Richard Ford DIRTY REALISM

DIRTY REALISM
Ford strives for realism in his writing and most of the time it’s dirty. He makes unfavorable comments, gives his thoughts, and critiques American society but he’s being truthful. His novels and short stories are portals for his commentary on subjects that irk him, like any writer. But Ford’s are harder subjects to tackle. They present themselves in a very grey light. I’m reminded of Michael Winter talking about describing the darkness of the night by describing the light of a cigarette. The vastness of something can only be explained piece by piece. Ford wants to find a real natural place for his characters and readers to exist.
(about setting scene’s in cars)
“There is a way in which T think about writing novels having to do with where they take place in which you just simply look around you. I’m a realistic novelist. I’m trying to find places that are plausible for events to occur and relationships to go forward and you look around and you see a lot of people doing a lot of things in cars so it seems perfectly natural and not weird at all.”
He also speaks about the harshness of the human condition. He finds it hard to come up with completely original, horrible things to happen to his character but he writes them anyways.
“The truth about novels is you cannot keep up with reality. There’s nothing you can dream up or nightmarishly realize in the night and write down on a piece of paper that isn’t happening somewhere.”

Ford speaks on writing as a craft as well. He says that a good way to be natural and have eb and flow to your writing is to involve things that don’t make sense. Unexplained things. And that since you are a writer you will be able to sort it all out in the end. “Put things that don’t make sense in and then use your ability as a novelist to make them make sense.”
He goes on to talk about intention and how things from his life get into his writing and how his writing get into his life. He humorously talks about accidents and intentions and how writers don’t make accidents.
“Ff your a novelist everything you do you do intentionally. You don’t do anything by accident. At least after doing it by accident you have to finally take credit for doing it by accident and then it’s part of your intention.”