On the Writing Process

Ideas are easy to come by.  Any writer worth the name will have more ideas than they can ever hope to reasonably include in their work without shoe-horning them in at awkward angles, making the work ugly and difficult to pick up.  Writing short-form fiction is a very good way to hone a minimum or optimum quantity of ideas into a single, coherent and hopefully beautifiul object, which , regardless of the nature of those ideas, suggests something greater than itself without needing specific reference to it.

Throughout, it seems to me, the key elements of the process are a kind of naive intuition, and hard-nosed technical focus.  Perhaps a combination of the two seems odd to those who do not write, but I suspect those involved in other creative disciplines would recognise it.

Naivety and intuition are essential I think in generating material of interest.  Writing without passion, oddity or surprise is only going to leave readers cold; but no amount of passion can make a successful piece if it is badly shaped.  Technical strength is necessary, and that requires balancing the objective and subjective sides of one's reading of one's own work - an arm's length kind of proximity to both the guts and the mind of the piece.  Reading one's own work with the mindset of a reader, rather than a writer, is not easy, and takes patience and practice.  Often the first steps feel clumsy, as when one learns a new musical instrument - but over time those awkward gestures become second nature, and can be enjoyed rather than struggled against.

Having taught Creative Writing classes for several years, I have tried a number of ways of helping beginners begin and more advanced, practised writers to finish: in-class exercises like writing from a picture, stream-of-consciousness blasts, idea-pooling, field trips and freedom, all accompanied by analysis of published, sometimes well-known, text - and, of course, feedback between peers and myself as a group leader.

My own initial ideas and abandoned drafts are plenty.  Often I return to them years after they were started and make something new of them.  Often it takes me a year or two to really finish a piece of short fiction - I hesitate to use the word 'story' as the word almost predetermines expectations - but the purpose of writing is not to be quick.  It is to be right, to make something that, however long it takes and whatever form it takes, is the right thing in and for itself.

That sense of rightness uses some of the initial intuition I talk of above - and only comes from the relentless application of a technical understanding of the machinery of words and ideas.

Achieving these is the result of a good many years of reading creatively as well as writing; it is the result of letting your work out into the world when you fear it is unready, and being prepared for both the best and the worst news of its progress.  Feedback from trusted peers is essential - that is, those who you would want to sit with and discuss what it is you do.  They need not be writers, but should be readers.  Perhaps they should be your audience.

There is no magic in writing - just bravery, playfulness, a willingness to dive from things into places you would rather not, and a duty to the results that preculdes giving up or being satisfied for very long, if at all.

Writing is hard work.  I would not recommend it to those considering it as either a hobby or a career.

Still interested?

Then write.


(There are too many links of interest to add here, but for those in the early days or mid-life doldrums might like to look at The BBC's Writersroom, National Novel Writing Month, and Writers & Artists for advice, support, inspiration and other handy nuggets)