Writing News
August 5, 2013–In news unrelated to writing, but all about creativity and inspiration and legendary local businesses, Maxwell’s in Hoboken closed on July 31, going out with a block party (during which no one could park their cars, as usual!). Maxwell’s was one of the best places to see live music during the rise of alternative rock, not because of a great sound system or ambiance, but because you could go there and be yourself! Read writer Jim Testa’s tribute here… Also on July 31, women storytellers and poets gathered for another kind of block party at Maria Luisa in Nyack, New York–follow the conversation here. Thank you, Maria Luisa, and we hope that the trend will continue! Finally, for reassurance to novelists, this wise plum from Richard Ford, from a recent New Yorker Fiction podcast episode: “To be a novelist and a perfectionist is almost to doom oneself.” If we’re doomed anyway, at least we know we’re not dooming ourselves. No perfectionists ’round these parts, that’s for sure.
Writing Advice: First Drafts, Part 2
Getting Started: Wordsmithing By Any Means Necessary, with James King
There’s not much charm, and only a hint of mystery, to this part. For his first great feat, King Arthur pulled a sword out of a stone. You’ll have to stick your butt in a chair.
James King’s process has evolved over the years. He currently assesses the progress of his story as he goes along. “When I finish a chapter,” he says, “I create a very informal outline for the next chapter, describing the main characters, the goal, and the conflict within the larger, overarching goal and conflict. It seems to help with pacing.”
But he arrived at this by trying “just about everything else.” A professional business writer, James entered the book-length fiction arena armed with a keen and supple work ethic. But he saw three novels rejected, as well as “dozens of short stories and poems,” before Bill Warrington’s Last Chance won the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. “I’ve experimented with every approach to writing imaginable,” he says. “I’ve tried working from extensive outlines, from a brief synopsis, from in-depth character studies, from plotline spreadsheets, index cards… you name it. I even tried several novel-writing software programs.”
Whatever tactic his fickle muse prefers, James’ most reliable weapon is discipline. A Yankees fan, James found in Derek Jeter’s 2009 record-breaking season inspiration for himself as a writer. “What makes [Jeter] successful is his uncompromising commitment to the game… He doesn’t practice only when he’s in the mood. He doesn’t wait for ‘inspiration’ before stepping into the batter’s box. He doesn’t take a day off during the season because, well, he’s been playing a lot of ball and has ‘earned’ a day off.”*
You can’t ignore craft. Stephen King calls it the Toolbox: vocabulary, grammar, structure. You must make craft second nature. Take advice from a mentor, do writing exercises, notice and follow the practices of favorite writers. Without the tools, you are impotent.
But without your ingenuity and industry, the tools are dead matter.
“If you’re a writer and not someone who simply wants to be known as a writer,” James advises, “you’ll keep going.”
**And for a little extra mojo**
In Naming the World, a trove of writing exercises by literary wizards, editor Bret Anthony Johnston includes no less than 17 pages of writing warm-ups, simply geared to “make it easier to get your butt in the chair, and keep it there… [D]evising strategies to capitalize on whatever time we can afford our writing is tantamount to success.”
Lauren Groff concurs. “The butt in the chair is the number-one ingredient for the recipe of a novel.”
Prepare to spend a lot of time with yourself. Find a comfortable process.
You may prefer minimal outlining, like James, or like Max Ellendale. “I plan out the plot turns and climax of the central plot along with the subplots, but I never outline,” she says. “I hate outlining. It confuses me and draws away my focus. I’m a very linear writer. I start stories from the beginning and write straight through to the end.”
Seasoned author Joanna Clapps Herman begins with setting down the full spectrum of ideas and scenes that seem vital to the piece. “I have a rough grocery list of what I am going to write about,” she says. “And I write that grocery list down. It’s not an outline, but just a list of ideas or scenes that I’d like to have in this piece. It’s simple and I can just keep coming back to it in a simple way. Oh, I’ve done some pages on that, let me try the next item and see where that goes.”
Many successful authors, like Emmy Laybourne, write to an outline. Laying out a book-length work from beginning to end, animating scenes in miniature first, may best support your creative energy, may even supercharge your powers.
Monument 14, Emmy’s first novel, almost languished in a structural mire prior to completion. Emmy had sold the idea on a proposal and 165 pages, then tried to finish the manuscript without an outline.
But her focus weakened. “The story meandered,” she says. “I had flashbacks, extra scenes. It was just very languid. And then I handed it in, and they hated it! They hated it so much! I had given them half an action-packed manuscript, half Anna Karenina.”
Emmy’s rewrite for Monument 14 was based on a succinct outline. She brewed up the sequel according to the same strict formula, finishing the first draft in seven months.
Coming Next Time: Part 3, Vanquish “Writersbane:” Staying Out Of Your Own Way
References:
Except where noted below, quoted material from James King (Bill Warrington’s Last Chance, New York: Viking, 2010), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14: Sky on Fire, New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2013), Max Ellendale (Glyph, Breathless Press, 2012), and Joanna Clapps Herman (The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011) are from personal interviews and emails with the author, March-June, 2012.
Quoted material from Lauren Groff (Arcadia, New York: Voice, 2012) is from the author’s transcript of Ms. Groff’s seminar at the New York Writer’s Institute, State University of New York at Albany, March 27, 2012. “Lauren Groff on Writing and Arcadia”
Bret Anthony Johnston, Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer (New York: Random House, 2008).
James King, “Derek Jeter and Writing,” The Business of Writing, September 14, 2009.
James King, “Easy for Me to Say,” The Business of Writing, March 23, 2011.
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, (New York: Pocket Books, 2002)