Tuesday, April 29, 2008
We're talking about writing
over at Jennifer's, and I've been thinking about one of my favorite comments on the subject. From my previously lauded favorite, Nick Hornby:
Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress. What's that chinking noise? It's the sound of the assiduous creative-writing student hitting bone. You can't read a review of, say, a Coatzee book without coming across the word "spare," used invariably with approval; I just Googled "J.M. Coatzee + spare" and got 907 hits...read it buy it. I can't recommend it enough.
And there's some stuff about the whole winnowing process that I just don't get. Why does it always stop when the work in question has been reduced to sixty or seventy thousand words--entirely coincedently, I'm sure, the minimum length for a publishable novel? I'm sure you could get it down to twenty or thirty,if you tried hard enough. In fact, why stop at twenty or thirty? Why write at all? Why not just jot the plot and a couple themes on the back of an envelope and leave it at that?
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Why write at all? Why not just jot the plot and a couple themes on the back of an envelope and leave it at that?
lol
This has me wondering if a picture is ever worth less than a thousand words.
Thanks for the link.
lol
This has me wondering if a picture is ever worth less than a thousand words.
Thanks for the link.
There are 60 - 70,000 words in a novel? Gah! I got excited when I realized that I had written 5,000 words when I finished my 50/50 challenge.
I took a writing class a few years back. The teacher was a published, somewhat successful novelist. She talked about how she would spend weeks writing hundreds of pages, then suddenly realize that she had gone off in a direction that it didn't make much sense to the story -- so she'd toss those pages and start over.
Gah again! That thought freaks me out. To think you've put your heart into something that you ended up just tossing away. It's intimidating to me.
Anyway, I'll get that book, Kathleen. And question for you...
Have you ever read "Ex Libris" by Anne Fadiman, Confessions of a Common Reader? I would assume so, but if you haven't -- get it! It's great, one of my favorites.
I took a writing class a few years back. The teacher was a published, somewhat successful novelist. She talked about how she would spend weeks writing hundreds of pages, then suddenly realize that she had gone off in a direction that it didn't make much sense to the story -- so she'd toss those pages and start over.
Gah again! That thought freaks me out. To think you've put your heart into something that you ended up just tossing away. It's intimidating to me.
Anyway, I'll get that book, Kathleen. And question for you...
Have you ever read "Ex Libris" by Anne Fadiman, Confessions of a Common Reader? I would assume so, but if you haven't -- get it! It's great, one of my favorites.
Damn it, Hornby is right. When I write a paper, it is initially verbose and effusive. And then everything about it that makes it UCesque and alive and pulsating must be destroyed one word at a time. And goddamn it, but the more I destroy, the better other people like it. But I start to hate it. It becomes dry and generic and inorganic. Forget hitting bone, it is like extracting bone marrow in its pain and debilitation. I wish I could just publish the figures and let the reader figure out the rest.
Back in school I routinely submitted papers that were a page or two below the required length. I was never penalized, since I never bothered to pad out my material.
And it's Coetzee, incidentally. Just sayin'.
And it's Coetzee, incidentally. Just sayin'.
John Irving, legendary for the length of his novels, turned his last book into his publisher, then asked for the manuscript back and rewrote it from a different point of view. That's why he's a professional and not a suicide victim.
I remember trying to read Henry James in college and thinking that his work was nothing but a bunch of verbose masturbation. Sure, it felt good to him, but I didn't really want to watch it happen.
I remember trying to read Henry James in college and thinking that his work was nothing but a bunch of verbose masturbation. Sure, it felt good to him, but I didn't really want to watch it happen.
I remember trying to read Henry James in college and thinking that his work was nothing but a bunch of verbose masturbation.
I was thinking you said Henry Miller and then I thought, yeah, well...
I was thinking you said Henry Miller and then I thought, yeah, well...
UC's prose is like later Led Zeppelin. Lugubrious, but with exceptional punctuation. I know of no better comma exterminator!
Jennifer, my comments start out really funny, but then after I edit them for length and punctuation, they become quite meh.
I'm making no effort to be sly or glib - but the truth (small t) is good is good, no matter the word count.
Having never joined a writers group or taken a writing class, I do know rookies share a common trait - they always over do it.
Nike shoes got it right, just do it.
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Having never joined a writers group or taken a writing class, I do know rookies share a common trait - they always over do it.
Nike shoes got it right, just do it.
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