In “How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore, the question of how one becomes a writer in her eyes is present. She starts her story off by having us picture a scenario. “First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star / astronaut. A movie star / missionary. A movie star / kindergarten teacher. President of the World.” She then uses this to state her point. “Fail miserably. It’s best if you fail at an early age -- say, fourteen.” This sentence she uses here is what starts her entire story, talking about what is assumed to be her life and all of her experiences with not only just growing up but also all of the times in her life that she failed as well. However, she takes her life experiences and puts them into second person so that we become part of the experiences like they’re our own.
The way that Lorrie Moore writes in this story is very interesting. She writes in, as was mentioned before, second person, putting us as the main character into her own experiences instead. She does this to portray the feeling of the failure that she felt and went through, and also to portray her shift from wanting to go into a child psychology to becoming a writer instead. She uses a lot of metaphors and similes and she also uses some very intricate language. Her use of her experiences is an interesting way to give the feeling of the failures along with a lot of other different emotions as well.
This entire story itself couldn’t be used to help me in my stories in any way; however, her idea of failure is okay and failure is the thing that will help you get to your goals and your biggest want in your life is something that is definitely memorable. I feel that remembering this is important when it comes to story writing or just anything in general. Failure is okay. Failure is part of life. Failure is better than not trying at all. I actually do like to follow this motto and so I think it’s important, especially when writing, because sometimes you can make stories that make absolutely no sense to anyone but it makes sense to you, but then the next moment you can make a masterpiece.