This page is a sample of the beginning of a manual for novel writing that I’m working on. It’s to teach myself, and for anyone else who might find any bit of it helpful. I have a lot written, but it’s never really finished, because you never stop learning. But I envisage the completed work as a sort of novel-writing guide, like Machiavelli’s The Prince, yet not instruction in how to be a despot, but how to be a slightly better writer, hopefully!
Reflections on Good Writing
In terms of looking at financially successful writers of current popular novels, it seems to me that good English, or good writing, is by no means the most important factor in that success. In fact, it’s no longer common and sometimes not even necessary at all. There have been many popular books written in recent years that neglect conventions and contain limited vocabulary, poorly worded sentences, and avoidable exposition.
Books like The da Vinci Code and Fifty Shades of Grey are among the last of novels which could in any way be termed literary. Yet they each gathered a wide readership on account of an ingredient, or ingredients, that appeal to huge numbers of people. While Fifty Shades of Grey operated by exploiting a fascination with pleasure inducing sexual manipulation, The Da Vinci Code is more interesting. It operates through a long series of consecutive “cliffhanger” moments, enticing the reader with the promise of continual revelations, always just around the next corner. Yet it is somehow too addictive to act on the resentment it induces at the same time and discard it. It also capitalises on general interest in the lives and figures of Leonardo da Vinci and Jesus Christ. For me, it exploits key elements in creating a popular novel, those being intrigue and suspense.
Shakespeare tends to be seen as the greatest of all playwrights. For me, he is not only that. He is many other extraordinary things as well. He is also, for me, the greatest poet. His use of metaphor and his field of reference are awe inspiring. But he possesses at least two other qualities which I deem far more crucial than any of these. These are, in my opinion, his skills with regard to plot and character development. In particular, I admire how he combines the two. I think the best examples are King Lear’s descent into madness, Iago’s ruination of Othello, and MacBeth’s growing desperation. In each case there are varying degrees of clouded judgement on the main character’s part, running in tandem with a plot, or plots, which determine a cruel fate for each of them. This is the key factor for me, the plausibility in change of character, running alongside a suspenseful plot. Though these are plays, many of their principles apply as well to novel writing.
How much or how often does a serious writer write?
I did a particular writing course twice in my twenties. Both times, about halfway through the course, the teacher called on each participant to say how many hours and/or words they wrote in a week or a day. He first stated the amount that he did and referred to it as standard. I think it was between six and eight hours a week. The participants, each in their turn, gave some slight variation on the amount of time he suggested. On the second occasion I did the course, I stated that I did about half of what he suggested. He sneered and said it was not enough. The truth is, I do a lot less.
I remember watching a documentary on Joseph Campbell. He spoke of a student of his who complained about the amount of core and suggested readings he prescribed for his particular course in the college where he thought. It was madness, the student stated, to imagine that anyone could read that amount of material within the individual semesters. “But,” Campbell said, “you have the rest of your life to read it.” That, for me, is the best and healthiest approach to take towards writing as well. If you want to be another Stephen King, or even G.R.R. Martin, perhaps you should listen to people who emphasis quantity over quality. But, if you would like to try to emulate writers like Kazuo Ishiguro, or the Brontë sisters, and write only one or a small number of published works, then it can only be a mark of ignorance for someone to class you as a lesser writer or a non-writer.
If someone has written a single brilliant short story in the course of a long career and it is their one unpublished piece, are those few thousand words not worth more than many more thousands of words of mediocre published prose? Is one half-written masterpiece, the sole output of a so-called failed writer, not better material than endless volumes of published pure hogwash? Is he and or she not more of a writer than someone who measures success, to an exclusive degree, in terms of popularity and book sales? Is it more important to you to finish what you’ve written or to perfect it, until such time as it meets the limit of your current capabilities? Lastly, in truth, writing is, in my opinion largely about pain too, about painstaking corrections, and the drive to push through them.
On Getting Ideas
People say write what you know and count your blessings if that coincides with current trends in terms of popular novels. This, I believe, true, but it’s possible, I think, to bend or shape subject matter so that it features current trends. That is, I think you can tell a story that your completely enthused by and find a way to marry it with current popular topics. But be prepared to learn about these subjects. Educate yourself and see if you can’t tie these issues into any territory that’s more familiar to you, and that will spark your own genuine interest.
The best editor that I’ve ever seen, by far, couldn’t make it as a writer. I wondered why for the ten weeks I spent doing his course. His knowledge of conventions and guidelines was excellent. His corrections were fair and accurate. He could write well. But, in the end, I considered the nature of his suggestions to me. They were all valid, and there were many of them. He made no apologies and gave no encouragement, because he didn’t want to lie or give false hope to anyone. He was, in short, negative and incapable of deception, regarding himself or anyone else.
If you can’t believe in yourself when things are at a low ebb, and a low ebb, or an enthused feeling, is for you a regular enough state of mind, then I think you’ll struggle. A certain amount of self-deception is more than helpful, I think. For me, it’s crucial. The editor I speak of couldn’t fool himself to the necessary degree, in my opinion. He became too disheartened or despondent, because he was no less thorough in correcting his own work and, I guess, psyched himself out. He could not put aside his high standards, and just write.
Franz Kafka, before he died, told a friend of his to destroy some of his writings after he passed way. But the friend, it seems, read them and felt that they were good. So, he had them published after Kafka’s death and they were received with much acclaim. Criticism has its place, for sure, but the perseverance born out of a sometimes illogical or unwarranted degree of optimism, or a desperate hunger, or both, are far more important factors, I think. It may look hopeless from the point of view of cold, rational analysis, but the fire inside never dies in those individuals who cannot or will not accept failure. That is, writers who do not stay too deflated.
The chances, even in writing a novella, that the intricacies of the entire plot will occur to you in full detail before you set anything down on paper are slim. Planning is good, but mental planning alone, unaided by the necessary application of sitting down and filling a blank page on a regular basis will not amount to anything. If you are having trouble with writer’s block, consider the following: The challenge in life and writing is not to steer the perfect course, but to steer the course as best you can, heedless of both your inner critic and the verdict of others.
The best way to be creative is to ignore your inner critic (for the first draft at least) and to become good at ignoring it. If you’re worried about how to say something, for instance, don’t worry. Just say it, or just try to say it. Let it come naturally or spontaneously, if you can, without even trying, if possible. If you can acquire this skill, it will serve you well. Generally, if we tell ourselves something can’t be done it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, if we even start to make a simple effort, we sometimes get significantly further than we thought, and, as with any ultimately successful project, that initial impetuous is key.