Good
writing is one of those topics that comes up a lot in relation to books
and especially among writers, yet remains one of the more ineffable
goals of the craft. I always think of Supreme Court Justice Potter
Stewart’s famous declaration about pornography that “I know it when I
see it” as the general standard for good writing for most people. Of
course, it’s not nearly as simple as that. Brilliant writing truly is
ineffable. There is a quality about it that transcends the trappings of
whatever genre a piece of writing happens to find itself in.Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
falls into that category. Depending on which edition you have on hand,
it only runs about 100 pages. Yet, its ongoing impact is almost
incalculable. It has been performed in theaters almost continuously for
the better part of the last 60 years. It has been adapted for
live-action films around 20 times and animated features around 8 times.
It’s been adapted for live-action television 22 times and animated
television 9 or 10 times. It’s had four opera adaptations and two ballet
adaptations. Who knows how many radio adaptations there have been over
the decades.
Just
a few of the luminaries of stage and screen who took on roles in these
many and sundry performances include Sir Laurence Olivier, George C.
Scott, Orson Welles, Basil Rathbone, Jonathan Winters, James Earl Jones,
Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Alec Guinness, Mark Gatiss, and Albert Finney.
While you might not recognize all of those names, you probably
recognize many of them as film, stage, or TV heavyweights of the past or
present. It’s a list that includes people who have won Oscars, BAFTA
awards, Grammy awards, Tony awards, Emmy awards, and Olivier awards.
There is at least one certifiable genius in the person of Orson Welles.
All of this for a 100-page, Victorian ghost story about a grumpy old
misanthrope who goes on an involuntary redemptive journey. Yes, there is
genius in those pages.
No, you are not likely to ever reach those dizzying heights of magnificence. Good writing, though, that is
something that you can aspire to and reach. Unlike genius, which seems
to come out of some fluke of genetic lottery winning, good writing comes
out of practice and study. No, I’m not just saying that. I consider
myself a decent to good writer, so let me offer what insight I can into
how to one goes from a bad or mediocre writer (which is where we all
start) to a good writer. To write well, you need to understand the
craft.
Here’s a short list of the books I’ve read on the craft of writing that I consider worth the time.
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
On Writing by Stephen King
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont
I’ve
also read dozens of books on writing well for specific contexts, such
as blogging, screenwriting, comic book writing, and
copywriting/marketing. I’ve read hundreds, if not thousands, of articles
and blog posts on the craft of writing in general and for specific
genres or non-fiction areas. I still make a regular study of the craft.
Up next on my reading list are Robert McKee’s Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting and Alice LaPlante’s The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing. At present, I’m also working my way slowly through Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass, The Art of Storytelling.
You
shouldn’t just read about writing, though. You should read all kinds of
things, all of the time. Let me say this now. If all you read is the
genre you want to write, you will probably never rise above the
okay-to-decent level of quality. Genres have tropes and tropes are
really useful for placing your stories into a context that readers will
recognize and accept. If those tropes are all you know, though, you can
only be derivative. You aren’t armed with the information you need to do
something special. Read novels from other genres than the ones you
write. Personally, I like mystery novels. I also read books that fall
more into the area of literature, such as The Shipping News, Jitterbug Perfume, Anne Hogan’s Mean Spirit, or any of Herman Hesse’s compact and occasionally haunting novels.
Reading
more traditional novels is important for learning about character
development because it plays a more prominent role. It’s closer to the
surface and not obscured by fantastical or science fictional elements,
so you can get a better look at it. Reading fiction also gives you a
subconscious education in areas like plotting, pacing, and even style,
although you will hopefully depart to your own place with style if you
stick with writing long enough.
You
should read non-fiction as well. Why non-fiction? Because a lot of
non-fiction is written by some really stellar writers. Hit up some
articles in a magazine like The Atlantic or The New Yorker.
Some of those are as compelling as or more compelling than any thriller
novel you’ve read. That’s all in the writing. Top-flight journalism
will teach you things about concision in writing that entire semesters
of college composition courses never will. Plus, you take in all those
lessons at a nearly subconscious level. You won’t recognize where you
learned these things as you’re writing. They’ll just sneak in while
you’re thinking about plot.
Non-fiction
also gives you a bigger imaginative palette to pull from while you
write. Let’s say you write a scene in a graveyard. If you don’t know
anything about headstones, your graveyard scene becomes generic. If you
happen to know that sandstone and slate were popular headstone materials
a century or so ago, you can talk about how erosion has triggered
delamination (where layers of the rock separate) and obscured the
writing on the headstones. That, in turn, can open up introspection
about the impermanence of all things, or let the main character wonder
about who the people were, or simply highlight the age or poor
maintenance of the graveyard, depending on your narrative needs. All of
that from knowing a little about headstones and how different kinds of
stones weather or cope with acid rain.
Of
course, that’s all theory. Theory can tell you about writing or about
how you can write well, but only practice will let you learn how to
apply all those theoretical lessons. Hang with me here. Why do you think
professional athletes practice nearly every day? It’s not because they
love practicing. It’s because it’s the only way they can improve. So,
how do I practice? I write, all the time, nearly every single day. I
write non-fiction professionally and fiction as a very, very serious
hobby. It’s been about five years since I last did it, but the last time
I added up my estimated output of writing it came in at over 2 million
words. That was just the stuff that had survived on my desktop computer.
I suspect by now the actual number is closer to 4 or 5 million words.
I’ve
ghostwritten thousands, possibly even as many as 10,000, blog posts and
articles. I’ve written marketing copy, content for landing pages, and
news briefs. I’ve written about medical science, DIY projects, software,
cloud computing, alternative energy (ask me what I know about solar
panels sometime if you really need a nap), business finance, personal
finance, food, employee recruiting, and fashion. Writing all of that and
writing it to deadlines is one of the big reasons why I don’t put much
stock in writer’s block. If you walk into every day assuming that you will write
(fiction or non-fiction), you’re going to find out that you’re right
most days. If paying your rent and buying food depends on your writing,
you’ll tell all that Romantic Era crap about inspiration to take a hike
because you literally cannot afford for some ephemeral muse to go off
and have a good pout while you don’t write.
I’ve
also written dozens of short stories (most of them bad), four published
novels, and a novel masquerading as a short story collection that come
in at about half a million words. I’ve probably written about the same
amount in either forthcoming (as yet unfinished) or never to see the
light of day prior novel manuscripts. So, when I tell you that you need
practice, I’m not just parroting something I read somewhere once. It’s
what I’ve done and it works. As much as I love my first novel, Falls, it’s nowhere near as good as The Midnight Ground.
Yeah, it reads like an Eric book, and it’s a passable urban fantasy,
but it’s also chock full of weaknesses that I’d never allow in a book I
wrote now. What’s the difference? About 300,000 words of practice
writing fiction in-between the two books, along with a million or two
million words of non-fiction, and reading a couple of hundred novels,
and studying the craft of writing.
You
can see the same kind of progression in other writers who have a steady
output. Go read Jim Butcher’s first Harry Dresden book sometime, then
skip ahead to book 8, then skip again to book 14 or 15. Sure, all the
elements that make a book a Jim Butcher book are present in that first
Dresden novel, but you can see the quantum leap in quality when you skip
ahead. If you want a truly fair example of progress, read his first Dresden Files book and his first Cinder Spires book. There’s a 15-year gap between Storm Front (Dresden #1) and The Aeronaut’s Windlass (Cinder Spires #1) and it shows.
So,
what’s the secret to good writing? There is no secret. It’s just work
and a lot of it. You study the craft and glean what you can about the
essentials of plotting, character building, and world-building. If you
really want to punish yourself, you can delve into theme and symbolism,
but I find those things tend to work themselves out without a lot of
conscious input from the writer. You must also read whenever you get a
chance. Read novels. Read piles of novels. Read piles of novels outside
your genre or genres. Read piles of non-fiction, be it books, articles,
think pieces or high-quality journalism. You’ll learn information that
you can use in your books later and pick up some more lessons on
structuring lean writing. Write all the time. Write on your lunch
breaks. Write after work. Write all kinds of things. Write short
stories. Write novellas. Write vignettes. Write flash fiction. Write bad
novels that you don’t want to show anyone. Then write better ones that
more effectively apply the lessons you’ve learned and the craft you’ve
studied. Write a few million words aiming for a constant improvement and
application of everything your conscious and subconscious have
accumulated. Odds are pretty good that, if you aren’t producing good
writing by then, you’ll be well on your way.
_______________________________________________
Eric Dontigney is the author of the highly regarded novel, THE MIDNIGHT GROUND, as well as the Samuel Branch urban fantasy series and the short story collection, Contingency Jones: The Complete Season One.
Raised in Western New York, he currently resides near Dayton, OH. You
can find him haunting obscure sections of libraries, in Chinese
restaurants or occasionally online at ericdontigney.com.
