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A Completely Idiosyncratic, Slightly Off-Beat, Not Necessarily Original but Potentially Helpful Collection of Writing Advice
~or~A Few Tips about Writing I’ve Picked up along the Way
Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.To my mind, there is no system more complex—or more beautiful, intriguing, and beguiling—than our system(s) of language. Through the years, I have gathered a few little gems that I have taken to heart, made my own. What follows (in no particular order) is not formal advice; it is, perhaps, a revealing portrait of my own mind—but these scraps of writing wisdom, quilted together, inform my own writing practice, so I thought I’d share them with you. The point, of course, is not to ask you to adopt my criteria, but to inspire you to gather your own.
~Margaret J. Wheatley
1. The better you understand the rules, the more liberated you are from them. This is a variant of the “you gotta know a rule before you can break it” philosophy, and there is something to it—making the conscientious decision to break/disregard a writing rule or to utilize a particular figure ‘reads’ very differently than haplessly stumbling onto something. Learn the conventions. Write with purpose. Break the rules with purpose. Make writing decisions, and be able to back them up. Doing so will give you confidence and will give your writing presence.
1 ½ . And yet . . . welcome, embrace those ‘happy accidents.’
Maybe it is your subconscious at work or maybe it is just serendipity, but every so often, despite one’s best intentions, a word comes out not as we intended . . . but so much better. Rule 1 ¾: Read your work aloud: sometimes what you say differs from what you wrote . . . and it is much, much stronger. A simple detail can change the efficacy of entire piece of writing.
2. Heed this gruesome advice: murder your darlings.
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch penned this little gem in 1914, and it has since been picked up by Faulkner (as “kill your darlings”), Mark Twain (allegedly), and countless creative writing instructors. Writing is sometimes about tough decisions; ‘cutting the fat,’ or culling your hard work may be the toughest of them all, but it is often the right thing to do. The moment we become enamored of our own brilliance, we have lost our objective edge. Take one for the team, and all that . . . very noble, very valuable.
3. Eschew Obfuscation.
Huh? Exactly. This is an oldie but a goodie from the classic Elements of Style by Strunk and White (originally published in 1919):
Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able. [. . .] In this, as in so many matters pertaining to style, one’s ear must be one’s guide: gut is a lustier noun than intestine, but the two words are not interchangeable, because gut is often inappropriate, being too coarse for the context. Never call a stomach a tummy without good reason (76-77).
4. To know and know well: the nature of the sentence and the power of strong verbs.
To my mind, sentences and verbs are the DNA of writing—stunning in their simplicity, awe-inspiring in their logical complexity and potential. If one can master not only the grammatical types of sentences (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex) but also stylistic forms or modes (i.e. the periodic and the final free modifier) AND if one can come to understand the inherent power of verbs and their role in the internal logic of the sentence, then one can create life . . . on the page.
5. Appreciate the marriage of sound and sense.
There is a reason Plato banned the poets from his utopia: language is inherently musical and music is mesmerizing, persuasive. Pay attention to how language works, what it does, how it sounds—not just what it means. As the poet Edward Hirsh observed in How to Read a Poem an Fall in Love with Poetry, “writing fixes the evanescence of sound”— what an extraordinary phenomenon. Never underestimate the power of the auditory imagination.
6. Grammar is a part of language . . . and it can be fun (like a puzzle).
Consider Joan Didion’s argument for grammar: “All I know about grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.” Details make all the difference (i.e. ‘the devil is in the details’), and grammar represents one of the most nuanced, most influential, subclasses of ‘details.’ When it works, it supports and defines your writing; when it is flawed, it is distracting, like white noise or static.
7. Read!
From Richard Hugo: “a writer learns from reading possibilities of technique, ways of execution, phrasing, rhythm, tonality, pace” (The Triggering Town, xi). Read what you like, what you admire. Read the work you wish you had written. Don’t imitate, per se, but come to understand the nuances, the culture, of your favorite (or most serviceable) form or genre.
8. Don’t be lazy.
Rhetorical questions try to be provocative without taking the time to craft an appeal . . . lazy. As Hugo notes, “If you can answer the question, to ask it is a waste of time.” Other ways to be lazy: relying on clichés, drawing on ‘canned’ arguments, using gratuitous slang. The choices you make affect your ethos—choose wisely.
9. Always consider ethics.
Language can be incredibly powerful, and there is an inherent trust between writer and reader that must be honored. To paraphrase Andrea Lunsford, language use must be principled, accurate, and fair.
10. Learning opportunities present themselves in unexpected places and ways.
I learned much of what I know about rhetoric I learned from poetry. Much of what I know about poetry I learned from . . . sports. My writing education is informed by what I learned in chemistry and pre-med (consider the beauty and extraordinary grace of molecular geometry). With that in mind . . . a few favorite, random (but nonetheless valuable) quotations (some about writing, some not) that guide my writing:
An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.
~F.Scott Fitzgerald
Make your own kind of music.
Sing your own special song.
Make your own kind of music—
Even if nobody else sings along.
~ ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot, 1969
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector.
~Earnest Hemingway, The Paris Review
PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER—itty bitty living space.
~Robin Williams
as ‘Genie’ in Walt Disney’s Aladdin
To write [. . .] you must have a streak of arrogance—not in real life I hope. In real life try to be nice.
~Richard Hugo
The language is perpetually in flux: it is a living stream, shifting, changing, receiving new strength from a thousand tributaries, losing old forms in the backwaters of time.
~Strunk and White
You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.
~Robert Frost
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
~E.L. Doctorow
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightening and the lightening bug.
~Mark Twain
Verse forms do not define poetic forms: they simply express it. It is an important distinction. For many people what is off-putting about poetic form is the belief, sometimes based on an unlucky class or exam, that these are cold and arbitrary rules, imposed to close out readers rather than include them. [. . .] poetic form is not abstract, but human. [. . . ] This is the charm and power of poetic form. It is not imposed; it is rooted.
~Mark Strand, The Making of a Poem
The poet may legitimately step out into the universal only by first going through the narrow door of the particular.
~Cleanth Brooks, Irony as a Principle of Structure
And now for a bonus rule, one that is perhaps my favorite . . .
Embrace your own weirdness.
I believe this, too, comes from Hugo, but I first learned it at the feet of my first true mentor, the poet and professor Dr. Jonathan Johnson. What does it mean? Well, my friends, that's the point: that's for you to decide, as only you can.
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Okay, so that's my list of 'rules.' Ante up, folks!
4 comments:
Cool rules. The Robin Williams genie quote is my favorite. "I could be bound in a nutshell/and count myself a king of infinite space/ Were it not that I have bad dreams." Hamlet [paraphrased from memory, probably inaccurate].
I wouldn't be my cantankerous, ornery self if I didn't find a bone to pick with one of the rules along the way...
"Murder your darlings, that you might bronze them," I dare say. The problem with a darling in writing, as it seems to me, is in the solitariness of its darling-ness. A darling breaks the "willing suspension of disbelief" because it is discordant with the rest of the piece. Bring the rest of the work up to that level of darling-- making it "Dahling!", if you will!-- and voila! Darling to the darlingnth power, darling squared...To me, a really good line, a resonant line, is the true beginning of a piece, not a tangential. It's a sign that the ground water has been tapped-- the writer has put a ripple in the field of truth. The challenge ought to be to bring the entire piece up to that level. As is, there's not enough darlings in the world...
There are two exceptions to this, as I see it.
The first: too many darlings squeezed together can be tough for a reader to stomach-- they cancel each other's force. So, after a darling, do a little downshifting with the plain-- come down from 5th gear, bring it to third, second or first gear. Forget 4th. Directly put: after an especially notable metaphor, simple sentences, non-imagistic in nature-- or refrain-like repetitions-- or open space between paragraphs-- are your friends. You can eat that hot pepper-- you can do it, friend!-- if you have a taste of vanilla ice cream before and after. Well, maybe ice water would be better, but that's the general idea.
The second: if the piece is after a heightened (actually, lowered)and highly-particular tonality that will not permit a darling to squeak through, then the greatest strength of the work is in its unspoken darlings. A veteran cop unable to describe how he feels when hearing "Ave Maria", for instance, could be more beautiful than a writer supplying the words, no matter how good a metaphor the writer came up with. If that's the case, put that darling in a drawer, drawer that darling, for a different and later piece. As is the circumnavigation of the unconscious, that may be the piece a writer winds up focusing on next anyway.
...Chrissy loves Aristotle, and there's a great quote he had about the style being determined by the subject, that I cannot remember...Parahprased, one could say, "The need of the piece is its rules."
...This "murder your darlings" debate rests entirely upon the definition of a darling, of course. If by "darling" is meant a pretentious, poor piece of writing-- well, yeah. But then again, there's no murdering to be done in that case-- one can't murder a miscarriage.
All in all, and in favor of the line "Murder your darlings," I will say that the toughest lesson I've had to learn (and learn lately) is knowing what not to say.
That's easier not said than done.
Peace out!
Hmm...I like those, but I think mine would probably be different. Of course, they should be, shouldn't they? That's the whole point. So...here are my 10 rules for writing:
1. Read. Read lots. Read when you have spare time. Read when you don't. Read when you really should be doing other things. Turn off the TV, darn it, and read.
2. Read slowly. Find books that you love, and listen to the way they sound. Read the words internally. Let them echo in your head.
3. Read books that you hate. Figure out why you don't like them. Writing isn't always about what to say. Sometimes it's about what not to say. Decide what you don't like, and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
4. Read for variety. You can find inspiration for fiction in
non-fiction. You can see epic fantasy in a horror novel. Each genre contains the seeds of another.
5. Re-read. If a book was good the first time, it will be better the second. The first time you read something, you tend to get lost in the story. The second time you read it, it's easier to hear the language. Each time you re-read, you'll find something you missed.
6. Play in someone else's world. Did you hate the way something
ended? Change it, at least in your own head. Starting with someone else's characters, or someone else's setting, it's easy to write your own plot. The more you change it, the more it becomes your own. It may be best, however, if you do not feel the need to inflict your changed
plot on anyone else. This is an exercise for you, not the rest of society.
7. Observe. Listen to the way people talk. Watch the way they move. Writing is about painting a verbal image of what is happening, and you can't paint it if you can't see it. A hint of detail may be all that is necessary to describe your scene, but your world will be grey and boring
without it.
8. Write. Use any opportunity to be creative. Write short stories,
poems, and plays. Change the lyrics to songs. Write new ones. Be silly. Have fun.
9. Write frequently, even when you have nothing to write on, or even write about. Write stories in your mind. Change them, and see what happens. Get to know your characters. Figure out why they do what they do.
10. Know the rules. Let others tell you what you've done wrong. You may take their advice. You may not. Either way, listen. Before you can write well, you have to understand the structure of the language. You have to know its rules.
11. Break them. Sometimes the best way to say something is the way you've been told never to say it. Thumb your nose at the MLA, and say it anyway. Just make sure you know why you did.
I really think half of my writing process is figuring out which things should go on paper and which should stay inside the dark recesses of my sick little mind. I write a lot more than I actually write, if you understand what I mean. A lot of the whole thing, at least for me, is going through so many characters and so many plots mentally that when I
have to write something, I can pull bits and pieces together from things that I've already thought out, but never used. I can't help the thinking bit. My mind doesn't want to shut down, and when I'm bored, I write. It's probably some sort of mental illness.
I'll wait to send you The Evil Book of Doom. It will probably go
through three or four more revisions before I send it, so it'll probably be more like The Evil Book of Doom v.2.0 rev.5. That last sentence actually made sense when I thought it, which means I need more sleep. I'm going to go substitute caffeine. Catch you later. :)
MG--"Murder your darlings, that you might bronze them" is, AHA! Yes, absolutely . . . BUT, I would argue that many of those darlings might be bronzed apart from the context in which they were conceived. That is to say, sometimes they simply do not belong to the text. I always keep an overflow document/page for holding my misplaced darlings. Sometimes I find them another home, sometimes not. But I do think that often a piece is better for having been shamelessly, unapologetically, ruthlessly, and objectively edited, especially after it has (or I have) 'cooled.'
That said, I very much appreciate your discussion of the nuances of 'darlings,' which is spot on: knowing which category of 'darling' to which your darlings belong makes all the difference in the world, no?
And one brief aside: cantankerous and ornery is an admirable trait, my friend! For myself, I've always liked Van Gogh's take: "The older, more cantankerous, more ill and poorer I become, the more I try to make amends by making my colors more vibrant, more balanced and beaming.” Indeed.
Thanks, Bridgette! And for the record, "The Evil Book of Doom [. . .] will probably go
through three or four more revisions before I send it, so it'll probably be more like The Evil Book of Doom v.2.0 rev.5" made perfect sense to me. Not sure if that's a pardon for you or an indictment of me . . .
Anyway, I'll be happy to read the Evil Book of Doom in any draft. Your call.
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