How Cormac McCarthy Created Characters

[@MisterSifuentes]

My version of Joe Rogan's, "Have you tried Ayahuasca?" Is, "Have you read Blood Meridian?".

[@WriteConscious]

lmao

[@QueensWino]

Totally cracked up when you did the "Ooo I'm channeling" routine...how mystical!🤣

[@oldtimejustin7131]

Great stuff man! I’m blown away by how knowledgeable you are about McCarthy’s writings and process. Increasingly interesting.

[@WriteConscious]

Thanks brotha!

[@keithhill4044]

Hey man! So something just popped up in my mind, that being a video idea. I found myself curious as to what Cormac mcarthy studied later in life...like we know about how he was interested in physics and other things. But with thst being said what specificly? What did McCarthy study the last few years of his life and likewise what were his interests? Which leads to the big question do you think he had any grand book ideas in his head later in life? That he wished he could of written?

[@WriteConscious]

Will look into it!

[@alexbenz370]

Yeeeeeeesssss

[@QuietExplorations]

Duuuuude thanks! Edit: I think you're right about his process. In fact, it seems to mirror many writers when they were young. Consider Hemingway, who usually wrote about his experiences and folks that he knew but fictionalized them. Likewise, as far as I know, with someone like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Same too with Tim O'Brien's earliest works. It seems that these guys sharpened their skills by using what they knew and transmuting it through a fictional lens. Then, when they became more comfortable, they were able to write more subconsciously. In truth, the process is so different for all writers. This was Cormac's way. I find it so fascinating as someone working on my first novel.

[@WriteConscious]

Good luck on the novel!

[@heyall3914]

Thank you for the Cormac McCarthy breakdown. Interesting and unique content.

[@camronbitzer3159]

Wonderful class. Thank you!!

[@WriteConscious]

No worries!!

[@fireball43]

Have you checked out S. Craig Zahler’s western novels? He rated Blood Meridian very low on Goodreads. Great filmmmaker!

[@WriteConscious]

Here is some unwarranted commentary on why i think he gave BM a low rating lol. I have read "Wraiths of a Broken Land" and I thought it was good. But, I think Zahler is just jealous that McCarthy is a way better writer than him... Or he is biased and thinks everything needs to be about pure entertainment. He is from Miami, went to school in NYC, and lives in NYC lmao. He is a creating formulaic westerns from the outside. Zahler is forced to make his works action heavy because his sentence structure and prose is garbage. His work reads fine, but I would bet the house his editors did a massive amount of revisions on his novel (which is fine! His finished products are great and that's what matters.) Cormac can write a book without a plot and make it beautiful. With Cormac's work its 99% him and 1% the editor (even less for his later works.) And once again, I think it's much harder for art students still living in NYC to grasp what is actually happening out here in the southwest.

[@fireball43]

@@WriteConscious I think it’s ultimately about jealousy, but I think he’ll always find good reasons to justify himself. Besides that, I wish he would just focus on making his films better. I feel like he wants to come off as a renaissance man, working on music, books, comics, scripts, films, but it seems he needs to really focus on getting a great movie out there because he’s been in the industry forever and it doesn’t seem he’ll ever break into the mainstream.

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

Really, I do wish he had given his characters at least a teensy bit more interiority than he did. Other than No Country for Old Men and The Passenger, I found the characters in his books to be largely opaque. I get that he was probably going for the iceberg thing, but I do think at least a little bit more emotionality wouldn't have hurt. On another note though, what you said about Child of God really explains a lot. That makes a lot of sense if he just started writing that story after reading a headline or something. That book is way less inspired than any of his others.

[@WriteConscious]

It was also double not inspired because random parts of the story are random parts of Outer Dark that didn't make the cut.

[@pseudonymman9382]

Is there anywhere I can see the forst draft of any of his novels ? it would be truly fascinating. Thanks for any help you can give, Just discovered your channel and its brilliant

[@WriteConscious]

Archvie in San Marcos Texas

[@pseudonymman9382]

@@WriteConscious No can't find unless you pay ...no matter. New it was a long shot

[@ryanmahler5418]

Have you looked into Thomas Mayne Reid's The Scalp Hunters? From 1851, it's on project gutenberg. This is the first paragraph. Unroll the world’s map, and look upon the great northern continent of America. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun, away beyond many a far meridian, let your eyes wander. Rest them where golden rivers rise among peaks that carry the eternal snow. Rest them there.

[@WriteConscious]

Yes, I will talk about it soon!

[@TheHundredHeads]

How would you reflect on the exterior, secondary characters in outer dark? His style makes it difficult to do women, because the dependence on action lends itself to the masculine. I don’t think characterisation in the typical sense is a strength of McCarthy’s early work. As you get down to the minor characters they are often not well drawn. Unless they play a significant role in the plot they aren’t memorable as personalities.

[@WriteConscious]

Maybe if we take the nightmare or dream framing they're just the NPCs in dreams!

[@ca-fletcher]

Please never stop making these videos - if you ever run out of material from McCarthy, go to Wallace's archives

[@WriteConscious]

Never will!

[@erjondividi5303]

the problem in McCarthy's novels is that he tries to force subtext too much. doing that his writing has many flaws.