Reviews of this book:
"… one of the best pocket courses in writing I have read …. The writing is bright, practical and logical; the instruction covers all aspects, from writing letters to news media articles and novels …. This one is good." (Freelance magazine)
"A good many who already consider themselves to be 'writers' could learn from her book - professional journalists among them." (The Press, Christchurch)
"… a commendably commonsense text to get you started and keep you restarting" (Wellington Dominion)
WRITING
A PRACTICAL GUIDE
Joan Curry
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Joan Curry
http://joancurry.blogspot.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people, If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction: what this
manual offers
Chapter 2: Give me a quill: useful aids to
writing
Chapter 3: Jack fell screaming: getting started
Chapter
4: Easy does it: building confidence
Chapter 5: Bean by bean:
discussion of work methods
Chapter 6: Facts are better than
dreams: nonfiction introduced
Chapter 7: Nonfiction - how to
prepare: the nuts and bolts of nonfiction writing
Chapter 8:
Scissors and paste: putting nonfiction together
Chapter 9:
Guided dreams: fiction introduced
Chapter 10: Something murky
going on: the germ of the story idea and its development
Chapter
11: Incubation: some other ingredients of fiction
Chapter 12: The
brightly lit stage: putting fiction together
Chapter 13:
Twitching the veils: suspense, mystery and romance in
fiction
Chapter 14: Writing for the media: press releases and
writing for radio
Chapter 15: Sitting down & remembering
things: writing family history & autobiography
Chapter 16:
Head in the hands? writer’s block and how to ignore it
Chapter
17: Getting the words right: revision and polishing
Chapter 18:
Bits and bobs: scraps of useful information
Chapter 19: Amuse
yourself: projects and amusements to get you going
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
"I write in
order to discover on my shelf a new book which I would
enjoy
reading, or to see a new play that would engross me." (Thornton
Wilder)
This manual has been prepared as a basic programme to help those who have always wanted to write but who lack the will, or the confidence, to start. It has been designed with the adult student in mind - he or she who has a desire, however modest, to take up writing either for personal pleasure or for wider recognition. The intention has been twofold. First, to urge the beginning writer into a new hobby or career, and second, to make the manual as useful and informative as possible for all interested writers and readers, including more experienced ones.
My approach is one of fellow feeling. I am leading from the front - but only because I have been in the writing business for quite a long time. We are all in the same boat. We have all procrastinated, sitting under trees on warm summer afternoons and feeling guilty because we were not huddled at our keyboards or scribbling away at masterpieces. We have all thought we had nothing to say and no skills to say it with. We have all told ourselves that we would be writers when we have the time, or the space, or the chance.
The manual is based on notes used in nearly two decades of teaching basic creative writing skills to adult students. So I should tell you about how I happened to be teaching writing at all. My working life has been mostly in the book business: bookshops, publishing houses and trade organisations. My writing experience has been generally of the bread-and-butter kind: book reviews, feature articles, short radio commentaries, reports for various organisations, editing, book discussion notes, short fiction. My family history is in two respectably sized volumes and the autobiography has been completed. The grandchildren, when they were small, were regularly showered with stories and poems, and those have been carefully saved. And like any other writer, I have a couple of unfinished novels in progress.
In class I was a benign bully. I prodded and goaded students into having a go at writing, at least for the duration of the course. I reasoned that they had bothered to come along, they had paid a course fee and presumably wanted to learn something in return. Part of the process meant accepting the fact that they had to take some responsibility for their progress. If they then decided that writing was not for them, at least they would have given it their best shot.
The same goes for this manual. You have presumably bought it and want something in return. If you have borrowed it, that’s alright too. You are at least going to the trouble of reading it. Either way, you should know that you can't learn to write without actually writing. No manual has magical properties. Nobody can wave a wand and make you a writer. Here is basic, unpalatable truth #1. Face it squarely and you might achieve something some day: we get nowhere waiting for someone to give us chances, we have to take them for ourselves. If we don't write, it is nobody's fault but our own.
Each week during a course I suggested projects that people could tackle at home, to limber up and experience different kinds of writing. Many of these projects are included here and you are urged to try them out for yourself. Most of them are fun and all are useful for one reason or another.
Anyone who attends a writing class, or reads a book on how to write, should know why they are doing it. At the beginning of each course I asked people to tell me what they expected and hoped to gain from the sessions. This broke the ice and gave me an idea of the range of talents and ambitions, and even personalities, of the participants. It also helped people to sort out in their own minds why they were there. Here are some of the common reasons that were given for attending a writing class:
I have always wanted to write but
don't know how to start.
My friends say I write great letters and
should write stories/novels/poems.
I want to express myself.
I
want to improve my skills.
I want to know how to find subjects.
I
need help with plotting stories.
I can't get started.
I keep
freezing.
I don't know if I have any talent.
I'm shy about
letting people see what I've written.
Most of the reasons for seeking help are based on lack of confidence or lack of determination, or both. People who are confident and persistent are not normally attending a writing class, they are at home writing. But we can be hesitant and unsure of ourselves and will snatch at any help that's offered, whether it is practical or inspirational. And even the confident, persistent ones sometimes feel that their work could be improved, or that there might be better ways of doing things. All of us can benefit from discussion about the business of writing. Because it is a lonely, solitary activity we seek each other out in clubs and work groups so that we can talk about the things that concern us, discuss problems, and give each other moral support. For the same reasons we are inveterate readers of biographies of writers, and of writing manuals. It seems we are never tired of trying to find out how other people do it, or how we could do it better or more easily. Bearing all this in mind, I have designed this manual to include practical hints, ideas and projects, such as:
Equipment useful to the writer
How
to get started - and keep going
Work methods and
organisation
Finding things to write about
Confidence
building
Skill building
How to write stories
How to
construct articles
Problems and pitfalls
How to identify faults
and put them right
Bits and bobs of useful information
Projects
to try
So, why are you reading this book? I assume that you want to write and that you feel uncertain about the process, just as those who attend writing classes do. It might help to spend a few moments thinking about what writing is and exactly why we want to do it. Here is W. H. Allen on the subject: "Writing is ink, blood, tears, sweat, frustration, disappointment. And when you have finished, what have you got? A lot of words strung together." He might have been feeling a touch liverish that day because it doesn't have to be that bad.
Writing, in the practical, everyday sense of the word, is easy enough for most of us. We can string words together after a fashion, just as we can sit down at a piano and pick out a simple tune with one finger without having taken any lessons. But that isn't playing the piano, and writing a note and sticking it under the fridge magnet isn't writing in the creative sense. What we are hoping to do is a little more difficult and a whole lot more rewarding. And there is no point in doing it if we don't have an itch to play with words, to create something that gives pleasure both to ourselves and to others, to express ourselves, to communicate.
We should ask ourselves if we want to write, or if we want to be writers, with all that being a writer (presumably) implies: fame, fortune, status, a sense of being somebody. If we want those things, writing is probably not the way to go about it. In order to write happily it is necessary to enjoy the process, or if that is too much to ask, at least enjoy the satisfaction and sense of achievement at having written.
Would you write even if no-one is going to see what you've written? If so, then it is the writing that is important, not the effect the writing has on others. This does not mean that only writing that is done for personal pleasure is creative or valuable. But it indicates that writing is important to you for its own sake.
Most of us would rather write for a readership, however modest. If we also find fame and fortune we probably wouldn't object. But such rewards should be considered the bonus, not the reason for writing. The object of writing should not be to inflate the ego. If your ego needs tender loving care, it wouldn't be fair to expose it to the risk of public scrutiny anyway. Writing is for expressing your thoughts and ideas in a variety of ways, and it might be useful to consider the ways in which we might do that.
We write for several reasons: to inform; to persuade; to entertain; we can write as a form of therapy; we write because it is part of our job or our studies; and we write for fun. Needless to say these categories can, and often do, overlap. Let's take them one by one.
Information
Here the
primary goal is to explain or discuss a subject. We might have
expertise in some field, or we might wish to tell people about
something we, or others, have seen or done or thought. Journalists,
academics and people who write how-to books and articles are among
those writing to inform. To do this we need expertise and some
measure of credibility, otherwise no-one will take us seriously.
Persuasion
All sorts of
people use writing to convince others to change their views, or
pursue some course of action or accept new ideas. Politicians,
conservationists, advertisers, preachers and propagandists are the
persuaders of the literary world. Again, credibility is important,
and so is good information.
Entertainment
This is the
realm of fiction, although in the broadest sense all writing should
be entertaining or readers will get bored. The fiction writer's main
task is to entertain readers, provide enjoyment, excitement,
escapism, romance and all the other pleasurable sensations sought by
the reading public. You can also inform in fiction, by describing
exotic settings or interesting occupations, but this should be
delicately done. You can persuade in fiction, by making conservation
such an agreeable cause that your readers will be motivated to rush
out and save whales. But readers resent being hammered with a
too-obvious moral these days so, again, be subtle.
Therapy
This is the
ultimate in self-expression. This is when you let fly and write
something out of your system in a flurry of self-indulgence. There is
a danger here, though. As long as we see it for what it is, writing
out anger or misery or spite might be good for the soul - providing
we don't then post the letter or publish the article. But any piece
destined to be seen by eyes other than our own should be better
considered than that. Writing a passionate plea on our favourite
cause is fine too - and comes under the heading of persuasion -
providing we don't let our emotions get the better of our good sense.
Otherwise we risk being dismissed as cranks and our efforts will have
been worse than useless.
Profession
Here we write
because we must. We write reports for our colleagues, essays for our
lecturers, letters to business associates and customers, newsletters
for our members. Even if we write reluctantly, it is easier to do
the job if we have some of the tricks and tools of the trade to call
on.
Fun
This is where we can
truly be ourselves, when we write letters to friends, poetry for
self-expression, a journal or diary to remind ourselves of how we
feel or think, or to ramble over the events of the day. We can write
a blog and share it via the internet. If we want to, we can take on
other writing projects with a sense of ease and pleasure. It doesn't
have to be ink, blood, tears, sweat, frustration, disappointment. It
can be rewarding and fun too.
CHAPTER 2: GIVE ME A QUILL
"Give me a quill
and ink and I will write such a tale as will
chill you to the
marrow." (George Borrow)
He would also need paper, and perhaps a ballpoint pen might be more appropriate, but that's all you really need. However, a few other aids to writing can be useful.
Thesaurus
This comes in
several forms, from a regular sized paperback to a fair sized
hardback book, and can often be picked up in second-hand book stores.
Great if you are the type to freeze because you can't think of a
word, great for increasing the range of your vocabulary, and great
even for suggesting angles and directions for your work. Browse
around a word that roughly expresses the thought in your head and see
what the thesaurus can come up with.
How do you use a thesaurus? Check the front of your edition to see details of how it is set out, but basically, a thesaurus works in two ways. One section is laid out in themes or categories of ideas, and each theme leads to the next in logical sequences. You can start with a concept like “greatness”, which will lead you to smallness, superiority, inferiority, increase, decrease, addition, subtraction.
The other section is an alphabetical index, like a dictionary, except that instead of definitions you are offered synonyms, together with reference numbers of the sections to which they refer. These in turn will give you a selection of synonyms and related ideas and yet more references. Once you learn how to handle your thesaurus and make a habit of browsing through it, you will find it an invaluable tool which is never off your desk. I couldn't function without mine.
Dictionary
Vital for
spelling. And it's better to check on the correct meaning of doubtful
words than to use words incorrectly in print. Get a medium sized
dictionary rather than a pocket-sized one.
Dictionary of Quotations
Also
great for browsing, for suggesting titles, even themes. And a quote
or two in the body of an article can lend interest and variety. But
beware, they are great time-wasters. Start reading anywhere and find
yourself an hour or two later still happily skimming through the
pages.
Any kind of guide to the
language
For anyone who is a bit shaky on grammar and
construction. There are several, such as Partridge's Usage and
Abusage of the English Language or Fowler's Modern English Usage
(although this is not very modern these days). They are dictionaries
of information about the English language and its quirks and
difficulties. You look up "etc" and find that Fowler frowns
on its use in sentences of a literary character as being amateurish,
slovenly and incongruous. Check on "glimpse" and you are
advised on the difference between glimpse and glance: the glimpse is
what is seen by the glance and not the glance itself, Fowler says
firmly. Look up "innovation" and find that you should
never say new innovation because that is a tautology – and you can
look that up too.
Paper
I suggest that for
drafts and note-taking you use scrap paper, old computer print-outs,
pads of newsprint - anything that allows you to scribble without
worrying about spoiling nice clean new paper with mistakes and false
starts. Inhibitions like that can make anyone freeze and you'll never
write anything. Final copies should be printed or typed on A4 white
paper but advice on manuscript presentation comes later in this book.
Notebook
For those who can
remember to use it, a notebook in the pocket or bag can be useful for
recording the thoughts, sights and events of the day until you can
get home to your desk. And carry two pens - one is sure to run out of
ink. Electronic gadgets are useful, and they are becoming more useful
by the hour.
Computer
The computer is
the only way to go for a writer, once you get home and start writing.
Time
You can always find
time to do what you want to do, and if you keep saying that you
haven't the time for writing, perhaps you don't want to write. Turn
the telly off. Get up an hour earlier in the morning. Send the
children to grandma's. But set aside an hour or two each day for your
own. Dr Samuel Johnson, who knew what he was talking about, said that
“a man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to
it.”
A target
A target number of
words is a challenge that most people respond to very well. Don't be
too hard on yourself. Keep the target achievable for your
circumstances but within those limits be firm. Of course there's no
need to stop when the target is reached. Write on if you want to -
and very often you will because writing is like that. Dame Ngaio
Marsh, the New Zealand detective story writer, wrote 1000 words a day
without fail. Grahame Greene was not so ambitious. He aimed for 500,
no matter how tired he was, although he often exceeded this total.
Place
Everyone needs his or
her own place, somewhere private. Make sure that everyone you live
with understands that this drawer, that table, this corner, belongs
to you and to keep off. It won't hurt to protest if someone snoops
through your papers. People soon learn that you have a right to keep
things to yourself if you want to and they should respect that right.
The environment
You should
be comfortable - freezing garrets are for Stoics and mice. Sometimes
the right objects on the writing table can be important. If you find
you must use yellow paper, or purple ink, or have a vase of fresh
flowers on the desk, go ahead.
Attitude
A friend of mine,
when she wanted to spend time writing, put on a special hat, a
floppy, ragged straw. This indicated, to herself as well as to
others, that she was in writing mode and that they wouldn't get a lot
of sense or co-operation out of her for a while. People soon learn to
respect such a degree of purpose. Take yourself seriously. People who
bowl, or play tennis, or save whales, or stick shells on boxes, they
none of them hesitate to tell you about what they do, because what
they do is important to them. Your occupation should be important
enough for you to acknowledge and even defend if you have to.
Persistence
And finally,
the most important ingredient of all - persistence.Time and again
successful writers have pointed out that the most difficult thing
about writing is sitability - the application of the seat of the
pants to the seat of the chair. Maurice Duggan said "I have
written much and thrown away more, but at least I spend the day at my
desk and work as consistently as I can." Richard Bach said "A
professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." Somerset
Maugham told a young writer to spend the morning at his desk and
never to write fewer than a thousand words. And Janet Frame said that
"the only certainty about writing and trying to be a writer is
that it has to be done, not dreamed of or planned." Christopher
Isherwood said that "The great thing is to get after it every
day, and that to my mind applies to everything one does: even the
tiniest act of will towards a thing is better than not doing it at
all."
Even my cat Sophy knew instinctively about persistence. She used to live next door with two grown-ups, two dogs, three cats and three lively little girls. Sophy, when quite small, made up her mind to come and live with us. We were embarrassed and determined to keep her out but Sophy found new gaps and crevices between the two gardens as fast as we blocked up the old ones and she kept appearing. Finally persistence paid off, as it always does, and Sophy moved in with us.
But what about inspiration?
What
about it indeed. Somerset Maugham said: "There is no such thing
as inspiration. At least if there is I have not discovered it. There
is, instead, dedication and complete absorption in your craft ....You
must appreciate right from the start that writing is a profession
like medicine or the law .... I keep the same regular hours today as
I did when I was a medical student."
Jeffrey Archer accepts the possibility of a little inspiration, but only a little. He declared that "writing was 90 per cent hard work and 10 per cent inspiration" and that "if you have one talent plus energy then you are king. Many people have talent but no energy." Inspiration is a fine thing but it is no use sitting around waiting for it to strike. You will be much better off, and get a whole lot more writing done, if you simply sit down and get on with it. That's when the real magic happens.
CHAPTER 3: JACK FELL SCREAMING
The best piece of advice I can give you at this moment, if you want to write fiction, is to write a bold, random sentence like "Jack fell screaming out of the tenth floor window" at the top of your blank sheet of paper or screen. That would break the ice and, with a bit of luck, you will be on your way. Even if the story you end up with has nothing to do with anyone called Jack you will have taken that first step and, like Jack, launched yourself into space.
If you want to write non-fiction my advice would be to write "The main purpose of my article/book is to... ". A sentence like that states your purpose, serves to clarify your goal and gives you a lead. Again, it could send you on your way, especially if you have done some preparation.
As I said, that is probably my best advice but of course you won't take it. To start with, you won't believe it could be that easy. Then, you probably don't know whether you want to write fiction or non-fiction, and if that is so, you probably shouldn't attempt to make such an important decision at this stage. Leave the options open. Experiment. Have fun.
So, you may want to start more cautiously. But being cautious usually means making excuses. Do any of these sound familiar?
Excuses for not writing:
I
don't have any ideas. Nonsense, everyone has ideas.
I
need inspiration. Don't you believe it. Somebody who knew all
about this excuse said he could only write when he was inspired - and
he arranged to be inspired each morning at nine o'clock.
I
need time. So make time.
I can't face rejection. You
can if you try, other people have to.
I need luck. The
harder you work, the luckier you get.
I'm too old. Not
unless you've passed the century mark, and then only if you let it
bother you.
I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes.
Start today. Better still, start now.
I'm not clever enough, I
don't know the fancy words. Lots of people who aren't clever
write books, and fancy words are too often used by people who want to
show off or need to disguise the fact that they haven't sorted out
their ideas properly.
My life isn't interesting enough.
Nonsense, everybody has worthwhile things to say about life.
People are interested in other people, what they do, how they live,
what makes them tick. We don't all live in exotic places or have
dramatic lives.
No-one wants my kind of writing. Who
says so?
Others might do it better. So what?
I
don't know any writers. You don't need to, but you could join, or
start, a support group.
I don't know if I could keep up the
necessary effort. You can swallow an elephant if you eat it one
bite at a time.
I need a better environment. Oh come now,
masterpieces have been written in beds, in garrets, in kitchens, in
prisons – all sorts of places. Take your pick.
I need a
desk. So get one, but a table or a lap will do.
I need a
computer. Save up and buy one. Ask for one for your next
birthday. In the meantime use a pencil and paper.
Other things
get in the way. Get tough once in a while, preferably every day
for an hour or two.
I'll start when I get over this crisis.
Don't wait for it to be over, use it.
I'm too
lonely/busy/distracted/sick. Don't moan, use it. When he was
well the Russian composer Borodin was too busy being a chemist to
write music. He only composed when he was ill.
The children
interfere. They do sleep sometimes, don't they?
These are excuses, make no mistake about it. Real writers make them too, but real writers don't kid themselves that they are anything but excuses. If you just sit there thinking you'd like to be a writer you never will be. The hardest part of writing is getting started. John Steinbeck confessed that after many years, to start a story still scared him to death. Writers are champion procrastinators and will do almost anything rather than write. Ernest Hemingway sharpened pencils. Willa Cather read the Bible. Thornton Wilder walked. But they all, eventually, wrote. That is the difference between those whose names you know, whose books and articles and stories you've read, and those who wring their hands instead. They achieved not because they were necessarily geniuses, not because they were lucky, or had time, or the right coloured paper. They succeeded because they persisted.
When the French novelist Gustave Flaubert was fifty he published his first book, the classic "Madame Bovary". It had taken him nearly five years to write and he suffered nervous exhaustion several times during the course of his work. He started in tremendous excitement with the first sentence of the novel. He crossed out the sentence and wrote another one. And another. He finished a paragraph, crossed it out and started again. "I'm tormenting myself" he complained. "My novel is having a frightful time getting started. I have abscesses of style. I itch with sentences that never appear." But they did, eventually.
Where does it say that writing is easy, that you don't need to practice, that real writers don't make mistakes? Writing is no different from any other skill or art. I'll bet that you didn't learn to drive a car without getting behind the wheel and graunching a few gears. Did you learn to cook without at least a few disasters? Your professional skills didn't come to you courtesy of a good fairy at your christening, did they? The truth is that we learn by doing, not by thinking about it.
There are a number of ways to increase your skills and expand the possibilities open to you. They all require effort from you and can't be absorbed by osmosis. Any of the starters described throughout this book can help. They could act as launching pads for larger projects and should not be dismissed as merely exercises.
A character study might lead to a novel about that character. A personal memory recalled in a spirit of nostalgia might lead to a chapter in your autobiography. A snatch of dialogue overheard on a bus might lead to a short story or poem. Writing is organic. It is a process whereby you start at some vague point without knowing much about where you're heading, and putter along until some pattern takes shape. The moment we commit ourselves to pen and paper or the keyboard, things start to happen. Ideas glimmer, words dance, themes emerge. And the more we write, the more ideas flourish and the more we find to say.
Samuel Butler said, "I wrote 'Erewhon' with great difficulty. It seemed to me that it never would get long enough. There were some things I wanted to say and was sufficiently clear about, but they all lay in a nutshell. Having had so little experience in writing I was unaware of the way in which new ideas crowd in through the very process of expressing old ones - like new shoots which grow the more vigorously the more the old are pruned." Butler wasn't alone in this discovery. Francoise Sagan remarked that she had to start writing to have ideas. Essayist E. B. White put it another way: "The art of composition or creation disciplines the mind. Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it too."
It is natural to become tense and rigid when you approach an activity that scares you. Remember that you are scared only at the unfamiliarity of a given task, one that is fraught with unknowns. The learner driver is nervous until she becomes familiar with the controls of the vehicle and the awesome hazards of the open road. The more she drives, the more confident she will become. But the fear doesn't stop most of us from learning to drive, at least partly because the ability to drive is a practical necessity. The fear of writing does, however, stop many from persevering, which is crazy when you think about it. Writing is a lot safer than driving. There is no risk to lives or property, you don't need a licence and it keeps you out of mischief. Nobody need see what you've done unless you want them to. The waste-paper basket is entirely uncritical of what you put into it.
Remember that he who makes no mistakes makes nothing. If you aren't prepared to have a go and make some mistakes, you might as well stop reading this right now and do something else. However if you truly want to be a writer you have to start by taking some risks. And the risks are not world-shaking. Some wasted paper. Some time spent struggling with new and confusing problems and procedures. A few bruises to the ego. Accept the mistakes and learn from them. Graunch a few gears and practise some more.
CHAPTER 4: EASY DOES IT
You can't put off the moment any longer. The time has come for you to do some writing. I am not going to suggest that you start straight away on that novel. I already suggested that (or something like it) and you probably didn't take any notice. But I am going to suggest some projects that might interest you and get you going. Choose one of them, or look up the amusements at the end of this book for other ideas. It really doesn't matter what you start with so long as you start on something.
Writing a lot is important so that we become used to scribbling and therefore stop being anxious about it. Sitting at a desk chewing a pencil is clearly being anxious about it. The suggestions that follow are calculated to warm you up and get you writing freely, partly because they are unthreatening and partly because they are based on you as an individual. There is no right or wrong way to tackle any of them. I am simply offering them to you as ways of stretching the creative muscles. Most people find them enjoyable and useful.
Profile of yourself
Write a
profile of yourself - from the point of view of someone, or
something, else. That is to say, write a profile of Jane Doe (if that
is your name) as if it were being written by, for example, your
mother, your secretary, your cat or your telephone. You can have fun
here. Slip into someone else's skin and see what they think of you.
Hold onto that viewpoint, it is very easy to lose it, to forget who
the subject is (you) and who is doing the viewing (mother, secretary,
cat or telephone). People trying this exercise for the first time can
drift out of referring to "Jane" and start writing "I".
Keeping a firm grip on the viewpoint is important in any kind of
writing and you might as well start learning how to do it right from
the beginning.
Describe someone important to
you
This is an exercise in observation and analysis, and in
harnessing and controlling your emotions. I suggest you choose as
your subject someone who has had a major influence on you, either in
the past or the present, for good or for ill. The object here is to
give an imaginary reader a clear portrait of the person, and to
describe how that person has affected your life. It isn't enough to
say, for example, that Mr Brown was a good teacher and taught you all
you know about microbiology. It isn't enough to say that your Auntie
Doris used to pinch you when she came to visit, so you hated her. We
want to know how Mr Brown or Auntie Doris looked, how they spoke, how
they made you feel and why you feel as you do about them.
Praise or blame
Write a
letter of praise or blame to someone you hold responsible for
something that has happened to you. The object here is not to gush,
or to lash out, but to gather your thoughts together, examine them,
order them, put them in perspective and then write a reasoned, clear
appraisal of the circumstances. You may well find this exercise an
emotionally ticklish one, especially if you have been in the habit of
buttoning yourself down. But much of the material we use in our
writing comes from our own lives, albeit distilled and transformed by
the creative processes, and an examination of the important, and not
so important, parts of our lives can be rewarding. You may also find
that the very act of examining a situation and writing calmly about
it can rob it of its power to disturb you. You can then stand back
and view it objectively and finally, perhaps, use it. Needless to
say, this letter of praise or blame is not destined for the post box
but for the waste-paper basket - unless you want to keep it in your
files.
Letters
Letters are a
useful way of limbering up each day. Nowadays, with the widespread
use of social networks, texting and e-mail, the art of letter writing
is going out of fashion but even e-mails can be more than a line or
two of base-touching. If you wrote one e-mail every day, making that
as good as you are able, imagine how much pleasure you will be giving
to your mother, your best friend whom you haven't heard from for ten
years, your Auntie Beatrice in Honolulu. And just imagine how many
messages you will get back in reply. Not, I'm afraid, as many as you
write because some of your addressees won't bother to answer, some
will have moved, and some will mean to write but will forget.
But never mind. The point is that you will have written a letter a day. And the advantage of letters is that you write to one person (or a family) and you can be yourself. You can ramble on. It is a one-sided conversation and, unless you are hooked into the "how are you, I hope you are well, we are all well here" kind of letter, you can hardly fail to please the other party. And having sat at your desk and written that letter you are, lo and behold, in writing mode. You have pen and paper or computer at the ready and you might as well go on and write something else. There is nothing like habit when it comes to writing, you'll find.
Letter to the editor
This
is for the activists among you. Or perhaps the politicians. Or the
stirrers. Or simply those who want to have their say about matters
local, national or international. Writing a letter to the editor of
your local newspaper gives you a chance to practise several skills.
And it is a short-term goal that is easily achievable.
First, you must find something to write about. This is usually going to be something that interests you, something topical and probably something that has been reported or aired in the paper you are addressing. It is best if you have some knowledge of the subject because your letter is destined for publication and people are going to read about what you think.
Second, you will have to sort out carefully what exactly it is that you think. A rambling, incoherent, sloppily reasoned letter is not going to do your reputation any good, even if it gets published. You should marshal your facts and opinions, and present them logically, clearly and politely in the best possible words.
Third, you will need to be concise because editors often stipulate that submissions for the letter pages should be no more than so many words. Where I live you can't offer more than 150 words, which isn't very much. It is good practice to write about a subject in 150 words - it is surprising how much waffle you can cut out when you try. However, I urge you not to think about the word limit in the early stage of composition because you will probably freeze. Write your letter freely and at length, saying everything you want to in any way you want to. Then revise and edit and prune. That way you will have a much better product.
Fourth, you will need to produce your letter promptly - while the topic is hot. You won't have time to labour word by word to get the thing right, and that is going to be a good experience. Writing at speed is much better than cranking out the words one by one - but more of that later.
Fifth, you have a good chance of seeing your work in print. You might as well learn to cope with that, if writing for publication is your ultimate goal. Don't expect too much feedback, though, unless you have been particularly provocative. And don't sit back feeling a warm glow at your achievement either. Enjoy the glow by all means, but enjoy it while you are hard at work on the next writing task - you haven't the time to waste if you want to be a writer.
Rapid writing
At least
three times a week, for ten minutes at a time, write full-tilt,
without stopping. Start with a subject, any subject. Don't waste any
time trying to find something suitable, just pick something because
it doesn't matter, you will probably soon shoot off in tangents. Let
the diversions happen and don't stop to organise your thoughts. This
exercise is designed to encourage a kind of free expression,
especially for those who tend to be what is known in the literary
world as "bleeders" - those who squeeze out one word at a
time. But it will also show you how much can be written in ten
minutes, and how ideas start flooding in the minute you start
writing. People often worry about how to write enough when they want
to write a story or article, so they are scared off from the start.
In class, when I suggest projects for students to tackle at home, the first question I'm asked is how many words should they write. My answer is always "as many as it takes." Giving people a word-target for a specific assignment turns them into number counters, not writers. Anyone who feels intimidated by the job of trying to find enough words to tell a story, or discuss an argument, or report an event, immediately becomes tight and anxious at the prospect of trying to fill even a modest quota. By the way, this kind of counter-productive word-target is not the same as the daily word-target recommended in chapter 2. That is a disciplinary suggestion, a habit-forming idea to get you used to a daily stint at your desk, a sit-there-till-you've-eaten-all-your-spinach approach.
You may find, after ten minutes of scribbling, that you have gone wildly off in several different directions. There is nothing wrong with that. It is, in fact, what I'm trying to prove to you - that there is plenty of material in your head and all you have to do is release it, and only afterwards control and shape it. You may even find that you don't want to stop after ten minutes because you have found a thread that you want to follow. So go ahead and follow it.
Doodling
There are many
ways of liberating the imagination so that the interesting corners of
the mind can be explored and made to yield material you can use. One
of these is a kind of literary free-association. This is how it
works.
Relax. Think of a word or phrase. Write it in the middle of a large sheet of plain paper. Let that word or phrase trigger another and write it down nearby. Continue wandering all over the paper letting the words there suggest others. Draw circles around each so that you can see what you're doing. Draw connecting lines one to another in any direction that occurs to you. Don't try to control the process, just let the ideas flow. Before you know it you will have filled the page with circled words and phrases, ideas and diversions. And at some point, perhaps after only three or four minutes, you will feel an urge to stop messing about and start writing.
If you have a specific writing project in mind that you want to get on with, use a word or phrase connected with it for your central point. If not, use anything you fancy. Here are some suggestions:
Images from your past:
people, places, pictures, sounds, smells, feelings.
Colours:
think of a colour and see what ideas come crowding in.
Environment:
think of something that is close and familiar to you right now. You
may be surprised by the ideas that are generated by being receptive
to your immediate surroundings.
Dreams: don't bore your
family and friends with long and involved descriptions of your
dreams, use them to trigger your imagination.
Problems: if
you want to write about loneliness or unemployment or international
relations, try to sort out your thoughts and, incidentally, focus
more clearly on the subject, by this method.
People: a
particular person might seem interesting enough to write about:
mother, boss, strange woman on bus, football players.
Moods or
feelings: try using some emotion that is controlling you at the
moment, such as anger or love or jealousy.
Reactions: your
reactions to something that has touched your life can be rewarding;
perhaps news of the day, music, art, sport.
Doodling in this way helps you to generate ideas and find directions for your work to follow. It gives you something to do while you're thinking, and those circles and lines act as links and pathways. And as you doodle you will begin to formulate your ideas and see some kind of shape for them. Before you know it, you will want to stop doodling and start writing. So start.
Autobiography
The one
subject you know practically everything about is yourself. The one
subject you can be totally, deliciously self-indulgent about is
yourself. The one subject that can keep you busy writing for the rest
of your life is yourself. Plan to write your autobiography in spare
moments and keep the material so that your grand-children can read it
one day and marvel at your life and doings. Don't you wish that your
own grandparents had done that for you? Don't you wish that you
could explore some attic and find a dusty suitcase full of papers and
photographs that show who your forebears were, what they did, ate and
wore, what they thought, what their lives were like?
Anyone who has tried to talk to her own children about her life will be familiar with the glazed look that comes over their faces at sentences which start "when I was your age ..." Parents are boring and children don't want to know about their lives until it is too late. But one day they will become curious. And their children will be even more curious, because two generations on, there is enough of a gap for the story of grandma or grandpa to acquire a patina of mystery and romance. Why not enjoy yourself writing that story, knowing that much later on the family will enjoy reading it?
Not just the family, either. If you wish, you could offer the finished history to your local museum for their records. The archivist will probably jump at the offer of a copy because we are becoming very aware of the need to record the histories, both oral and written, of ordinary people for future generations to read.
You can tackle the project in any way you wish. For example, you can start at the beginning with "I was born on ...." and take it from there. You may find that your first effort will take up approximately a page and a half, bringing you up to the present day with apparently nothing more to say. Don't despair. Start again at the beginning and, using your first draft, rewrite and expand it as you go. This time you might end up with three pages. You can keep going in this way, rewriting and expanding your material with each attempt. This has the effect of allowing you to paddle in familiar waters but venturing out a little further each time. However, it is tiring and time-consuming, especially if you're writing by hand rather than typing. You risk getting bored, too. There are better ways.
My suggestion is that you first create a chronology, as comprehensive as you can make it. A chronology lists important dates in a person's life: birth, schools, travels, work, marriage, children, changes in circumstances of various kinds. You will undoubtedly revise and expand it as you go so don't worry too much about accuracy or whether you have included everything that has happened to you. The chronology gives you a framework within which to work.
You can then select a topic, any topic, from your past and write something about it in whatever form you feel like tackling it. Today you might feel like remembering your primary school days. Tomorrow, a description of your mother. On another day it might be your wedding, and on yet another an essay on starting your first job. You fill in the details of your life in a series of essays or accounts, in any order that pleases you. You don't have to do the writing in chronological order unless you want to, although you will probably want to keep the finished essays in date order to make it easier to find them again if you want to revise and expand them later.
To make your biography even more interesting, be sure to include copies of properly identified photographs, certificates, maps, and any documents that are relevant. Remember that photograph albums often contain heaps of pictures of mysterious people in funny clothes and your heirs are likely to toss them out as being of no interest. But if you include a picture of Uncle Bertie with the story of how he floated around the world in a hot air balloon, it becomes much more relevant.
Writing another section of your autobiography is an easy way of limbering up each day, too. As Ngaio Marsh said, of her own autobiography 'Black Beech and Honey Dew', it was "just a case of sitting down and remembering things." You will, I'm sure, find the whole exercise deeply satisfying and unthreatening. How else can you enjoy such a good wallow in nostalgia to such good purpose and without feeling that you are being boring? You can write your story with a better shape and using better words than if you were just chatting to someone. And you will be exercising the creative writing skills without feeling intimidated by a vast, critical public.
The finished work (if, that is, you ever finish it - the task should keep you busy all your life because you always have today to write about) can be photocopied and spiral bound quite cheaply. Your grand-children and their grand-children will be enchanted. For a much more detailed discussion of writing family history and autobiography see chapter 15.
CHAPTER 5: BEAN BY BEAN
Here are some general hints and suggestions to start with. All of them are useful to some people but not necessarily to all people. As with everything else in this manual, I suggest that you try whatever appeals to you and reject what doesn't.
Goals
In writing, as in any
other activity, it is important to set realistic, achievable goals
for yourself. These can be as simple as setting yourself a daily word
target, or planning short projects that you can complete fairly
quickly. Examples of such goals are letters to friends or the
newspapers, short articles or stories and poems. If your main project
is a substantial one and you don't want to waste time on shorter
ones, break it up into manageable portions and set yourself targets
such as so many words a day, or a chapter a week. If you plan to
write a novel, you may feel intimidated by four hundred pages of
typescript. But filling one page is easy, so plan to write one page
per day and you'll be surprised when the pile of finished pages
grows. "Bean by bean the sack is filled" says an old Greek
proverb.
Writing appointments
Like
the person who arranges to be inspired each morning at nine o'clock,
it is a good idea to make appointments with yourself to be at your
desk at a given time. However, people who can arrange their days in
this organised and confident fashion are rare. Probably only the
professional, full-time writers can be so single-minded. The rest of
us have to be writers in the spaces left over from other commitments.
Those commitments come at different times of the day, and some days
are worse than others. However, it is usually possible to see at
least the next day with some clarity, and I suggest that at the end
of each writing session you look at the next day's programme and
identify a time to set aside for writing. Make an appointment with
yourself - and resolve to keep it.
For the procrastinators
If
you find yourself putting off writing - even when you have spent
weeks, months, even years telling yourself that you want to write
that book, story, poem or article - allow yourself one more
five-minute delaying tactic. First, prepare your writing environment
so that everything is ready. Then procrastinate if you must. Sharpen
your pencils, brush the cat, sweep that cobweb off the ceiling, fetch
the mail, pick some apples - do whatever you suddenly find you have
to do instead of writing - for precisely five minutes. Then start
writing. Type "Chapter 1" and some opening sentence so that
the screen is no longer blank. Remember you are not etching in stone,
nothing you write has to stay like that for ever, and everything can
be changed later. It doesn't matter what you write as long as you
start.
Preparing your material before you start can be important for some tasks. You might want to argue a case or put a point of view in a well reasoned, logical fashion. That's fine, providing you prepare in some productive way such as doodling (see the previous section) or creating an outline (see below). But procrastinators tend to excuse themselves by insisting that they are thinking about what to write, or organising their thoughts properly. Time spent in that kind of preparation is usually time wasted and all you are doing is putting off the writing. The important things happen during the writing, not before. Try it. Please.
Collecting topics, and where to
find them
Writers need material to work with, a convenient way
to store it, and a reliable means of retrieving it. Material could
include character studies, settings, plot ideas, opinions that need
expressing, situations that get your goat, and events that have
attracted your attention. This is a constant source of anxiety for
the inexperienced, as though only writers have ideas and everyone
else stands back in wonder. The truth is that everyone has ideas but
only writers write about them.
Ideas for topics need not be world-shaking or profound. They are all around you, every day. They come from your experiences, they are the events that cause you to react in amusement, dislike, anger, admiration or fear. They are moments of change or growth. They centre on people and what they do and how they think. They are the raw material that a writer uses to trigger the ideas that simply need formulating, shaping, focussing so that they become a story or an article, a poem or a novel. It will help you a lot if you develop the habit of collecting all kinds of material from all kinds of places.
For example, newspapers sometimes print those intriguing small paragraphs of the man-bites-dog variety that tickle your fancy. The court reports describe cases which might make you wonder about the motives and background of the people who land in trouble. The personal columns can sometimes inspire flights of fancy. I still have a cutting that says "Remember me? We locked glances in the supermarket. If you're interested, phone ..."
Speculate about people you see on buses, on the streets, in the park or on the beach. You don't know the real facts behind the face or the voice or the walk or the clothes, you simply ask yourself some of the who, what, where, how, when and why questions (see later) and start imagining. Don’t ignore daily life and the small, interesting things that happen. A fresh insight about a friend. A suburban drama. The opening of a new shop and what that might mean to the neighbourhood. A fight in a car park. An opportunity that beckons. An ambition turned sour.
Pet theories are useful as launching pads. Reams of paper have been pressed into service to publicise the dangers of this, the necessity for that and the possibilities of something else. If you have special knowledge you can use it to help change the world, or perhaps only your corner of it. If you feel strongly about something, it is usually a good guide to what might be a suitable topic. Writing about something you love, or hate, or admire, or deplore, means that you start with special energy and all you have to do is control and channel it properly so that you don't end up ranting.
Storing your material
A
simple but effective filing system is a cardboard box with divisions.
Wine boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, boxes that computers come in.
Scribbled notes, ideas, transcribed jottings from notebooks,
newspaper and magazine cuttings, all can be filed in the appropriate
sections, with dividers cut from bits of cardboard, each marked with
a subject or category: animals, Christmas, food, reading. The
categories should be broad enough to encourage the enthusiastic
collection of material which is slipped into the appropriate section
without any special order or care. Retrieval is simple. Just choose
a section that covers the topic you feel like writing about, sort
through the contents of the file and pick out what you want. Then
start writing.
A separate box for fiction is useful, with the divisions simply marked as plots, characters, themes, ideas. Fiction demands a different approach and you probably can't categorise the bits and pieces in any sensible way because you have no idea what, if anything, you are going to do with the material.
Who, what, where, how, when,
why
These are very useful words. They can be used to start
questions about what you are doing and can help you to wander off
into uncharted territory, enquire into the motivations of your
characters and set your mind to exploring. They are especially useful
when preparing a non-fiction article, when you don't know what
exactly it is you want to say, but you know you want to write about
something vague and sprawling like unemployment or world peace.
Suppose you have a section in your filing system about bicycles. It is full of clippings, comments, ideas, pictures, all about bicycles and cycling in all its forms. You want to write an article about bicycles but, you say helplessly, what about them? You compose a question to type at the top of your screen, like "who rides bicycles?" Underneath you put the answers: school children, commuters, racing cyclists, touring cyclists, conservationists, people wanting to exercise. The next question might be "How do you choose the right bicycle?" The answers might be: ask a friend, shop around, consult the dealer, join a club and become knowledgeable. Each section should contain one question and its answers. That way you can shuffle them around in any order and you still keep the points together. Be both specific and concise – this is no time to write a mini-essay. If you find you are scribbling down too many answers to a question, you probably need to reform the question, fine it down, or split it up because it's too broad in scope.