Comments on: Motivation #2

By: Louis

Louis — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:29:51 +0000

I was wondering if you could list some of the writing books we should be reading. I have a list from years ago but it’s mixed in with all of my other writing files. And I do have some already but it sounds like this is something you can’t have too many of. I get an offer every so often from Writer’s Digest for writing books but I’m not sure which ones are worth getting.

And I add my thanks for this series.

By: dwsmith

dwsmith — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:48:49 +0000

Mark, no right answer, every writer does it differently. Fixing details in a story is something we all do. You are confusing that and spell-checking with rewriting. Fixing a detail doesn’t change a story, messing with every word, rewriting the sentences, changing the grammar is what screws up stories.

I usually just run and research a detail I don’t have, since I can’t seem to move forward without having the information. Other writers just make notes to fix later.

No correct way, no rule. Just write the story, leave it alone, mail it.

Cheers
Dean

By: Mark Jones

Mark Jones — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:50:23 +0000

So, I have a question about rewriting vs research. You’ve often said that you sometimes just sit down and start writing with no idea where the story’s going to go. My question is, what happens when you need to write a scene and you don’t know the details? Where does research fit into this?

If you don’t know you’re going to need to know the ins and outs of, say, airport security or crime scene investigations or what Los Angeles was like in the 1930s before you find your story going in that direction, what do you do? If you’re _planning_ a story about those things, you can always research ahead of time, but what happens when you’re in that white hot creative mode and you don’t know what you’re talking about? Fake it and fix it later? Leave yourself a note to research it and move on?

By: dwsmith

dwsmith — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:28:49 +0000

Heinlein meant and explained a number of times over the years, that a writer does his best work when in the white heat of writing first draft. When you get to the end of that draft, leave it alone except for fixing spelling mistakes and mistakes at the level of spelling mistakes.

The rewriting myth is very, very deep in this culture and pushed by everyone from your writing workshop to university programs. But the realty is that creative writing is creative writing, and the moment you switch to critical writing, your voice, the freshness, the slight turns of sentences that makes it original are taken out to make it sound like your third grade teacher or some manual of style. Boring is the enemy of creative writing, and yet in the effort to make “perfect” writer after writer turns creative into boring.

I have, except for an occasional post and the pros who come to the workshops here, given up fighting this myth. Long term, meaning more than twenty books and a decades of a career, do no rewriting other than fixing typos. Almost no exceptions, but alas, remember, none of them fight this myth either. We do what we do, but out in public, we tell you we write three or four drafts. I tell people three drafts in public. This myth of rewriting is needed as a crutch for many, many people. They need it because they have no self confidence, no courage to just write and mail, and a massive fear of looking bad in front of someone. And they do it because they have no understanding of how the human brain works or how the publishing industry works. The myth is based on ignorance and impossible to fight against the masses. But if you want to be a professional writer, if you want to write your best stuff, wage the battle against this privately.

Cheers
Dean

By: G D Townshende

G D Townshende — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:45:18 +0000

Looks like you’ve covered some ground here that I’ve already trod in my own thinking, but I see hints of things to come that I can’t wait to read.

By: Jas.

Jas. — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:08:10 +0000

First, thank you for reposting these motivations.

Just for clarity on Heinlein’s rule 3, since it keeps coming up:
I think he meant: once you finish the story (rule 2), don’t rewrite it unless an editor tells you to do it.

I’ve seen other places saying “well, of course you have to write more than one draft” (and I know your opinion on that, which is “don’t”) but I think they’re confusing rule 2 (they don’t think it’s finished until it’s rewritten) with rule 3 (stop tinkering with it once it’s ready to be mailed).

Is that your take on it?

By: Natasha Fondren

Natasha Fondren — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:39:30 +0000

That sounds great, it really does. What about goal-setting when you’re doing this full-time already? I suppose we could just multiply all that by six or ten or whatever, LOL.