(warning: I don't follow my own advice.)
writing fiction is no mean task. I've tried before, and it takes a certain measure of talent and know-how to come up with something good (which I've never done, and that's how I know). unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who misguidedly believe that all it takes is a love for books -- any kind of books! read all the books! -- and a pencil.
or in my pet peeve's case, a blog. (see
next post.)
I'm not a fantastic writer, myself, of fiction or non-. I couldn't sit down and give someone a great overview of what makes good writing
good writing, although I can pick it out. I want to address instead
what makes good reading. what makes a book compelling? relatable? a classic?
today I have two samples of writing. read them. compare them. comments to follow.
number one:
I remove my mask and close my eyes, as the villainy in me is once more buried. I hate that I am a villain, and that it is my brother against whom I must fight. I sigh. But there is nothing I can do about it. One cannot rebel against the HaV Academy and their schemes. I take a deep breath and go to the garden that my brother has placed within my lair. When our masks are off, we are completely civil to each other. Indeed, as far as anyone knows, we never fight. ...But that's because we have to fight when our masks are on. Quietly I pick sufficient food for Willow, then head to the dungeon and place the food through the wall. I do not allow her to see my face. Then I head back to my room and change completely into normal civilian clothing. I then make my way through the tunnel that leads to the small home that my brother and I share. By now he, too is back into his normal clothing. "I wish we didn't have to do these sort of things," I tell my brother. "I know," he replies. "I know." We both enjoy our powers, mine over the inorganic, his over the organic. But we hate that we have to fight each other, that we cannot stand the sight of each other in our masks. We hate that I must be a villain. But there is nothing for it. We must live our lives like this until we have been replaced, and, at this moment, replacement is a long ways away.
number two:
All along the fence, especially along the lower line of wire, all sorts of rubbish had caught and tangled. It was like the debris you get on a seashore: the wind must have carried some of it for miles and miles before finally coming up against these trees and these two lines of wire. Up in the branches of the trees, too, I could see, flapping about, torn plastic sheeting and bits of old carrier bags. That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I'd lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that -- I didn't let it -- and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.
you choose. which is better?
the answer is obvious: the second one. the first has a terrible flow, bad grammar, confusing statements (and I read the entire short story, only a paragraph or two longer than this excerpt. I'm still confused). even though I'm trying to focus on the themes, not the writing, the utter badness (in all aspects) of the first comes out and whacks me in the face.
the second is muted, vague, but still powerful, with beautiful imagery, well-crafted prose, and a relatable-ness utterly lacking in the first excerpt.
why is one so good and one so bad? here is my theory as to what makes good reading.
- - -
to write
well. good writing isn't just a thrilling story, not just a satisfying end, and it is definitely not a calling-forth of emotion. a book may make you cry, and a good book probably will -- but a book is not judged by the emotion you feel in response, any more than a book is judged by the quality of the cover (although in both cases, they're sometimes good estimates. just saying).
remember: I am not addressing the mechanics of writing itself. (
that can be fixed with relative ease.)
to write well, I believe you have to have
1. insight into a universal issue.
2. a universal truth in response to, or as resolution for, that issue.
3. personal experience of this universal topic.
example 1. you are gay and understand the pressures of society to 'conform or you'll be an outcast'; you write a story in which a girl feels this same pressure as she faces marriage to a man she doesn't love, and the story resolves with her braving the societal outrage as she chooses the man she'd rather marry and finds true happiness.
insights: we all feel different from everybody else. we all want to be special.
truth: love (I'm special to someone). forgiveness (my seemingly wrecked relationships can be mended). friendship (there are others like me; I'm not alone).
personal experience: he knew he was different from others in a way that they didn't accept; he still found meaningful relationships.
example 2. you are a moderately-educated daughter of a country rector, keenly conscious of class differences and arbitrary societal rules; you write a story about a middle-class girl who first scorns the higher-class for their snobby behavior (and is scorned in return for her uneducated connections), until she comes to realize that she's no better -- eventually marrying someone of higher class who recognizes she is worth her character, rather than her inelegant extended family.
insights: everyone thinks they're better than someone else. there's always someone who has it better than we do.
truth: humility (jumping to conclusions makes me [wrongly] judge others). love (I can give the benefit of the doubt). self-sacrifice (I'd rather my beloved be happy than me; but when he's happy, I'm happy).
personal experience: she felt downtrodden, as part of a lower class and as a woman; but she proved that all people of all classes were worth just as much, by showcasing talent society thought a woman (and poor, at that) couldn't have.
and if I could bring my point home, the first example is
a room with a view by e. m. forster, and the second is
pride and prejudice by jane austen. see? they had the insight, the truths, and the experience to write a compelling story. multiple, in fact.
the problem with books today is that too many "writers", having
only vicariously lived through (often mediocre) fiction, are trying to write stories about topics with which they have no experience and without the fundamental knowledge they need to make their work resonate on a deeper level with their readers.
I think this is why so few teen authors have a lasting impact: they're too young, both for the life knowledge required to identify the common denominators of human existence, and for the experience needed to add depth and feeling to their narrative. not that it's impossible: we've read
to kill a mockingbird for over 50 years now, and
the outsiders for almost as long. but those girls had experience most kids their age didn't have.
this also, I think, is why there are so few sci-fi/fantasy classics -- and I mean, that are put in the same category as
war and peace, a tale of two cities, homer's
odyssey, les miserables. science fiction is fantastical, unrealistic, untrue to life as we know it; and that definitive trait is the same that makes it hard to find parallels between the story and, well, life as we know it. since fantasy is not real
by definition, the imaginary-ness becomes an extra hurdle the author must jump over in order to represent any real-person, real-world struggles to the real people who are trying to identify with it. the excellence with which tolkien and frank herbert created worlds very different and yet very similar to ours rightly earned their books "classic" status; but that's not something you see every day.
what you do see every day, though, are scores of people who opt to write fantasy because they don't think there are rules to writing it. and I am sick of the fantasy genre, sick of reading sucky stories about magic and improbable worlds because the authors can't write worth a squash, but try to disguise it beneath randomly-lettered names and creatures with odd body parts.
it's important to be able to do the lesser before the greater. olympic ice skaters don't start by learning how to perform a double axel; they start by learning how to move forward on the ice. if I could offer one piece of advice to budding writers, merely as an interested reader:
DON'T WRITE ANYTHING BUT REALISTICALLY UNTIL YOU'RE ACTUALLY GOOD AT IT.
