There seem to be two basic myths about How Writers Work. The first is the painfully slow, unbelievably picky Brooding Poetic Genius typified by the Oscar Wilde remark about having a good day writing because he’d spent the morning removing a comma and the afternoon putting it back. The second is the inspired whirlwind All-You-Need-Is-An-Idea Genius typified by the montage scene in dozens of movies about writers – you know, the one that shows the writer being struck by an idea, racing for his typewriter, and then typing steadily away as images of pages pile up and up on the overlay, until at the end of the two-minute segment, he sits back with a sigh and his completed first, last, and only draft…which of course goes through the entire publication process in about a week and becomes a big hit.
I’ve never been able to decide which of the two I like least. Whenever I’ve met someone who takes either image seriously, the effect has always been detrimental to that writer’s work. Half the ones who go for the unbelievably picky myth polish the silver shine right off their prose, then continue down through the copper until all that’s left is a thin steel core, and then they go into despair because they “can’t write.” The other half struggle mightily to be as picky as they think they should, and fall into despair because they are really satisfied with their prose, mostly, and therefore they obviously aren’t doing it right.
The folk who go for the inspiration myth are much harder to deal with for me personally, because I so do not work that way (which makes it very difficult for me to come up with alternatives that such writers will find useful). They, too, seem to fall into two groups: the ones who sit around waiting to be inspired, and who therefore produce nothing at all, and the ones who actually do produce quite a bit, but who refuse to believe that anything they produce this way could or should ever be changed. Every comma is golden even, the ones that, are in totally wrong places. I find this sort particularly frustrating, because it’s obvious from their production rate that they’ve stumbled across a big chunk of What Works For Them, but most of them will never make that final step to publication that they’re dreaming of because they think that as long as it’s inspired, it must be good.
Inspiration is no guarantee of quality. It feels good, but that’s not the same thing. There is, most definitely, such a thing as inspired dreck. There are, certainly, writers who can and do produce enough publication-or-better quality prose to make a living at writing, and who write only when they are inspired. I’ve met maybe three of these in the past thirty years, and all of them produced just as much unsellable stuff as the rest of us. The reason the inspiration-only method works for them is that they are inspired all the time. They never feel like not-writing. And they are under no illusion that everything they write is of the same high quality. They’ve learned to recognize when something is publication-ready and when it is going to need painful revision (and in my experience, the revision process is far more painful for these folks than it is for the rest of us…which is really saying something).
Also, I’ve never yet met anyone who could correctly identify, from reading the published version of Mairelon the Magician, which parts were written in a white-hot heat and got minimal revision; which were written fast and then revised to within an inch of their lives; which were done at an excruciatingly slow slog, etc. Heck, nobody’s ever correctly identified where in the ms. I took a years-long break to write other stuff. If you can’t tell the difference in the finished product, does it really matter whether the prose was inspired or not?
And ultimately that is the fundamental problem with all of the assorted would-be writers who get so invested in these writing myths. They get so focused on the “right” way to get to their goal that they forget about the goal itself. The goal varies, writer to writer, but it is always some form of a finished manuscript. For some, the goal is just to finish, and the heck with quality (NaNoWriMo writers, for instance). For some, the goal is to produce a “good” manuscript (according to their personal definition of “good writing,” whatever that may be). For some, the goal is to get the story out of their head and down on paper as accurately as they possibly can. For some, the goal is a manuscript that meets the standards for professional publication.
Regardless of the specific goal, there are lots of ways to achieve it – probably as many ways as there are writers. The important thing is getting there, however one does it.
love this– you hit on so many insightful points. The myth of the writer (well, of any occupation/vocation) is far from the reality.
I used to be the inspiration-writer and finally got rid of that myth by running my own business for a while – nothing kills the idea of inspired success like having to work hard every day to make something work.
Haha! Brilliant! I think I kind of tend to be one of those “I think I’m inspired” people sometimes… Course, I think it’s better to be able to not have to kick yourself off your high horse to ask for advise- easier said than done. Thanks for yet another awesome post! C=
I always figure on the inspiration part at least getting me a solid base that I will then have to edit/edit/re-edit into something workable. The problem then becomes having some idea of what changes a publisher is going to want.
I finally know the shape of the rest of Book II and the beginning of Book III, so I am all for inspiration. The point is that, most of the time, inspiration does not come to those who wait. Inspiration comes to those who engage with the story, and my brain only started to throw a better class of ideas at me after the first million words.
Also, the only way for reasonably polished prose to flow effortlessly from my fingers was to spend many hours training myself to recognise and eventually produce the kind of prose I consider to be good. I no longer commit some of the mistakes of my early years, and I catch many other problems while I’m thinking or writing them down (type, stare at sentence, fix).
So I would say that both myths contain a kernel of truth. Sometimes you write on the wings of inspiration, sometimes it’s a long hard slog, but neither of them is the ultimate truth in writing. Good writers are magpies – they try anything and draw something useful from *any* method.
Wednesday rolls around again, and after clicking on your blog I first look at the title of your latest entry. After first expecting (a rather, I’ll admit it, bland) “how to” guide on creating a myth story, I was pleasantly surprised to read that I had misinterpreted the actual entry details.
This was very informative and fun to read, knowing that my writing style is somewhere in the middle; random inspirations with planning and jotting down ideas in between.
If you would, I’d love to know the writing style YOU’D describe yourself as having.
Alex – Yup. Which is why so many non-professonal writers are puzzled by all the professonal writers who say “It’s a job.”
Deborah – I was with you until you got to the part about having some idea what changes a publisher wants. Second-guessing yourself in hopes of “making it marketable” is one of the best ways I know to wreck a manuscript. If you do your editing in order to make the story work, you’re good; if you do it in hopes of getting a publisher to buy it regardless of whether it works…not so much; if you’re using the “what does the publisher want” thing as a way to train your own editorial eye so as to figure out what works, well, as long as doing that really does train your eye, fine.
green-knight – Magpies is exactly right. Process is a continuum, with the Inspired Geniuses at one far end and the Consciously Picky Geniuses at the other. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, and it takes a while to find the right balance. And then when you do, your backbrain throws you a curveball and hands you something that Just Doesn’t Work the way you’ve been working. It’s very annoying.
Kellie – Generally speaking, I’m a slogger, somewhere in the middle. I don’t hold out for inspiration (though I LOVE it when it happens), and I don’t obsessively go back over and over my prose in an attempt to polish it to perfection. I just trudge ahead most days.
I have never believed in inspiration. I know writing is laborious. I have to have tools — the tools for the craft. Problem is, I don’t have those tools. Even worse, I can’t seem to find something new to write about. Hasn’t everything been said?
I know I am my worst enemy. (Is this statement trite?) I want to be a writer, so badly. But I don’t know why I want to be a writer. Maybe I am — since I just wrote something here.
Thank you for the blog. I have bookmarked it.