This week’s Friday Writing Experiment celebrates the publication next week of Donna Tartt’s very exciting new novel The Goldfinch.
It’s getting the fantastic reviews it deserves, but I do suggest you don’t read any of them until you’ve read the novel itself, as too many reveal far too much. Even things such as the settings are best left to unfold for themselves – the second (or maybe it’s the third) act of the book took me someplace quite unexpected, and it’s richly rendered and full of further surprises. And that is what much of reading for pleasure is about: the surprises, the narrative tension.
This is touched upon in this very inspiring (and spoiler-free) clip from an interview with Donna Tartt shown on the BBC this week:
When asked what she wants people to read her books for, she answers:
First I want them to have fun. Reading’s no good unless it’s fun … What I always want is the one quality I look for in books and it’s very hard to find … I love that childhood quality of just that gleeful, greedy reading, can’t-get-enough-of-it, what’s-happening-to-these-people, the breathless kind of turning of the pages. That’s what I want in a book. But I also want something that’s well constructed, too. I like to be able to drop down in. Dickens goes so fast, he goes like lightning, but at the same time any sentence you can lift up and it’s a marvel and it’s a miracle. To me, I want those two qualities, the two qualities of any great art: density and speed. Density and speed.
Kirsty also says that her books are about secrets, and Donna replies that all books are about secrets and have mysteries at their heart. ‘Every book has some secret, there’s always a secret.’
One thing that can probably be revealed (something I knew before reading – not least as it’s on the cover) is that the story involves a painting. A painting of a little bird: ‘The Goldfinch’ by Carel Fabritius (and if you don’t know much about it, maybe don’t follow that link till you’ve read the novel either: let the novel bring it into your world in its own way). It’s a beautiful, beautiful painting, or so I believe – I’ve never seen the original, but we’ll all want to now, and thanks to Donna Tartt for describing it so well.
This set me to thinking about ekphrastic writing, which is writing that in some way describes art or uses it as an inspiration. Some examples are mentioned here. I remember my friend and co-teacher Stephanie Heit using Pictures From Brueghel in a workshop at Naropa.
Something further: that bird, that little bird. My goddess, that little bird really haunted me – its exquisite form, its vulnerability, ‘a yellow finch, against a plain, pale ground, chained to a perch by its twig of an ankle’. A little bird painted three and a half centuries ago comes to stand for so much, and mining this meaning allows for the depth and richness of reading this great book.
For this week’s writing experiment, create a piece that takes The Goldfinch as a model for writing:
* As an inspiration, use a painting of a bird or an animal, or maybe a fish or a lizard or an insect.
* As with The Goldfinch, you could also place a secret at the heart of this piece. And it might not hurt to aspire towards density and speed in your work, too: perhaps some of its sentences can be marvels and miracles.
* Or you could simply write a poem about that bird. Something like Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish – I don’t think it was based on a painting, but you could imagine the moment in the artwork as an encounter brought to life in a similar way.
* Most of all, your readers must have FUN.
If you’d like to explore some inspirations, try Animals In Art or even visit the Animal Art Fair. Or take yourself on an artist date to one of your favourite galleries, or root around in gallery websites. Really take in all the details of an artwork featuring your own little bird or animal, and in your own writing embody whatever it – and its subject – might mean.
This is good for lots of reasons. A much-loved winner of much-loved writing. A writer who brings out the stories in the everyday. In Dear Life, a memoir piece about her childhood, Munro describes going to play at a friend’s house after school. The friend she calls Diane dances a Highland fling with Alice, and:
Eventually, we got thirsty and her grandmother gave us a drink of water, but it was horrid water from a dug well, just like at school. I explained about the superior water we got from a drilled well at home, and the grandmother said, without taking any sort of offense, that she wished they had that, too.
And there’s more in the next few paragraphs – a prohibition that reveals something that feels petty and turns out to be very spiteful and probably very defining – but you’ll have to read the piece to find that.
Throughout her writing we find the little surprises of ordinary life, those turns into unexpected joy, or moments laced with violence or revelation or connection. Lots of questions are asked, no easy answers are given, and something lingers.
Something key is a quality of perception: of looking, and seeing, and listening. The young (or older?) Alice in the selection above registers that the grandmother took no offence, and realises that she might have been offensive. A harmless interaction, perhaps, but one filled with harm – and lessons in compassion. And an understanding of what happened in this scene maybe only comes years later, in the moment of writing. Something is conjured up here.
Much of Munro’s art lies in the symmetry and energy of her sentences; note how the clause ‘without taking any sort of offense’ is slid between commas in the middle of a sentence in that extract above. And her sentences often rely on simple but strong word choices. Even neglected parts of speech such as prepositions have their own special powers. At the start of her story ‘Walker Brothers Cowboy’: ‘We leave my mother sewing under the dining-room light, making clothes for me against the opening of school’ – maybe it’s a Canadianism I’m unaware of, but the use of that preposition ‘against’ opens up all manner of associations in my mind, and among other things makes me most alert to her language.
This prize is also a victory that reminds us of the wonders of the short story, the literary form of most of Munro’s published writing. ‘For years and years I thought that stories were just practice, till I got time to write a novel’, she says. Well, the short story is not second best, and let’s praise the Nobel judges for reminding us of that. But even if you are stuck on other forms, I do think many people writing, e.g., novels could gain important practice in the writing of fiction if they tackled some short stories along the way. And I also think that some short stories – by other people – do feel like practice too. So maybe we should also remember to write short stories for all the reasons they are so special. I repeat: the short story is not second best. (Here is one of my Friday Writing Experiments that grows out of some opining on that matter.)
If you’d like to enjoy some more of her stories, the New Yorker shares some here (but maybe skip the summaries, which can reveal too much). The New Yorker also shares some of the enthusiasm of other writers, as well as a nifty piece by one of her editors (though maybe skip the two longer extracts and the sentences just before them – those literary types and their fondness for spoilers). And (update on 13 October) the Paris Review also has a super interview in its ‘Art of …’ series. Paul McVeigh has gathered together many things Munro on his terrifically useful blog too, including audio clips, interviews, and stories.
‘Books seem to me to be magic, and I wanted to be part of the magic,’ Munro has said. For today’s writing experiment: write a piece in which you suffuse something very ordinary with something very magical. Not fantastical, not supernatural, but the magic of the ordinary. This ordinary magic could be observed in a place, a person, an object, or the view out of your window. Your form could be a story, or a poem, or memoir, or a paragraph of description or exchange of dialogue in a novel. And you probably want to be concrete and specific in what you behold.
I’m not sure how you’ll locate that magic, but let’s hope that the process of looking will help you find it.
I remember the sweet musty air of the mobile library. It came to the Caledonia every second Saturday morning, and parked itself on Mousehall Farm Road.
I remember Comet in Moominland, Little House in the Big Woods, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIHM.
I remember the high windows of Hull’s Brynmor Jones Library, the recently opened Humber Bridge in the distance.
I remember how we often found Allen’s Ginsberg’s own books on the shelves of the Allen Ginsberg Library at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa. A Tibetan swingseat on the porch, tall flags fluttering on blue and red and yellow on the green, mountains through a narrow window.
I remember the University of New Mexico’s Zimmerman Library, and the long wooden tables, and the glow of low lamplight. I remember the murals, I remember the fountain at the duck pond, and I remember the fountain in the little courtyard right out of Rappaccini’s Daughter.
I remember Madeline Miller talking about The Song of Achilles at Twickenham Library a couple of days after she won the Orange Prize – some foresight on the part of local library services. She was totally charming, wholly intelligent, and very entertaining.
I remember the carved panels of the heavy wooden doors of Sydney’s Mitchell Library, telling tales of Aboriginal history.
I remember a tarot reading in the cafe of the British Library.
I could go on, and I shall at my leisure, but now it’s your turn: write an ‘I Remember’ about the libraries you have known.
If you want to take this further: you could place a limit on how long you remember libraries, and then stop and look back over your collection. Choose one of these libraries, and then write about an encounter within that hallowed place, real-life or fictional, or a bit of both.
(With full credit to Joe Brainard’s brilliant and inspirational ‘I Remember’.)
I used ‘I Remember’ in this mini-course, and it is also a starting point for a Friday Writing Experiment elsewhere on my site. I love this exercise for many reasons, and most of all for how it fosters a natural and easy (instinctive) voice within the writing. All credit to Joe Brainard and his own ‘I Remember’, now in its own very handsome UK edition.
If you’re curious about the tarot images that first inspired me, some pictures of the Rider-Waite deck are linked here. I suggest you look at the Aces of each of the suits/elements – Wands/Fire, Cups/Water, Swords/Air, and Pentacles/Earth – and if you want to go further maybe take a look at Queens, Kings, Knights, and Pages. I love these traditional images. Maybe you can think about ways in which they embody purpose, emotion, thinking, and the material world in powerful, symbolic ways. Maybe the pictures can even give you some ideas about how to use their respective elements in your writing.
One day I hope to write and publish a book on The Four Elements of Writing …
Oh, and sorry if I sounded snippy about the idea of magical realism. I LOVE MAGICAL REALISM, and even write stuff that could fit in that vein sometimes. But this article touches on some of the issues of how it can be more problematic as a working definition for writers than it is as a literary term used by scholars. My biggest issue with magical realism: thinking about it can make the writing too intellectualised, or overthought. (But then overthinking can be a problem when world creation takes over many sf and fantasy stories.)
EDITING FOR WRITERS
Okay, I was a bit overambitious with this one, and I apologise for that. It was supposed to be half about what happens during editorial processes at a publisher, and half made up of tips on editing for writers, but I only really covered the first half.
The one thing I really want to emphasise: if you are self-publishing, please build these editorial stages into your workflow:
* structural editing (mostly: matters of shaping the content) * copyediting (mostly: improving the text word by word and line by line) * proofreading (quality control: eyeballing of the text in its final format)
I really believe in self-publishing. Really really really do. But there are too many editorially substandard self-published works out there. Yours must not be one of them.
And if you are aiming for someone else to publish you, you can probably (within reason) let their copyeditor worry about your hyphenation patterns and punctuation. We don’t want such anxieties to stifle your creativity. Just be sure your slip is not showing in such a way that you look sloppy or unprofessional.
Stephanie has a miscarriage and tells a doctor or nurse not to tell anyone, while she goes about trying to adopt a baby. In the meantime, she pretends for eight months to be pregnant. When the husband of her best friend sees her without her pregnancy disguise, she murders him. Then she runs to the forest to give birth to her imaginary child. Or something like that.
An editor should be able to help …
HOW TO WRITE A SENTENCE
Last week I was cursing myself. What on earth did I sign up for this for six months ago? I’ve not covered this in an hour-long session before, and I don’t have all that grammatical jargon at my fingertips, because I wasn’t taught it either; I’ve had to mug up on it during my years of teaching, and it still doesn’t always come to me instinctively. Or to think about it sideways: my instinct tells me to go ahead and edit a sentence, but I don’t always know why, and as a teacher I need to know why, and I also need to be able to translate all that bloody jargon into something other writers can understand. I mean, come on – even the grammarians can’t agree whether there are eight, or nine, or seven parts of speech …
But I was pleased with how this workshop turned out. You were a great group of patient people (thanks to those who donated sentences!), and I covered the main points I wanted to make even if much of the rest was left to the handouts. Just remember that grammar and syntax are mostly not rules but a working system.
And try to use parts of speech in their best possible ways through remembering that aphorism ‘Opinion is the death of thinking’, and considering how nouns and verbs form their functions there.
Some resources:
* An old and out-of-copyright edition of William Strunk’s The Elements of Style, before E.B. White was involved * Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax – recommended if you want an accessible introduction to grammar * Ursula Le Guin, Steering The Craft – in fact, this is perhaps the most accessible guide of all, and includes chapters on: punctuation; sentence length and complex syntax; adjective and adverb; and subject pronoun and verb (you might need to order online)
A snap of that chart of hyphenation patterns from the Chicago Manual of Style is shown above. It’s taken from the 13th edition. They changed some of their own rules for the 16th edition, eek!
ET CETERA
I remember forgetting to mention various things at various points during the weekend. I remember that I’ve since forgotten what they were. Oh dear. I’ll remember some other time.
Something I forgot to add when I first posted this was a link to the Erotic Readers & Writers Association for someone I met during a book doctor one-to-one. In general, know thy genre: the conventions used in the writing, the conventions offline and on- where you get to hang out and network (and maybe eventually get published).
And another recommendation for writers of erotica: Elements of Arousal by Lars Eighner. It’s a how-to book on writing erotica that is a little out of date now, thanks to digital publishing, but it has some of the BEST advice on writing fiction of any type (though the faint-hearted might note he also writes gay erotica, and the braver-hearted might find it is out of print, though look around for second-hand copies and also Google the author too).
Something I can’t forget: As ever, many thanks to the lovely people of the Writers’ Workshop (sorry you couldn’t be there, Harry – but: priorities!). And thanks to everyone else associated, and to everyone who came along and made it such fun. I met some people who now feel like old friends as well as lots of new and fantastic people, both writers and industry professionals.
In my work as a book doctor and writing teacher, I sometimes remember a friend who’s a publisher saying to me that she thinks that creative writing programmes ‘give false hope’.
Hmm. I think this is a valid concern.
However, I am a teacher, as well as an editor, so I do believe in the idea of improvement, and especially in the idea that people can learn.
An MA in creative writing is one possibility, and it can provide structure and community, as well as direction. Someone was singing the praises of such courses in the Guardian only this morning: ‘Will a master’s in creative writing get you a book deal?’ – a variation on a familiar theme of discussing whether writing can be taught.
But an MA can also be expensive, and very often you’ll probably only produce the 15,000 words required for an academic thesis to satisfy the academeaucrats. Which is fine if you want or need an academic qualification. If you also want to complete a novel, you might need to seek out one of the few MA’s that actually require you to finish a novel (and even then, know it’ll still almost certainly need revising). So: research such courses well. Look at their content, look at the teachers, speak (directly) to recent graduates, and go in with your eyes open. And remember that the guy who wrote the article above got his book deal because an editor liked his book enough to want to publish it, and not necessarily because he has an MA.
And don’t start me on the idea of marking academic work. A % attached to a piece of creative writing is an absurdity, but one that the academeaucracy requires. In my view, if writing has to be marked (and it is a big If), it should be Pass/Fail, with maybe (maybe) very rarely, like, every five years, a Distinction for that brilliant thing that is ready to go. After that success should be measured by the author: completing the novel, getting it published, winning a prize, making a living, finally getting the approbation of the disapproving father. A % (often based on pretty subjective criteria) just disappoints, and boxes you in, and that is useless for most any creative enterprise. So please: a Distinction might stroke your ego, but take it with a pinch of mixed metaphors if what you really want is to publish your book. (Not least, you have to finish it first. See: 15,000 words, above.)
One further thought: in the UK, I suggest part-time MA’s spanning a couple of years are often better than one-year courses, because writing and creativity take time to gestate. In the US, an MFA (such as the one I did at Naropa University) usually takes two years full-time, and maybe longer part-time, and I think that shows in the depth and quality of the experience. Plus, it usually takes at least a term/semester to warm up and readjust. One year simply feels too rushed! Spin out the experience, spin out the pleasure.
And if you are thinking of going to university for any reason at all, you really must read this.
Rants over. Let’s put the positive back into the world. Let’s make it new. Let’s not forget that most of the great writers we read had no MAs, but very different qualifications: life experience, yearning, a typewriter, a well-read library. Their writing courses were self-assembled.
With a bit of discipline and imagination, you too can build a course of careful study and reading for yourself:
DIY CREATIVE WRITING: SOME NOTES TOWARDS A SYLLABUS
1. Read. One of the more gratifying things that someone said to me at the festival this last weekend was that she was very grateful to me for making her go away and do a lot of reading after last year’s book doctor session. (And she might know a thing or two, as she did win this year’s prize for the best opening chapter. Though I’m not taking the credit! Her book idea is very good, and she really can write too.) I always always always dish out a load of reading recommendations, and sometimes I worry I am being a bit too schoolma’am. So this was validating.
They might include (roughly in the order I’d recommend):
* Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction (the classic textbook, which came out in an affordable edition in 2019) * Ursula Le Guin, Steering The Craft * Constance Hale, Sin And Syntax (for help with prose style) * Stephen King, On Writing * Susan Bell, The Artful Edit * Francine Prose, Reading Like A Writer * good books on story structure, such as various written on screenwriting, e.g., Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey (though remember that fiction is not film, especially with regards to narration – fiction writers do not have to rely entirely/mostly on foreground action) * Sandra Newman & Howard Mittelmark, How Not To Write A Novel (much mirth here too) * Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones (fabulous for inspiring people, especially at the beginning) * John Gardner, The Art Of Fiction * Scarlett Thomas, Monkeys With Typewriters * Alice LaPlante, The Making Of A Story (another textbook, including short stories that are discussed along the way)
Note: these are books and resources about writing. You might have to research other stuff too (what it was like to live in the 1970s, the workings of an astrolabe), but here I am talking about the focused study of writing. If you’ve not done this, you might gain from it.
2. Also reread your favourite books – but this time as a writer. See what makes them work (Francine Prose’s book listed above is great for helping with that). I often recommend listening to old faves as audiobooks for a different experience of them.
3. Get circulating in that world of writing. Take yourself to conferences, writing festivals, or conventions. Attend readings, talks, and literary salons such as those run by Words Away, the Riff-Raff, or TLC, and also check out what’s on at your local bookshops. Join Twitter and use social media, and participate in online communities. Blog, review. In fact, in some genres this is almost a requirement. Plus, it’s fun, and at the very least you’ll make friends. You’ll also grow your writer’s instinct.
4. [Updated January 2018.] Think about taking a course. Creative writing is now an industry, and some course are better or more suitable than others, for sure. I strongly recommend you get a direct personal recommendation from someone who’s actually taken a specific course with a specific teacher (and paid money to do so). Maybe try to talk (not email) with some of the teachers, and also consider who the other students might be (your peers can make a hell of a difference to your experience).
A sequence of online courses that I recommend highly is run by the University of British Columbia on the edX platform – read my review of How To Write A Novel here. The teaching materials on that course are probably among the best I’ve seen in creative writing.
I have also seen very good results from the self-editing course run by Debi Alper and Emma Darwin for Jericho Writers. It’s short (six weeks), and focused, and it’s taught by two very good and very experienced teachers who really know what they’re talking about. It might be an idea to consider a class such as this once you have a first draft of a manuscript and it’s ready for more work.
There are plenty of other courses too – online, residential, and regular classroom: Curtis Brown Creative, Faber Academy, The Literary Consultancy, Masterclass, Arvon Foundation, Write Here, Word Factory, London Lit Lab, Writers’ HQ, or the Guardian, as well as classes run by museums and libraries and regional writing bodies. Some are one-offs lasting a day or an afternoon, some are run over a weekend or a block of several days, or once a week for several weeks. Some offer more interaction with tutors and other writers than others; some are self-paced, while others have more fixed durations. You can find all sorts of different topics too, e.g., inspirations in getting started, characterisation, structure and story, drafting, publishing. I myself run workshops and masterclasses on creativity as well as craft topics such as plotting, character, voice, and revising and editing. Contact me if you’d like to be added to a mailing list, or if you are interested in my mentoring services.
And how about going to Boulder and immersing yourself in a week or two of the love and crazy wisdom of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Program at my alma mater Naropa University? Such residential programmes and writing retreats can be found all over the world, e.g., Write It Down, Skyros, various locations across the UK. If that sounds a bit Let Them Eat Cake (or Millet Bars, in the case of Boulder) it’s cheaper than an MA, and possibly more transforming. Combining writing and learning and travel can be extremely liberating for your creative self.
It is in fact good to attend a variety of courses and events: practical, commercial, artsy, academic. By exposing yourself to different styles of teaching or different views of writing, you can work out your own process and needs. Also take on board the fact that, though there are times when feedback is essential, there are other times simply for finding inspiration. Taking classes in other fields can also inform your work in some way.
And again: seek out direct recommendations. Twitter can be a good place to find out more.
Also, it can make sense to use fresh projects or new ideas for exercises you try out in your studies. The task of learning can be complicated by your attachment to an existing or intended pet project, so it can be good to get out of your own way. Your labour of love can make you too outcome-oriented (is this good enough to publish?), when at this stage what you might really need is to focus on the more immediate goals of learning the craft (is my characterisation strong enough? should I try out another point of view just to see what happens?). It’s usually easier to free yourself for experimentation in technique and style when you’re working on something fresh. Short stories are great places to practise writing – and are also great outcomes in and of themselves, requiring less time, commitment and resources than a novel.
5. Use time wisely. It’s also a good idea sometimes to put a limit on various activities such as courses, as you can become a writing groupie, and mostly we probably want you to be a writer. (Nothing against groupies, but that is more about community and socialising and friendships – do that on the side too, for sure.) Create long-term goals, with deadlines. And not just deadlines of daily word counts, and for The End. Among your deadlines, you might actually take a break from writing your masterpiece for a bit, and decide to spend six months reading some of these books on writing, and maybe taking a short course or two.
6. Oh yes, and among all this set aside time actually to write. Maybe even do something like NaNoWriMo, which tasks you on clattering out a novel of 50,000 words in the month of November. I have conflicted feelings about NaNoWriMo, but a bit of bingeing doesn’t hurt for one month a year.
7. Find readers. Writing groups, reading groups, workshops. In person and online: I recommend working both ways, so that real time and eye contact can be balanced with reading that takes place at slightly more of a distance. Consider other potential beta readers among booklovers you’ve gathered down the years (and if you’ve not been gathering them already, maybe now’s the time to start).
You can also get professional reads from writers or editors, or work with a mentor; the cost of these services can vary, and it’s worth getting a personal recommendation. As I work independently, I tend to quote on an individual basis so that I can tailor what I offer according to need, but literary consultancies usually tell you their fees on their websites.
Integrate the different and sometimes contradictory things you hear, until your instinct knows what you need to do to make the writing the best it can be, or what you want it to be.
8. And reading and giving editorial feedback on other people’s work-in-progress will turn you into an editor, and you’ll gain perspective on your own writing too. Who knows, maybe you’ll even develop another career as editor or teacher yourself.
9. Think about a budget. Courses and editorial services or mentoring will have a cost attached, as will books. But look out for various offerings, e.g., via writing organisations – TLC provides info on regional writing bodies (as well as many other useful web links); sign up for emails from your local body with regular updates on events and opportunities in writing as well as publishing.
9. Most of all: listen. Listen to other people, but most of all slow down and listen to yourself, and listen to your own writing.
[I added a few minor updates here in January/February 2018 and September 2019, mostly to points 1 and 4 above. As the landscape of creative writing is always changing, I shall be overhauling these resources to reflect the widening range of available offerings. There are lots of workshops and courses and publishing events popping up all over – it’s great to see so many opportunities giving writers alternatives to the MA model.]
