35:10] Adam Grant:
No, I think, I mean, in some, in some ways, for me, the most compelling point is, is that engaging with uncomfortable ideas is how we develop critical thinking skills.

[00:35:21] George Saunders:
You said it much more succinctly, but 100%. That's it. And you're, you know, you're really vulnerable if you don't develop that skill. You're just like afraid of everything. Any idea that comes in that seems scary, you have to run away from it or destroy it, you know, and that's really dangerous.

[00:35:36] Adam Grant:
So where do you stand on AI?

[00:35:38] George Saunders:
I, I think the job of the fiction writer is very safe as long as people are good readers. When I turn to Chekhov, for example, I really want the guy in the baggy pants who walked around Russia talking to people, and I want that sensibility so inflected with actual experience.

And when he writes a story that seems to contain wisdom, it’s coming from that guy. Can AI walk around the world experiencing things? It can't. I, I think in fiction, in fiction terms, it could probably come pretty close to sounding like someone who has, but that's profoundly different. It's always going to be less. The bigger danger, I think, is that the people who are creating AI, I think, are not being very mindful about why they're doing it in, in terms of the creative arts.

And I think to me, it's part of a bigger thing, which is that the people who are now somehow financially in charge of producing art seem to be somewhat out of touch with how that's actually done and what it’s higher aspirations should be. And that's, that's a problem I, I definitely have my eye on.

[00:36:40] Adam Grant:
George, this has been such a delight. You are, um, exactly the wise, humble person you present yourself as in all of your writing, which is, uh, not always the case, as you well know.

[00:36:51] George Saunders:
Well, well, thank you. I've loved being with you and I could, I could feel like I could talk to you for hours.

[00:36:59] Adam Grant:
I'm left reflecting on our discussion of kindness. We have to be careful that we're not so focused on giving a good Samaritan speech that we forget to be good Samaritans. If our scarcest resources are time and attention, then there's no greater act of generosity than giving our time and attention to others.

Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant, and produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our team includes Colin Helms, Eliza Smith, Jacob Winik, Aja Simpson, Samiah Adams, Michelle Quint, Banban Cheng, Hannah Kingsley-Ma, Julia Dickerson, and Whitney Pennington Rodgers. This episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard.

Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansdale Hsu and Allison Leyton-Brown.
All right, down with the people pleasing.

[00:37:45] George Saunders:
Yes. No, no, Adam, no. That's not correct. That's not what I mean.

[00:37:51] Adam Grant:
You’re growing red here, right now.

[00:37:51] George Saunders:
You're over the line.

[00:37:52] Adam Grant:
It just happened. Success. It’s a milestone for today.

[00:37:53] George Saunders:
Now I'm just a grouchy old turd.