Ursula K. Le Guin’s shorter insights to story craft are now available on her website.
They come from what her site calls an “informal workshop” answering questions posed by readers in 2015.
The first one addresses an article she read about breaking rules in writing – Show, don’t tell. Write about what you know. Sympathetic characters.
A friend sent this to me a few weeks ago with the note – “I think you do this well.”
It’s a manifesto of getting things done. There are some points there that align with my process. And some that I don’t adhere to.
Through my own creative work – novels, poetry, music – I’ve learnt how to put out work, how to create, how to revise, and how to finish. Much of this I adapt to my process of ghostwriting.
Point 10 – Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. – is powerful.
My approach is to work on the idea, the experiment, and finish it to see if it works. Honour the idea for what it is. If it works, then we can release it. We can ship it. If it doesn’t, then we learn why, and move on to the next idea. This doesn’t dismiss adjusting approaches, revising, adding different experiments.
It is simply a way of staying true to what the idea was and seeing it through until it is done.
This is not to say that there isn’t or shouldn’t be attention to detail. The point is that finishing the draft, and moving on to add that detail, is integral. Finishing something gives you more insight into how the whole piece works. There are structural understandings to the writing you find only when you have a draft finished. And picking at details on the way will keep you from these observations.
Failure counts as done. It’s not a judgement on you as an artist, a writer, a musician. In fact, you don’t have to show it to the world.
If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, then move on.
We’ve seen the old zoetropes that put pictures in motion. Perhaps we’ve even made flipbooks when we were at school. The picture changes a little and the motion unfolds. Even as we watch the leaf fall, the dancer move, the horse gallop… we know that it is just small individual images moving fast to make it look like movement.
Trusting the writing the process and following it where it goes takes strength and dedication. Finishing the song, putting it down to the record, then turning to the next tune is a cycle that meant they learnt so much in their process, and were open to new ideas to weave into the songs the next time around.
John Swartzwelder is a reclusive writer best known for writing a huge amount of the strongest early Simpsons episodes. He also wrote for Saturday Night Live. Now he writes novels. His writing process involves getting the idea out quick. Finish the first draft as fast as possible. Then work deeper in the rewrite.
When you give away what you think you should be hiding, the story becomes something else. Sometimes the structure falls apart. You need to have things happen in a particular order. But sometimes changing it takes away the scaffolding that was just there to build the important structure. It’s worth experimenting.
People read to connect with a story. Or they read to learn. They talk about the story with friends because it connects with them. They see themselves in the text. Or they’ve learnt something important from reading it.
Rarely has someone sat down with a friend over coffee and gushed over complicated sentences they couldn’t understand.
The creative process is so fascinating. Over the last twenty years or so, I’ve collected a lot of different strategies and techniques to tap into the creative process. These come from reading books and interviews, talking with other writers and artists, watching documentaries, and searching out strategies that worked for my favourite writers and artist.
Writing a book – or a film script, or an album of music – is a marathon effort. It’s a long game and the end is rarely in focus or in sight. Pacing yourself is essential.
But sometimes throwing in a quick sprint can shake things up.
Writing quickly, without worrying about what goes down, for a short amount of time can get you past a hurdle. It can push you to focus on something other than the scene or issue that’s obstructing your flow. And it can give a quick breath of new inspiration.
Once you do the sprint, step back.
This part is essential. Get some space. Let the dust settle. And when you return, check again for the path forward.
