Category Archives: Notes on Craft

Can and Can’t

by Andrew | 1 Comment

I often suggest that writers who are looking for fresh perspectives on their manuscripts take a bit of time away from their drafts and instead devote a little energy to some writing on the side: the same characters and settings and concerns, but approached in new ways.

Something that can be useful is a block of time devoted to I Remember exercises for different characters, using their voices or points of view. Stick with one character for a whole week, perhaps, adapting the prompt every day, e.g., I Remember School, She Remembers Her Mother.

I also suggest variations on this form of the list. A good One is I Can … or I Can’t …

Can: to be able, to have power to, to know. In this case, the simple verb form stresses a character’s powers – or limits. What strengths and talents or knowledge is the character endowed with, and what might that lead to? Or what is a character unable to do, and what are the consequences of that?

The cumulative energy of this form of writing, gathered at a pace in list form, sometimes like a chant, often taps into the unconscious mind and draws out powerful material. What surfaces is often surprising, or reaches whatever’s important quickly. It’s not always/often writing that goes directly into the project word for word, but it can help with focus, and also energise your writing with purpose when it is flagging.

As a writing experiment: For ten minutes a day for a week, use the prompt I Can for characters in your book. The following week, use I Can’t for the same characters. You can also try this as a one-off, when you get stuck.

Try the prompts as ten-minute sprints of free writing, without stopping, preferably writing pen to paper, connecting hand and shoulder and brain and heart and gut. Each Can is as long as it has to be: a couple of lines, a few words, a whole paragraph. And when that’s done, on to the next Can. Quick, quick – keep the pen moving, don’t stop; it’s just for ten minutes. Often some really juicy stuff comes around minute eight or nine – to be continued … Write for longer, if you wish.

And above: cookbooks, because I can cook. Sometimes I can follow a recipe, and sometimes I can’t. And sometimes I am successful, and sometimes I am not, and sometimes it’s related to being able to follow that recipe. But other times I can trust my instinct to, e.g., add add a pear but also less milk to pistachio-oat pancakes, and judging by this morning’s efforts I can safely say that trusting your own ability is a good thing to do.

Voice Notes

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I am currently taking The Way of Writing, Natalie Goldberg’s new online class with Shambhala Publications. It was truly exciting on Saturday evening to sit among a body of 2,181 students beaming in from all over the world via Zoom. Natalie makes it work – her teaching and her spontaneity and her big heart make for a powerful transmission.

When it comes to writing practice, Natalie tasks writers on writing using prompts in, e.g., ten-minute sprints, and then we read our work out aloud to other people, in this case via Zoom breakout groups. This weekend I read and listened to writers from British Columbia, Connecticut, and Florida. It was thrilling: raw, confessional, direct. Some of the best writing I’ve ever heard has been in such contexts.

One of the things that is so special, I think, is that we just listen without giving feedback. In fact, feedback is not allowed, though we usually smile or offer a hands-together bow of thanks.

I have blogged about this before: Express Yourself Without Feedback: feedback has a time and place. It can sometimes bolster your confidence or direct your attention to ways to improve technique, but maybe that comes later; sometimes it pumps up your ego or derails you with criticism or in some other way waylays you. As Natalie said on Saturday, you have to build your spine as a writer, and voicing your own work is one of the best ways of achieving this. There is great strength in the simple act of expression.

Sometimes this listening is combined with a ‘recall’, where the listener simply tells you afterwards what they remember at the end of listening to your piece. Even their misrememberings can be interesting, valuable. Recalls can help focus the practice of listening too. It’s an act of receiving, which is one to cultivate.

So: several friends are also taking this class, and because we are writing every day we thought we’d share some of this work too. Organising another Zoom is a bit like, well, organising another Zoom – maybe we can organise that later?! So for now I have been exchanging WhatsApp voice notes with some of my fellow writers. They are short – just two or three minutes. What a treat! The things I’ve heard. And shared!

And I also found myself playing my own voice notes back to myself. Just once to start with, then more frequently.

Now, I have a thing about my voice. I hate listening to my own voice: I think I sound too nasal, too whiny, too Midlands, too gay. All of that tripe from the monkey mind.

But, actually, this time, in playing back, I liked what I heard. It’s still nasal, whiny, Midlands, and gay – but hey, that’s me. And it felt authentic, and the writing felt true. And somehow what I am hearing in these voice notes is feeding what I am writing day by day too. At some deep preverbal level I feel my awareness of what I am writing and how I am writing it, and it’s coming out on the page. It feels natural, strong.

One of the classic tips for revising your writing is reading it aloud: see where you stumble, catch your mistakes, note where you get bored, or where the sap rises. I also know of writers who ask other people to read their work back to them. That to my mind sounds as good a use of a writing group as any. It’s also useful to record yourself reading your writing and to listen to those recordings.

I remember my teacher-friend Bobbie Louise Hawkins getting excited about some recording accessory you could attach to an iPod for overheard dialogue exercises; this was about 2004, and she’d been getting by for decades with Dictaphones and those miniature tape cassettes. We were thrilled when Sony came out with some pen-sized recording device.

Now digital technology and smartphones make this all so easy.

As a writing experiment: Write for ten-minutes without stopping, using a prompt.* Use a notebook and a pen that writes easily, and (as Natalie says) keep the hand moving – follow your thoughts.

Then, using an app on your phone or computer, record what you wrote and send it as a voice note to a friend or writing partner, e.g., on WhatsApp, or send Voice Memos via a messaging app. If you wish, ask them to do a short recall of what they remember at the end, without playing it again.

Then: listen to this too. Perhaps you can also listen to and acknowledge some writing of a writing partner too.

Give yourself fifteen minutes to do this every day, if you can: ten to write, and five to share and/or to listen. You might also want to make arrangements for sharing with a writing partner for a fixed span, e.g., of a week or a month. (And make sure you choose a writing buddy you trust!)

Just: be listened to. Be heard. Listen to yourself, hear yourself. Build a spine. There is perhaps no greater practice for growing your intuition as a writer.

*If you need a prompt, use one of the following:

  • A year ago …
  • The wind
  • What’s on my bookshelf
  • Flags
  • The clock
  • Prayers
  • Something for your work-in-progress – maybe take a random line and write off it

Clear Thinking

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To round out this short series of posts about the Four Elements practice in writing, let’s look at the fourth and final element: Air.

Air is associated with the mind: thinking, mental states, logic. At its best, it’s associated with clarity: strong ideas clearly expressed in conjunction with the other elements, e.g., conjuring up the senses (earth) in ways that prompt action (fire) and evoke feeling (water). In tarot, the element of Air is represented by the suit of Swords, and it’s useful to think of the image of a sharp blade ready to slice through the air with precision and power – imagine, in the photo above, a giant sword cutting through the clouds towards clear blue sky.

In other contexts, though, an ineffective presence of Air lies at the heart of some of the most frequently encountered weaknesses in undeveloped manuscripts: cluttered writing that’s trying too hard, or stodgy prose that’s hard to follow or care about.

Air can also mess with our process, allowing our monkey minds to, say, worry neurotically about finding an agent while we are still only on page ten of a first draft.

With the craft of writing, I particularly associate Air with ORGANISATION and STRUCTURE and FOCUS. With the bigger picture of a piece of writing, this could mean a well-plotted storyline, or the architecture of a book: how events and revelations are paced and presented through time to create suspense or simply keep the reader reading on.

At a more detailed level, Air can be found in the structure of sentences and paragraphs: effectively rendered SYNTAX that achieves a certain speed or mood, and is clearly understood. Mindful choices of words and verb forms and punctuation will make all the difference to a text.

And Air isn’t just found on the open surface of writing. I also think about the THEMES and IDEAS that work with the intellect, as well as FIGURES OF SPEECH that operate on subconscious levels: symbols, metaphors, similes. Bits of cleverness that engage active minds – though not, it’s hoped, in the process overegging things.

As with the exploration of the other elements, it is going to make sense if Air is balanced with Fire, Water, and Earth – grounded with earthly details, for example, to prevent the writing getting aethereal in a dry and inaccessible way.

As a writing experiment: looking back at previous writing exercises that tasked you on writing letters between characters (Compassionately Yours and Earthly Exchanges), plan a series of letters or exchanges that maps out a larger story. The letter is a form that instantly creates connections and draws us into some sort of agreement – or disagreement. Letters offer gifts, extend invitations, send refusals, or deliver news good or bad.

For example, consider how specific letters can be placed within a story as:

  • triggers or inciting incidents
  • causes or effects in a chain of consequences
  • moments of rising tension, or reversals: do we teeter from moments of hope to moments of despair before hope rises again? Or does fortune rise and rise before a deep dive – or fall and fall before an improvement in circumstances? See Kurt Vonnegut on the shapes of stories
  • obligatory scenes
  • a midpoint or point of no return, after which there is no going back
  • a climax
  • a resolution

To help with this, you might want to think about various theories of on plotting. Which are exhaustive – and can be exhausting! This is one of those points where overthinking can be a problem, and the clarity of Air can be achieved by committing to a simple known form. A few ideas about structure to help:

  • Map out your letters according to how they might fall with an established story structure. I often recommend Michael Hauge’s Five Key Turning Points and Six Stages of a screenplay (which can be adapted for prose too).
  • Or consider the twelve steps of Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey.
  • Or perhaps place a letter in every gap for a version of the Pixar Story Spine: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. And ever since that day ___.

Further posts on plotting: Plotting; Only Connect.

Make yourself a plan. List all of the letters or alternative forms of exchange. Note who they are sent between, and what is exchanged, and what might change in the world of those characters as a result: how do they end up feeling (water) each time? Also note how these letters might be grounded in the world of the senses (earth) with, e.g., settings or objects of desire.

Don’t worry too much (yet!) about gaps, or places where the story feels thin. You can flesh things out in the writing, feeling your way through characters’ intentions and yearnings. What goes on in these letters can’t always be planned, and sometimes you do have to keep on writing to see what emerges instinctively from your characters and settings as you spend time with them.

Eventually it’s likely you will have to put your thinking gear back on to decide how to arrange your material, deciding where to cut or expand – that’s drafting. But too sometimes a good exercise in thinking about our stories lies in actively not overthinking them during the early stages of writing: a balanced sense of Air.

You can take your plan further by committing to a calendar for writing these letters: one a week, or if you have time one a day across the course of a week or so. See where you end up. This might be the whole or part of an epistolary work, or these letters might serve as anchors in the scheme of a larger story to be fleshed out with other scenes. Or they might simply serve as an outline of sorts for a longer work.

Also take a look at the overall energy (fire) charted between the letters: can you identify a clear, focused line (air) that summarises the story they tell in a sentence or two?

Additional elemental activity: set a timer for five minutes and meditate at your desk or wherever you write before you embark on this activity. Keep it simple: each time a thought arises, note it as a thought and then let it pass, and then return your attention to your breath – connect with the air you take in, and the air you send out into the world.

And a date for your diary in the new year: on Monday 11 January at 6pm I am the guest at the next Words Away Zalon, where I shall be talking to Kellie Jackson about the Airy topic of mindfulness in writing and publishing: Words In Action.

Earthly Exchanges

by Andrew | 1 Comment

Continuing our closer look at my Four Elements practice in writing, let’s think about Earth.

Earth is about the embodiment of the material world in writing: how we bring to life sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures or touch – the slant of sunlight in November, the song of a robin, the anticipation of eating those fat beans stewing with bayleaf and onions in the pressure cooker back home. The smell of onions that will linger in every corner of the house for a few days!* The crispy – and soggy – leaves that your boots sink into.

Material objects often lie at the heart of a story too: a magic ring, or an inherited house, or a painting in the attic, or a gun over the mantelpiece. Objects can create a focus that serves up purpose and tension, and they can ground the writing in a concrete and specific reality.

These are earthly considerations in the FORM of our writing at a MICRO level: which tangible images and sense perceptions do we select for the characters and settings and objects that populate our stories, and which words do we choose to describe them and make them feel real?

The FORM that writing takes is also a consideration at a MACRO level. I recently blogged about Ursula Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory – what is the larger shape that contains the writing? And at a more detailed level, how might, for example, your book be organised into the narrative units of chapters? Or think about other forms, conceptual or more tangible: the Russian doll format of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, or the separate strands of a braided narrative, or the exchange of letters that makes up an epistolary novel.

Earth is also associated with ACTION: some physical gesture or action set in motion when we add the energy and purpose of Fire. Think about the acts of sex and violence that feature in so many stories, or more subtly the earthly gestures of a kiss or the signing of a contract.

As a writing experiment: bring some of these aspects of Earth together by writing a letter in response to the compassionate letter from the Water exercise Yours Compassionately.

Make this letter contain a material action as well as a material object that somehow serves as a focus to ground the writing: a thank you for a tangible gift, notification of an inheritance, the finding of a body, a ladder someone’s walked under or fallen off, a wrong envelope.

Importantly, think about the exchange created between these letters: what is sent and what is received? What is given, and what is taken?

*Update from tomorrow: the smell of onions lingering on the seal of the pressure cooker, and the tang of vinegar and the drying effect of bicarbonate of soda you’re using to try to remove said smell …

Yours Compassionately

by Andrew | 2 Comments

Looking at further examples from the Four Elements practice in writing, let’s consider Water, which is associated with emotion.

There are plenty of ways to think about evoking feeling in writing: shifts in tone can work, for example, through pacing, word choice, sentence length, and plenty of other techniques. Perspective and point of view can also make a difference in establishing an intimacy or detachment or a particular angle on events. These are tweaks or more radical changes we can experiment with during revising and self-editing: which way of telling the story creates a stronger emotional bond with the reader?

But too I am always looking for the intuitive approaches – the things that work their magic naturally, that unspool feeling without effort. When I taught the Water Ways workshop with Words Away back in February, we looked specifically at letter-writing as an instinctive act of embodying feeling in writing.

Firstly, we read some of the real-life letters of Tove Jansson. Depending on who she is addressing – family, lovers, old friends – her tone can be gossipy, passionate, newsy, sincere. The writing is also very efficient – often lyrical in its description of life in her island summerhouse, often brisk, more than a bit scary in describing air raids during the war, grateful in saying thank you for gifts sent from a friend in America, no-nonsense but revealing in relating business matters about her beloved creations the Moomins. Letter-writing doesn’t usually give you time for fussing about language; you have a message and you have to get it across. There is a direct quality of exchange and communication.

We also read selections from Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a beautiful novel that takes the form of a letter to his mother – you can listen to the author read an extract at that link from his publisher. Again: a remarkable intimacy works through this direct quality of addressing someone – in this case a mother who has shared those experiences of being a first-generation migrant.  Also, in this instance, the writing has a real charge from knowing that the mother in the novel can’t read. There have been struggles, there have been difficulties in their relationship – but there is also great love.

As a writing experiment: write a letter from one character to another with a particular purpose. In this instance, give it focus by making it a letter that is compassionate in its intent.

I’m currently taking an online class in Mindful Compassion with my alma mater Naropa University. (More info on a self-paced version here.) It’s fascinating! Not least as I’ve only dipped my toe into the disciplines of religious studies and psychology before. The science underlying various studies on mindfulness training is compelling.

I’ve been particularly interested in various thoughtfully curated readings on altruism and lovingkindness, especially as they tease out the distinctions between empathy (sharing feeling for others) and compassion (extending feeling towards others in ways that alleviate suffering).

It’s also made me question the idea of self-esteem, which can place a premium on pumped-up or unrealistic senses of the self and others. ‘Esteem’ – respect and admiration. Are we doing good things to be respected and admired, or are we doing good things for the sake – and the need – of doing good things?

Lots to think about – and too lots for writers to consider in how they contain feeling in the words they choose.

So, put this into practice: write a letter between two characters in which one of them is doing good things by reaching out to alleviate someone else’s suffering. Consider the nature of that character’s suffering, and then consider its cause and what another character can do to make that suffering more tolerable – and then let that character reach out.

Additional elemental activity: Before you write your character’s letter, try thinking – or feeling – your way into both characters as you take a shower or have a bath. (Note: there might be a difference between the experience of running water in a shower, and the relatively still water of a bath.)

Alternative Water-based writing experiment: I Remember, because so much about memories taps into emotion.