I’m having a lot of luck writing words lately. There’s just one problem; they’re not meeting my rigorous quality standards out the gate.
I’m torn between wanting to be a good writer and a paid one. Is there a difference? Can you live on $10,000 every 5 years? Quality takes time, and time is money. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. If I am forced to choose my criteria for success, it would be a large fanbase and profitable projects enough to keep me in the lifestyle I have come to expect. You know, visiting the dentist once every ten years and traveling to conventions every five.
Like most every other aspiring writer you know, I wouldn’t mind making a living from my efforts. Actually, when business is good on the freelance web front, I’m not that concerned about it. When business is weak like it has been lately, I’m all “OMG, gotta write six short stories and try to sell them all.” Because short fiction is so profitable.
No, I know, short fiction isn’t going to pay the bills. And that would be why I wrote a deeply flawed novel this month!
I’m conflicted a lot about what I’m turning out because I’m not sure that what I have to say matters. I don’t always even know what I want to say. Since college, I have this deep sense that I live too much on surface thoughts. Critical thinking and forming of deeply held opinions isn’t something I get up to as much as I did when I was younger. My thoughts rarely go beyond “how can I pay the rent next month without dipping into savings?” I don’t spend a lot of time pondering freedom vs. security or what it means to be growing older in a society that increasingly values youth above all other personal traits. (Freedom probably, and “it sucks”. Now where’s my Nobel?)
You have to do some deep thinking in order to form the opinions that are the core of “having something to say.” Especially if you plan on offering any kind of unique insight. For instance, “murder is bad” is a little played out. However, “murder is okay when it’s a clown” is, ignoring the moral implications of such a message, at least somewhat original.
So I’m working on that. I’m also back to thinking a lot about storycraft. Because I don’t always know what to do next when I write a story. I don’t know implicitly what makes a successful story, at its core.
What I’d like to do in the next year is learn story. Learn my craft, so that I can focus less on “how do I end this story so it feels satisfying?” and more on having something more to say. I keep coming back to this issue of storycraft. I know I can do it by accident. I would just like to be able to do it consistently.
I want to be the dependable writer editors can count on in a pinch. I want to be the guy you go to for an odd anthology theme, knowing that you’re going to get something fresh and entertaining. I don’t want to be boxed into a particular subgenre (epic fantasy, hard SF, etc). Like I am in a more broad sense, I want to be a generalist when it comes to the things I write about.
I actually really want to write on-spec novels. I want to play in other universes not my own. I want to write for video games. I want to write comics. Screenplays. I even want to write more nonfiction.
Do you have tips for mastering story? How to make those choices in the course of a story to make it have that “oomph” in the end that makes a reader value the time they spent inside your head? Share them in the comments.
Ten years into my writing and I still feel like a journeyman at best. The most important trait of being a writer sometimes feels like stubbornness.
Tags: My Writing, story
I’m not really a master at story. Prose is something I’ll acknowledge being good at, but story is something I struggle with. I’ve set out to give myself a “master class” of sorts by reading acknowledge masters and analyzing how they tell stories. I think this is absolutely necessary for writers — read widely, and read good stuff. I had something of an epiphany when I read “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/12/27/1999_12_27_110_TNY_LIBRY_000019900). I realized that even though the narrative was very complex, spanning decades, the story could be summarized in one sentence.
I think finding that core of story is the key to crafting a successful narrative. I tend to start with characters, which means I have to ask, “What is something that this person would want? What would keep them from getting it? How would they respond to not getting it?” I can find the core of the story that way.
But if it’s just the core of story, you don’t really have a rich narrative. Stories need texture as well as form — details, character histories. Stories should have personalities, just like the characters in them. I find that the texture comes with the writing, while I’m immersed in the world of the story, and isn’t something I can go back and add in the editing process, whereas I can tighten the plotting later.
And you’re absolutely right — deeper thought about what it means to be human is necessary for writing. Opinions, not so much — they tend to get in the way rather than help, I find. Observation is what is really important, noticing patterns in how people interact and think, what gets in the way of them understanding each other, how they overcome it. Being a writer, for me, means a lot of sitting and listening and watching — to both others and myself, how I react, how I perceive. Writing creative nonfiction is a great way of honing these skills. You learn to look at situations you’re in as something to write about, so you notice the little details and you think about what they mean in the broader picture.
Sorry so long! I love to write about writing.
Please don’t apologize for leaving such eloquent responses to my late night ramblings! Thanks very much for commenting.
Excellent point about the difference between opinion and observation. That makes so much more sense when phrased that way.
I definitely agree that you need more than the core of the story to have a rich narrative. I think the window dressing, as it were, is just as important to the experience. I just personally find that part easier? Less troubling anyway.
One thing I have a hard time doing is deciding whether the character should get what they want. Some stories do, other’s don’t, and I’m not sure how to make that decision for the best impact. I understand that characters should never get something they want without a sacrifice, but how do you know how much they have to sacrifice? What to sacrifice?
“Gift of the Magi” comes to mind when I think about character sacrifices. It’s a pretty blatant example, I suppose.
Your questions that you ask about the characters are like being hit on the head with the clue-stick though. Thank you. Story really does tend to come from character. I tend to start stories with either a visual or a concept/idea. “What if…” stuff. I’d forgotten my own tripod rule when it comes to that. Combine two ideas, find the character who lives at the intersection of them and is most affected by that intersection. This is the “formula” I gleaned from Ted Chiang’s stuff, and his stories are really inspirational to me (although I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea).
It’s much harder for me to start with characters. Probably because a lot of people are still utter mysteries to me. But maybe I can make that work for me by having odd observations about them.
Thinking is hard! Blergh.
I struggle with how to end stories, too. I was studying Chekov for that. Usually, what I do is end the story after the character has made a decision that changes the situation they are in dramatically — whether it will be successful or not has to be determined by the reader from clues picked up in the narrative and their own experiences and imagination. The decision comes with a sacrifice, but often the sacrifice is the option of making a different decision. I guess they have to sacrifice something big — at least something they care about deeply — or there’s no reason we’d want to write or read about the situation. And we have to know the characters to know what they would consider a significant sacrifice.
I like the tripod idea, though I’m less of an idea person and more of a character person, as I said. That’s something of a change for me. I had to learn to want to understand other people. Taking a trip to China with people who I thought were completely different from me — engineering and business students — changed me a lot. I learned to enjoy their way of looking at the world and to talk with them about how I see the world. Finding that place of empathy is so important for writers. It sounds cliche, but it starts with that “know thyself” aphorism. I found that once I began to figure out the person closest to me — myself — I could start looking at other people in the same kind of analytical, critical, and understanding way.
It goes against my instincts not to show the effect of that change, but I think my instincts might be wrong much of the time. I can see what you’re saying. I’m going to take some Chekov down off the shelf and read it this weekend, I think, to see what I can glean.
I’m struggling to understand people better. Truth is, I don’t come in contact with many. That’s one of the downsides about working from home.
Revision, revision, revision. The story is *never* there for me right out of the gate. Not for shorts, not for novels. My first drafts are half-baked disasters, and it takes me a long time to groom them into anything worth reading. Which is frustrating, because as you say, time is money–but if I don’t take the time it just won’t be good enough. I’ve had really critical pieces of plot and character come to me only after months of revision.
I’m so impressed by how much you’ve been writing lately! And thrilled for you that you got through the first draft of your novel. Realistically though there are probably a few more drafts to go. You’ll fix the flaws and insert the “something to say” after your keyboard cools a little.
Congratulations on a major accomplishment. I look forward to reading it!
The goal for me is as little revision as possible. This plays into the whole “making a living” thing. Maximum income per hour is something that’s always in the back of my head. Especially early on, speed is key, because pay is so low.
I suppose it’s mercenary of me to think that way, but I’m a freelancer. I have to think this way or I can’t pay rent.
I’d say about 75% of what I have sold was only revised once, maybe twice, before I sold it. When I’m on… I’m _on_. I almost just throw things out if they’re not right the first time around. Sometimes, I do depending on how attached to the central idea I am.
I’m definitely aware that novel writing will take revision. But I have a core part of me that says “you won’t fix this one. Toss it. The next one will be better.” I’m trying to decide whether to listen or not.
I do hope I get it into a shape worth letting someone else read.
I know I’ve learned some valuable lessons from revising novels. For me, the trick is figuring out when to stop revising and start something new. If I don’t revise enough, I won’t get as much learning out of the experience as I can. If I revise too much, I’ll get too bogged down and will stop learning as much as I could by trying a new application of my abilities. I think everyone’s meter for this balance is probably different.
[…] Jeremiah Tolbert on Having Something to Say. […]
I think there’s nothing wrong with feeling like a journeyman. Indeed, I think that’s what we should aspire to be — always learning, always trying something new, always pushing ourselves into unfamiliar waters.
Besides, the projects that I’ve attempted and that have failed absolutely miserably (and there’s been lots of those) have been the most useful as far as deepening my own learning and understanding.
Producing something crappy does not make a person a hack. Hell, Hemmingway said “The first draft of anything is shit.” In the end, it’s how you use the shit that matters.
Yeah. I just hear writer friends mention how they have “mastered” short stories and I think… how do you ever really do that? I guess my criteria would be to sell everything I write in that regard over time, maybe?
The only problem I have with writing off projects as learning experiences is that learning experiences do not pay the rent.
I definitely hear you on the Hemingway quote though.