For one year I worked on a play that, ultimately, I never finished. I wrote many scenes and hundreds of pages of dialogue meant to be performed on stage. The biggest challenge, and the reason why I decided to write a play, was because I wasn’t confident writing dialogue. It was my kryptonite, and I was terrified of getting it wrong. I felt that the best dialogue would come from the best plays. So that’s what I read. I studied Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, and Harold Pinter, among others, and every day I wrote dialogue, for one year, trying to construct a stage play.
In the end, I had nothing.
But damn, if I didn’t learn a lot I think the reason why a lot of people don’t say Screw it and write themselves a book is that there ain’t no guarantee for success. If there was, then everybody would be writing memoirs and self-help books, and novels, and what-have-yous. But I think that even if you fail, or don’t finish, or realize novels just aren’t for you: you will learn something valuable.
While I was toiling away on my play, I learned not to write from an outline. In school I remember teachers doing exercises on outlines, the idea being that you would organize your thoughts first, and then write your book report or whatever second. But I found that outlines induce narrative atrophy. I learnt this the hard way by trying it out and writing a lot of outlines, which I revised and perfected, until I knew every beat in the story, and as soon as I did, I no longer wanted to write the play.
I also learnt that it’s better for me to write the first drafts out by hand, seconds on the computer, and the fourth and fifth and sixth via printouts with a pen. I started to discover the best and worse times to write, how to hold a full time job and still have time to write everyday and have a social life. Most of all, I was no longer afraid to write dialogue.
Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it. Ernest Hemingway
You will get better I’m going to assume that most people who are considering a novel believe that writing is a worthy way to spend one’s time and that the worst fear one has is that you won’t get published. Let’s face it, it’s a very real possibility given today’s publishing market. But it’s not the end of the world either if you don’t. A lot of writers have trunk novels that were deemed unpublishable, and they burned or stored their manuscripts and moved on to the next thing. I read a quote once, something to the effect that a real writer just keeps writing anyway and starts a new project. You’ll only know for sure by giving it your best shot, and you can only become an expert in something by making a lot of mistakes first.
It’s all a challenge Writing is about self discovery. For people passionate about the craft, it’s about seeing how far you can push yourself. It’s an endurance test, writing everyday, for years, with no pause and no one to talk to about your successes or struggles. David Mamet called writing the drama a test of character because those who take the journey for the wrong reasons, inevitably bow out in the second act when the going gets tough. Because really, writing the play, the novel, the drama, is about writing your own life. Do you forge ahead against adversity and create the life you want (like the hero in your story), or do you lay back and let the winds of circumstance blow you here and there?
All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it? Philip Pullman
Your boring life becomes eventful I found an interesting phenomenon that happens whenever I’m involved in a long writing project. My dreams suddenly become more vivid and meaningful, my life more interesting. I get out of the apartment rather than shut myself in it, I meet new people, go out on dates, and step freely out of my comfort zone. My theory is that a story requires a constant source of fuel, call it inspiration or whatever you want, a lot of which you get from the books you’re reading but mostly from life. I think the projects just needed better fuel, and my life adjusted itself to the project’s needs.
When should you start? Sometimes I read Steph Bowe’s (Hey! Teenager of the Year) blog. She’s fifteen and just sold her first novel. She makes everyone besides maybe Mozart look bad and, unlike most writers, she might not even have to get a part time job or work at the Dairy Queen down by the corner, because I think her first job might have been actual, real, writing. But don’t be discouraged if you’re two or three or four times Bowe’s age, it’s never too late. Raymond Chandler didn’t see print until he was 45, his first novel not until he was 51. Like most things involving a craft, there is no magic formula. A time comes when writers get published, focus on improving your craft and everything follows.
Happy writing.
On a related footnote, here’s a great Elizabeth Gilbert talk, author of Eat, Pray, Love speaking at Ted about creativity, where it comes from, and why it ain’t your fault if you don’t write the greatest novel yet written.
