An Experimental Life

I hear a lot of would-be fiction writers say they "don't believe" in studying writing, fearing that doing so will force them to write by some preset formula and destroy their "personal styles."

Nothing could be further from the truth. If you look at some of the greats--who have wildly divergent styles--you will find that they almost universally studied the craft. Until you begin studying the craft, you can't call yourself a serious writer any more than you could call yourself a neurosurgeon without going to medical school...

One of novelist Mike Stackpole’s favorite analogies for writing is carpentry. As someone who has worked construction in the past and is now pursuing a degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, I can verify that the two have much in common. No sane and honest person calls him or her self a carpenter without at least some understanding of how to measure, cut (evenly), and fashion wood into a reasonably stable structure, or how to properly wield a hammer.

Still, I constantly hear from those who want to be fiction writers that they have no interest in learning the craft. As I said earlier, they think that learning about writing will destroy their personal style and teach them to write by some arbitrary formula. This is akin to a carpenter refusing to learn about wood types and structural integrity, preferring to rely on intuition and gut instinct alone. That “carpenter” may be able to cut and hammer some boards together, but will produce something of value only by chance. So it is with would-be writers who refuse to learn about the process of writing.

Part of the problem is that since we all learn to read, spell, and string sentences together in school (well, some of us do, anyway), most people think that the only other thing a writer needs is the ability to come up with a good story idea. Stringing sentences together in sequence to tell a story is not enough, though. The best story idea will fail to engage readers if told poorly, which is to say, without craft.

Let’s try another analogy. This is a long one, so bear with me.
As a martial artist of more years than I care to admit, I have often been asked by friends and family to teach them self-defense. Most of them thought it would be easy. After all, they already knew how to punch and kick, right? It should just be a matter of altering what they already knew how to do, and choosing more effective targets.

Wrong. Almost universally, the first things I taught them were how to make a proper fist, and how to stand and breathe. They thought they knew how to do these things, and after a fashion they did. But there is a difference between making a simple, untrained fist and making a fist that can smash bones without breaking one’s fingers or hyper-extending one’s wrist. There is a difference between standing to wait for a bus and standing in such a way as to maximize one’s balance, offensive capability, and defensive capability. There is a difference between breathing to keep your blood oxygenated and breathing to focus and energize your every movement.

No martial artist can reach his or her full potential without learning these seemingly simple things early on, along with other basic techniques like a reverse punch and forward snap kick. When those are mastered, he or she will progress to more complex moves (and usually discover along the way that some of the simplest techniques are often the most effective). He or she will practice all of these according to specific sets of techniques done in sequence. These are exercises to create muscle memory, or reflexive motion, and to teach students to let one technique flow into the next. Once a budding martial artist learns a few basics, he or she generally begins sparring with other students and, perhaps, with his or her Master. This teaches students to improvise and experiment with different combinations of techniques depending on the situation, and prepares the student to improvise in real-life confrontations.

Every serious student of martial arts, regardless of technique, develops his or her own personal fighting style based on many factors, including what techniques come most naturally to him or her. For example, within the same school, some students may focus more on long-range kicks while others prefer close-in linear hand techniques. Having a wealth of practiced techniques from which to choose gives the martial artist a greater body of options for any situation.

True Masters will add their own touches to the arts they teach, and will expect their students to develop their own combinations depending on their strengths and weaknesses, the opponent they face, and the amount and severity of injury they must cause in order to end the conflict. A martial artist is expected to judge the level of conflict and use the appropriate techniques and the necessary amount of force. A writer is expected to judge the situation and which and how many words to use in order to achieve the effect that he or she wants.

Learning to spell and string sentences together is like learning how to inhale and exhale, make a sloppy fist and stand upright. These things might be sufficient for everyday life—say letter-writing, standing in line, and avoiding suffocation--but they are not sufficient if one wants to create art or learn to fight effectively. Just as those untrained in the martial arts might think their flailing about to be effective fighting, and that they need no training, many would-be writers think that their flailing about with words and thesaurus-raping is preferable to learning from teachers, from books, and from masters of the craft.

Listen—Until you have studied the craft, even if all your study is autodidactic, you will have no style of any worth unless you are a prodigy of writing in the same way that Mozart was a prodigy of music, and even then, your writing will be improved by study. Mozart had to study to learn the finer points of his craft, and I doubt anyone would accuse him of writing formula music. Learning the craft gives you the tools and techniques with which to express your own ideas in your manner of choosing, and in an effective manner. In the same way that a martial artist learns to make every movement count, the student of writing learns to make every word count.

There is not enough room here for a detailed explanation of all the tools in a writer’s toolbox, but there is perhaps enough room to paint one of the most important lessons in large strokes.

The first thing one needs to understand is that all fiction consists of the judicious selection and revelation of what Janet Burroway (in Writing Fiction; A Guide to the Narrative Craft) calls “significant detail,” and in finding the most effective method with which to give those details to the reader to achieve the desired effect. Learning the craft of writing does not dictate which details are counted as significant in any given work, nor how to present those details. Rather, it (hopefully) provides one with the skills to judge those things in light of the desired end result and choose from a variety of options. Just as a serious painter learns what combinations of materials, brushes, strokes, and pigments he or she can use to achieve different effects and guide the viewers’ eyes through the painting, a serious writer must learn how various writing techniques can achieve the desired effects and guide the reader through the story.

What constitutes significant detail varies from story to story, from desired effect to desired effect, and from character to character. A writer who wants to build suspense will choose certain details, while one playing up the comic aspect of a scene may choose entirely different details, or simply a different style of presentation. The details a character is most apt to notice, whether about another character, a sunrise, or a room, help to define and inform that character. An average club-goer may note the songs and artists played, how loud the music is, and whether he or she feels the music danceable, as well as the number and apparent availability of members of his or her gender of choice.

A young former disk jockey in the same place and time might note all of the above, but is also likely to note the relative beats per minute of the songs played, the degree of smoothness of mixes and transition, and how well the disk jockey on duty rotates people on and off the dance floor. These are significant details in the eyes of the character, therefore they may be important to us, the readers.

They were playing deep House, not his favorite music, but he could cope. Two reasonably attractive brunettes swayed and stumbled barefoot on the dance floor, laughing, almost in time with the music. The DJ, if you could call him that, missed another mix, and David winced—What the hell was that idiot thinking, going straight from 180 bpms to 220? David twitched his fingers involuntarily. Even on his worst nights he could spin circles around this guy. Well, it was a Tuesday, after all—traditionally the deadest night in the bar business, so the kid probably wasn’t their A squad. Besides, David wasn’t here for a job; he was here for information. He flipped his phone open again to look at the time and check for messages. One a.m., and still no voicemail. Where the hell was his contact?

This scene could go on as long as necessary, although the reader would have to have been told earlier what bpm means. On the other hand, if giving these details does not deepen our understanding of a character, foreshadow something, set a mood, or provide something else of value, we can leave them out or summarize.

The crowd was sparse, the drinks were watered, and the DJ sucked ass. Worst of all, his contact never showed.

Likewise, how these details are presented plays a huge role in the readers’ experience. A detail calmly and succinctly stated will have a completely different impact than a dramatic exclamation. That is not to say either is inherently better than the other—Merely different. Again, the method of revelation is chosen to evoke the response the writer desires from the reader.

He ran up the stairs and pounded on the door, but no one answered. He glanced behind him to see if he was being watched. The coast was clear. He ran back down the stairs, and around to the side of the house to hide, watching and waiting.

We’re not completely certain what the character’s intentions are, but it sounds as though he is up to no good. I can give just a couple more details, though—significant details—and present them differently, as follows.

He ran up the stairs and pounded on the door with his fist until it hurt, then kicked at the door, over and over, hard enough to leave scuff marks and little dents. Please, somebody answer before they found him. He turned back to the street praying, don’t let them be watching--not now--and ran down and around to the side of the house to hide and watch and wait, stifling his breathing and trying not to cry. Not like this. Please, not like this.

Now we have a completely different understanding of what is happening, and an entirely different mood. All I did was add a few details and present them differently. Notice what kind of details I added—It wasn’t important here to know what color the door was, or the style in which the house had been built. These could have been significant, but in this case, I decided that the protagonist was too rattled to notice or care. Consequently, we are not told these things.

Also, it is usually better to show significant detail instead of telling about it, and, again, the key word here is significant. Description can be either significant or insignificant, depending on the situation. Too many would-be writers have no idea what details are significant, and so in addition to telling instead of showing, describe every person or object in a scene in yawningly complete detail. Let me give you a snippet from Maledicte, a novel by Lane Robins, and then a bad rewrite of the same passage.

The boy snarled, and Gilly walked on, leaving the boy to flounder his way through the drifts, hampered by the heavy coat. Gilly reached the coach long before the boy, climbed into it, and sat sipping whiskey-laced tea from the flask. The boy staggered up, white from head to toe with blown snow, and shuddering with chill. His eyelashes were frosted and his face showed signs of suspicious dampness.

This is showing. We don’t need to be told that Gilly is annoyed or that the boy is angry, that it is cold and snowy, nor that the boy has been crying. We are shown.

That the boy is "floundering through the drifts, hampered by the heavy coat" tells us that there has been a heavy snow, and that the boy is likely wearing a coat to which he is unused, implying that not only was he unprepared for this, but that he may have borrowed, found, or stolen the coat.

That Gilly walks away, goes to the coach, and sits sipping tea shows that Gilly is in charge here, or has the "upper hand" in some other way. That the tea is laced with whiskey is a nice bit of verisimilitude, as well as providing further contrast between Gilly's situation and that of the boy--By the time the boy reaches the coach Gilly is, presumably, warmed both inside and out, while the boy is shuddering, with frosted eyelashes, snow all over him, and a tear-streaked face. This reinforces that the boy is completely out of his element, both figuratively and literally, while Gilly is at home and in charge here.

We can infer a few other things about the characters here, too. The boy is obviously of a stubborn, volatile mindset, while Gilly is cool, calm, and patient. Gilly doesn't rise to the boy's snarl, but walks away into comfort and lets the boy come to him.

This situation also serves as an illustration and a metaphor for the boy's situation in the larger story. He is--not just in the snowdrifts, but in the story at large--floundering, upset, out of control, and dependent upon others, but not pleased with that situation.

And now, a bad rewrite, with a few different details and a different presentation.

The boy was angry and unappreciative, which annoyed Gilly, so Gilly left him there to walk through the drifts by himself and trip over the luxuriant, but much too large, beaver-skin coat Vornati had loaned him. Gilly got to the coach first, and enjoyed the taste of the whiskey-laced tea as he drank it from the engraved silver flask. The boy finally staggered up with snow all over him. He was obviously cold, and looked like he had been crying.

Notice that although the rewrite gives us more detail, it is, frankly, boring and stale. It doesn’t give relevant, or significant, detail. What I have to ask myself is, what does the reader need to know in order to make this scene work the way I want it to? In a different kind of scene, the type of coat or that the flask is engraved silver might be important, but not here. And I shouldn't need to state that Gilly enjoyed the tea, although it might be worth indicating if he didn't, for a couple of different reasons I won't go into at the moment. Also, by telling (“Gilly was annoyed,” “He was obviously cold, and looked like he had been crying,” etc.), we rob the reader of his or her participation in the story. Another thing wrong with the rewrite is that I have substituted unnecessary adjectives and irrelevant details for significant detail and description.

How does one sort through all of this and learn to show rather than tell? To separate significant from insignificant detail? To know when an adjective (or a scene, or a character, or an entire story) is best tossed into the scrap heap? By studying the craft of writing, and by experimenting with different projects and methods of storytelling until he or she is able to achieve the effects that he or she sets out to achieve. Far from forcing one into a formula, learning more skills and methods of crafting a story frees the writer to explore more options.

If we return to our hypothetical carpenter, this analogy holds true. Learning to hold and swing a hammer in such a way as to drive a nail without damaging the wood, the nail, or a stray thumb, does not remove creativity from the craft. Learning the best materials for different types of projects does not force the carpenter to build by formula. Instead, the carpenter, like the writer, finds an expanded menu of options at his or her disposal.

As a final note to any would-be writers who feel that none of this “studying the craft,” business applies to them—please become accountants, or acrobats, or scientists, or anything else that has nothing to do with writing fiction. We’ll both be happier that way.

Here are a few books I recommend to get you started.