When Will You Make an End of It…?

By on October 25, 2010 ·
Sisyphus, 1920
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…When I am finished, of course. 

When you start delving into the process of writing you’ll very quickly find some famous writer who talks about not being in control of his story.  The story tells them what to do.  Maybe they just start writing with no idea what’s going to happen or how it will end.  Maybe the characters start doing and saying things that surprise the author.  Someone who doesn’t write or even a beginning writer could be forgiven for thinking that’s a lot of crap.  I mean after all, how could you not know?  You’re the only one in there, hunched and muttering over your keyboard.  You made up the characters and the world they inhabit.  How could you not know? 

Well on some level, a little below consciousness perhaps, I’m sure you do know.  But when you have that first experience of the Muse (or whatever) taking over it’s pretty fun.  Weird, a little creepy even, but fun.  It feels like you’re really tapping into that Storytelling juice and it makes you feel like a real writer.  It’s not all in the plus column though.  If the story controls you and tells you what to do, you have to listen to it.  Even if you don’t agree with it. 

I’ve been working on what I though was a simple little short adventure story for…like…ever man.  I write every day (pretty much) and it feels like I’m getting somewhere but it keeps not being done.  Every two weeks I meet with my writers group and I say, “I’m almost done.  Should have it next time.”  Eventually they just give you Looks.  You can’t quantify it either.  First it’s 80% done.  Then 90%.  95%.  97.5%.   98.789%.  I could even live with 99%.  That would be close enough that I would just lie and say I’m done.  Ah, well.  As problems go I guess it’s better than writer’s block. 

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“Try to See It My Way” (Writers and Negative Capability)

By on October 13, 2010 ·
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 22: Portraits of poet ...
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“The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own.” —Leo Stein, American art collector and critic

In an 1817 letter to a friend, the poet John Keats describes one of the qualities that makes writers like Shakespeare so great: negative capability. Keats defines this trait as “…when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” In other words, this is the ability to sublimate one’s own individual assumptions about the world and write about uncertain (or potentially polarizing) topics in such a way that the author’s own views remain unknown. It is also the recognition that there are often grey areas in life which cannot be resolved through rational means. This requires an extraordinary degree of objectivity, and it’s much harder than it seems.

To enter into the mind of other people (or things) and speak from their point of view is an essential goal for writers, and certainly Keats demonstrates this skill in “Ode to a Nightingale,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” and “Ode On a Grecian Urn.” Often some of the most engaging literary works are those where there is no clear side taken on contentious issues (such as the free will versus predestination dichotomy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex). But the question is, how can writers break free from their own personal perceptions and approach subjects from a more objective point of view? Consider these strategies:

1. Read writers who are good at negative capability. I’ve mentioned Keats, Shakespeare, and Sophocles. But there are plenty of other notable authors, such as Emily Dickenson, William Wordsworth, Anne Rice, Walt Whitman, and John Updike.

2. Learn to view situations from other people’s perspectives. Imagine not what you would do if you were facing their circumstances, but rather think about what they would do and why.

3. Step into the unknown. Force yourself to write about subjects or situations you are uncomfortable with (or know little about).

4. Write in a new genre. Tell a familiar tale in a different format. For example, if you normally write short stories, turn your narrative into a poem (or vice versa). Or you could try turning a poem into a screenplay (or vice versa). Different literary conventions require different sensibilities, and this can lead to breakthroughs in our perceptions of subjects.

One of the joys of reading is having the opportunity to experience situations from someone else’s perspective. To do this convincingly, writers must learn to put aside their own ideas about the world and imagine alternative possibilities. This is terra incognita for many people, but by embracing this approach, you may discover new avenues of creative potential.

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Who Is My Audience?

By on September 29, 2010 ·
Mark Twain photo portrait.
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Mark Twain claimed that, before he ever published a book, he would “always read the manuscript to a private group of friends, composed as follows:

1. Man and a woman with no sense of humor.

2. Man and a woman with a medium sense of humor.

3. Man and a woman with prodigious sense of humor.

4. An intensely practical person.

5. A sentimental person.

6. Person who must have a moral in, and a purpose.

7. Hypercritical person—natural flaw-picker and fault-finder.

8. Enthusiast—person who enjoys anything and everything, almost.

9. Person who watches others, and applauds or condemns with the majority.

10. Half a dozen bright young girls and boys, unclassified.

11. Person who relishes slang and familiar flippancy.

12. Person who detests them.

13. Person of evenly-balanced judicial mind.

14. Man who always goes to sleep.

“These people represent the general public. Their verdict is the sure forecast of the verdict of the general public. There is not a person among them whose opinion is not valuable to me; but the man whom I most depend upon—the man whom I watch with the deepest solicitude—the man does most toward deciding me as to whether I shall publish the book or burn it, is the man who always goes to sleep. If he drops off within fifteen minutes, I burn the book; if he keeps awake three-quarters of an hour, I publish—and I publish with the greatest confidence, too. For the intent of my works is to entertain; and by making this man comfortable on a sofa and timing him, I can tell within a shade or two what degree of success I am going to achieve” (from Who Is Mark Twain?)

Who is our audience? While the notion of “art for art’s sake” certainly has its place, at some point writers must ask themselves what they really hope to accomplish by putting words on paper. If you’re writing fiction (be it a potboiler or more serious “literary fiction”), the story had better be engaging, otherwise you’ll likely lose your readers before you’ve begun.

The same is true for non-fiction. Although the purpose of your writing could be simply telling a true story or providing information, there are effective and ineffective ways of doing this. Historical writing, for example, often lands somewhere on the extremes of the audience-engagement spectrum: either it’s a compelling narrative that breathes life into figures from the past, or it’s as dead as Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones.

So remember Twain’s analogy, and no matter what we are writing, let’s all try to keep that drowsy fellow on the sofa awake.

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“Our doubts are traitors…” Measure for Measure (I.iv.77)

By on August 11, 2010 ·
First edition cover
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In his collection of journals entitled Confessions of a Barbarian, the twenty-five-year-old Edward Abbey ponders the progress he is making on his first novel:

“The novel, my terrible novel, will drive me to ruin…A frightful labor!

“And the worth of it, the quality—the problem worries me night and day. At times I’m afraid to read what I’ve written, almost superstitiously afraid—and then at other times I do work up enough courage to hastily read snatches chosen at random. The effects are mixed—parts of the book seem hilariously funny, beautifully written, packed and quivering with life. And then I’ll read the same passage again, or another, and it will seem dead as junkyard iron, pretentious and false, weak, thin, spineless, empty and hideous.

“Who is right? The critic or the author? I swing constantly, if erratically, between power and confidence, and antipodal despair; between surges of triumph when I look at myself grinning at me in the mirror and can say, “Abbey, oh Abbey, you monstrously clever fellow,” and dank gloom of dark defeat, convinced of failure, crushed by doubt…”

I think all writers can empathize with these sentiments, regardless of their inherent abilities or levels of success. Writing is a lonely business, and when we are “in the zone” and experiencing the sweet rush of creativity, nothing seems impossible. But of course, those rushes don’t last forever, and at some point we go back and reread what we’ve written and wonder if what we’ve crafted is really any good at all. “I’m a hack!” we say. “A fraud! Why would anybody want to read this?”

On the one hand, it’s comforting to know that a gifted and respected wordsmith like Ed Abbey experienced the same ups and downs the rest of us do. For most of us, it is a natural part of the creative process. Yet this knowledge does little to shake off our self-doubts.

Speaking personally, I’ve found that being part of a writing group does wonders to keep my creative fires burning. Part of this is the accountability it affords, but more importantly, the honest and encouraging feedback my group provides is enormously helpful in pushing me through the “desert moments” of the creative process.

What about you? How do you combat the struggles and doubts that come with writing?

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Reading Like a Writer

By on June 25, 2010 ·
Francine Prose by David Shankbone
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Can creative writing be taught? It’s a loaded question, and one which Francine Prose, the author of the 2006 book Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, tackles in the opening passages. Given the popularity of creative writing programs across the country, it would seem heretical to answer “no.” Ms. Prose herself has led plenty of such workshops, and as she notes, “A workshop can be useful. A good teacher can show you how to edit your work. The right class can form the basis of a community that will help and sustain you. But that class, as helpful as it is, was not where I learned to write. Like most, maybe all, writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, from books.”

Thus, the central premise of Prose’s book is the notion that writers learn to refine their craft by paying close attention to what good writers do in their work. As she states, “This book is intended partly as a response to that unavoidable question about how writers learn to do something that cannot be taught. What writers know is that, ultimately, we learn to write by practice, hard work, by repeated trial and error, success and failure, and from the books we admire.”

Prose examines the subject of good writing by focusing on the following topics: Close Reading, Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, Narration, Character, Dialogue, Details, and Gesture. She also includes three additional chapters entitled “Learning from Chekov,” “Reading for Courage,” and “Books to Be Read Immediately.” (After all, how could she write a book about learning from the masters without including a list of illuminating books?)

What I find most useful about Reading Like a Writer is the quality and scope of the examples she draws from to illustrate her points. The passages range from Flannery O’Connor and Katherine Mansfield to Samuel Johnson and Henry Green. This is not a book which will teach the fast track to literary success or how to create a marketable plot, but for people seeking to bolster the quality of their writing, it is well worth a look.

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