I'm Not That Kind of Writer

Painting By Leonid Pasternak - http://www.art-in-exile.com/forums/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=14639, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17996539

I've often read how writers have stories in them that they are compelled to tell. The story grows from a seed inside the author’s soul, a seed planted by trauma. The story grows and grows until it can no longer be contained, and the writer must tell the story or go mad. But the story is a bully that is never satisfied by the way it is told, and it tortures and torments the writer, forcing the writer to push themself beyond their skills and abilities, to seek ever more satisfying words, phrases, descriptions, symbols, and narrative styles, to develop, hone, and polish their writing until the story is perfect. Which it never is.

On Twitter, I’ve read posts from writers who say that their story bursts from their guts like the baby alien in Alien and leaves them drained, or that they cut their stories from their heart and pour them onto the page. Their stories are the products of pain and agony and many long months, years—decades!—of suffering.

But none of this has ever happened with me. I’m not that kind of writer.

Don’t get me wrong, many of the best books I’ve ever read were torn from the traumatic experiences of the author, and telling these stories was necessary for the writer’s mental health. I’m Twitter-friends with some of these writers, and I can appreciate what they went through to tell such terrific stories. I have nothing but respect for them.

I’m just saying that a writer doesn’t have to go through hell in order to write a book worth reading. I’m declaring that it’s perfectly okay to have fun writing a book, or to write a book that readers will enjoy reading simply because they love to read an enjoyable story. Trust me, it’s fine.

I don’t have, nor have I ever had, a story inside me demanding to be told. In fact, when I sit down to write a book, I don’t begin with a story at all. Instead, I invent characters, settings, and situations (often after I begin writing the story), and I gently urge the characters to dance together until their dance pleases me.

I usually have no idea how my story is going to play out until it does. Sometimes the story goes down a path I don’t like, so I back the characters up and tell them to go down a different path, instead. Sometimes I realize that the path they’ve taken needs a better foundation, in which case I go back to earlier pages and reinforce the structure of the path so it won’t cave in while the characters are on it. Sometimes I realize that the characters don’t have anywhere to go, so I bring out a wrecking ball and some TNT and create some paths that weren’t there before. Eventually they all make their way to the end of the story, and it’s always (without exception so far) somewhere I hadn’t yet envisioned when I first started writing the book.

My stories may be gritty, violent, and even dark on occasion, but I can assure you that they have all—without exception—been great fun to write. I have never seriously agonized over any of it, and I’ve never spilled a drop of blood on a page. Does that make me less of a writer/author/artist*? I don’t know. Maybe. Am I worried about it? Not in the least.

Here’s the one thing I know about writing: You want to be a better writer? Write more. Practice, practice, practice. A writer whose debut novel I enjoyed a lot posted on Twitter today that the prospect of becoming a better writer excited the hell out of him. My response was that there aren't many things more satisfying than knowing you are becoming better at what you enjoy doing. Writing (for me) is fun, and I’m having more fun (and, I hope, getting better at it) with each book I write. That might not be the case for all writers, but that’s all right. Writers come from every walk of life, and we are all as different from each other as anyone is from anyone else.

*The argument over the distinctions between a writer and an author (much less an artist) is endless on social media. It’s also entirely pointless. I swear, people fuss over the damndest things.

Addendum: More Stuff about Writing

I’ve read on many occasions that no one can truly be a writer unless they have a college degree. I’ve even read that no one can be a writer unless they have a masters degree in fine arts. I suspect that the fine folks who believe the latter all have MFAs.

Now, as it happens, I have a Ph.D in history. I’ve taught at a couple of colleges, and I’ve taught college prep courses at a private high school. I can’t imagine being stupid enough to believe that you have to go to college in order to be a good writer. You know what you have to do in order to be a writer? Observe. Listen. Read. Think. Imagine. Write. Get feedback. Write some more. Repeat these steps in any order for as long as you want to continue writing. That’s what will make you a good writer. College certainly gives you an opportunity to do all these things, but, needless to say, all this can be done outside of college, too, just as easily, and just as well.