Creative Writing
I was recently asked to give some advice about getting started with writing. Which is ironic, because I have struggled to get started myself. What I have done is to read and seek a lot of advice, and so that’s what I passed on. Here it is, for what it’s worth.
- Write something every day. Establish a discipline of writing at a particular time. No excuses. Do not edit as you go, because editing is inherently a critical activity. Just write. Don’t worry if each bit of writing stands alone or whether it fits into something else. Do not plan in advance. This helps to establish the discipline of writing. Once you get started, you’re over the biggest hurdle.
- Do not worry about the tools you use to write. If you’re not at your computer (and that’s where you normally write), just break out a pen and notebook. Crap pen? Shitty paper? Never mind. Just write.
- Read voraciously. Try to analyse what you’re reading as you go. Think about the structure. Think about why some things work and why others don’t. What is it that makes your favourite writing work? Why is other work not as effective?
- Try to write about what you read – say why you like something or why you dislike it
- Finish reading books you are not enjoying so that you know what you don’t like (and why) as well as what you do
- Come back to things you’ve written a few weeks ago (but no sooner) and be ruthlessley critical of your work. Don’t just throw it away – make sure you know why you think it works or why you think it doesn’t. Rewrite it to address some of the weaknesses. If you always turn out stuff that you really like, ask yourself if you’re being critical enough of yourself. If you never turn out stuff you like, ask yourself if you’re being too critical
- Learn to feel allergic to cliché – learn to identify it and to abhor it in your own writing
- Learn what the passive voice is and try to eliminate it
- Carry a notebook and pen with you at all times and make notes as things occur to you. Don’t feel the need to polish anything, just get it out of your head and onto the paper. Use these notes when you sit down to your daily writing session
- Don’t take any advice as gospel (even this bit)
- Every writer is different. Don’t be a cargo cultist and imitate the practices of a famous author. Do what works for you. Kafka wasted most of his spare time and then spent the small hours producing a small amount of (brilliant) prose. Replicating that schedule will not mean that you produce writing of Kafka’s calibre (in fact nothing will)
- You can’t get good at something just by reading
Anyway, easily the best guide to writing in my view is Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. My creative writing teacher said to me “I think if you read Strunk and White, went to bed, woke up the next morning, had a cup of coffee and a cigarette, you’d be a better writer.” It doesn’t really say anything about creative writing, but rather shows you how to evaluate prose.
I’ve also seen loads of recommendations for The Artist’s Way but in my opinion most of it is crap (largely because it gets all religious on your ass).
Then there are a few books that have helped me to be a better reader. Better reading cannot make you a worse writer, although it will probably not make you a better one either. Here’s a short list:
- The Art of Fiction by David Lodge
- How Fiction Works by James Wood
- The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera
But above all, remember the line from Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters: “you wanna write? Write.”
