I’ve studied the craft of writing for the last couple of decades and through it all, I’ve learned one salient fact: I’m an odd duck. All the advice I read about writing, the lectures by my favorite authors (and some I detest), the writing groups and forums and conferences I’ve attended have made that abundantly clear. There are few I resonate with, and even then only in part.
It puts me in mind of Bruce Lee who said: “Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.” I heard that only recently, but it threw into stark clarity what I’ve just innately known. What works for others, doesn’t work for me, and when I try to explain my method… well, I get funny looks.
Bring em on!
Today, I want to take on the giant topic of editing. Specifically, something I heard David Mamet say in his MasterClass course. He paraphrased Michelangelo’s response when asked how he creates such masterpieces as the Statue of David whose method was to “cut away all the pieces that were not the statue.” Profoundly simple, yes, and extremely helpful to many writers. It even makes logical sense to me, having helped fellow authors in their literary pursuits. Granted, it never actually made sense to me until I got into the thick of things and saw their truly rough drafts. Yeesh.
Cut cut cut, chip away at that, polish this, and there may be something here.
One of my best friends wrote that way, never backspacing until the ideas were out. Then he’d write the whole thing over again. And again.
His process was madness to me. What flummoxed me even more was the fact that apparently it’s like that for most authors? How the hell do you make anything out of that jumbled mess?
And thus, I learned I just write differently to most. Sure, there are probably a few more oddballs like me out there, but we’re certainly the exception. Not the rule.
To me, the above process of chipping away at everything not the story presumes you have put to page a giant block of words, most of which don’t matter to the story. As such, you take a red pen and start pruning away the excess.
This is not how I write in the slightest. I don’t sit down at a keyboard and churn out word after word describing scenes and actions and dialogue in imprecise language clutter destined for the digital bin. When I write, every word is intentional and structurally important to the piece being produced. There is no excess left to linger on the page. I remove the overgrowth as I go, typically. And usually, before I even set pixels to page, I’ve gone over the words time and time again, savoring them in my head before they leave my fingertips.
Cutting anything after setting it to the page is entirely obscene to me. Anathema to my process. What you read in my stories and posts and books (someday) is entirely as intended and nearly ninety-percent unchanged from when it was set there originally. Revisions and edits to my work come as a precision polish, adjusting words here or there, trimming some mild verbosity, corrections to cadence and rhythm. Subtle refinement.
I’ve never once had a major overhaul and I have never felt the need for one. The story as written, once I feel it is worthy of being shown, is how it is set in my brain and I cannot fathom it being different.
There are no drafts in the traditional sense. Just the first, polished and trimmed. There are certainly no re-writes. Why would I write the same thing twice, much less three or four times? That makes absolutely no sense to me. I write it the best way I can the first time around or I don’t write it at all.
I tried deconstructing a story once — picking it apart and putting it back together again — and it simply felt utterly wrong to me. It made it weaker, not stronger, a wounded creature badly bandaged. My brain just doesn’t work that way.
I know this bodes ill for my future as a published author. Traditional publishing demands editors who will pick it apart, abuse the language in the name of strengthening it (and I often disagree), but I have come to terms with that.
I’ll not send them my darlings. The pieces truly in my voice. They are mine and will be handled by me and those who understand my oddities — hopefully one day I shall find others with whom I jive. Until then, I send them the stories I churn out that are impersonal to me. That are simple thought experiments.
In the meanwhile, I certainly feel justified in my staunch oddballness. I’ve found myself sharing this excerpt from my Felix Chance series (Season 2: Strange Chance, Episode 4: Lenore’s)
“I’d seen people pick [my book] up and put it right back down. Like most of my words. Disinterest plain on their face.
“Marty, I’m not hurt by the ones who don’t like it.” It had taken a bit to get there, but it was true. “I write them for the people for whom it becomes their favorite. For those who cling to that book like a lifeline. There are plenty of people out there no one is writing for. I write for them.”
I also write for myself. I can’t not. I spent too long suppressing it, feeling unequal to the task, but then it all slipped away. One day you just wake up and realize there’s no more time to do the things you want to do. So quit making excuses and do them!”
The things I write are what I wish to read and have not yet come across in a bookstore or on a blog or anywhere I find stories to enjoy. I’ve grown tired of a lot of the literary traditions and pop culture trends, so I create what I wish there was. Sometimes in direct counterpoint to a disliked work or method. Other times in wistful hope that if I want to see such a thing, others will as well.
That’s why Felix is somewhat of a Cozy in the Urban Fantasy genre. Nothing truly bad has, or likely will, happen and yet I still achieve suspense, intrigue, action, wonder, and a dash of romance. Elliot has a similar tone going in the action & adventure, fantasy, sci-fi genre — though to a lesser extent. With that series, I aim for more of a mythical storybook telling of a broken world. Both are things I never really see, and so I write them. My forthcoming novel — still polishing — is the same. It has deep roots in Welsh mythology, set in the modern world and the world now gone, with elements of body horror and supernatural thriller thrown in for spice.
When it comes to writing, the only advice I have is: Do your own thing. Find what works for you and what lets you put words to the page. Don’t take any of the ubiquitous advice as gospel, thinking if you can’t make Bestseller X’s method work for you, you’re a failure. Take what you like, discard the rest, try again, make something new.
Stay tuned for more Observations of an Oddball Author.
–j.e. pittman