Inspired to Emulation—Or Preparing to Jump
By David Corbett | February 8, 2019 |
Leap of Faith–Krabi Thailand (Photo Credit: Christopher Johnson)
One curious consequence of writing a book on writing is the inescapable sense of humility that descends during the process. (I’m under deadline this week for my next book on craft, this one titled The Compass of Character. I’ll discuss it at greater length in the weeks to come, but for now I’m simply invoking it as my excellent and not-to-be-questioned excuse for a relatively brief post today.)
As a teacher and author of writing guides, I’m obliged to present techniques and strategies for successful fiction. Techniques and strategies, however, require a generalized idea of how to go about things. Concepts such as character arc and three-act structure and backstory exploration inevitably conjure guidelines that demand attention if not strict adherence.
This how-to approach can become trivialized into “Five Ways to Make Your Characters Jump Off the Page!” It can also be maddeningly vague because the only rule is there are no rules.
The Rule of No Rules is especially on my mind of late. While collecting examples for the guidelines I discuss in my book, I was inevitably made aware of how any novel worthy of being called good, let alone great, somehow squirms out of the stranglehold of accepted convention like a slimy piglet.
Whether the author was simply following her instincts or observing a carefully constructed plan—usually based on turning some accepted idea of how to write on its head—the truly remarkable books I have used to illustrate certain points all too often reveal themselves to be not just illustrative but sneakily subversive of what I’m trying to say.
This may simply be a reflection of another accepted truth, that the best stories give readers what they want in a way they don’t expect. This in turn echoes another truth, that stories should be both impeccably logical and yet surprising. And yet how does one teach that? How does one teach: Follow the path to the cliff’s edge, then jump?
And yet over and over and over that’s what I have come to realize is the crucial thing I need to impart to my students. Yes, there are guidelines and conventions and THINGS TO KNOW. But there is also the inevitable and obligatory leap into the unknown. Absent that, whatever you write will most likely be derivative—and neither you nor your readers need that.
This is why I often begin my classes by humbly admitting that what I am about to present may or may not prove helpful. The best I can offer is a vocabulary and a set of rules, none of which is sacrosanct. They will provide tools but the actual construction of your story will inevitably require improvisation, adaptation, flying blind. It’s similar to the difference between practice and performance for a musician. Practice is where you acquire the techniques required to be able to surrender yourself to the moment as you create.
How you address the material in those moments of immersion is the actual stuff of writing. Yes, writing is rewriting and you can go back and clean up the messy bits. But it’s that feeling, impossible to convey to anyone else, of being “in the groove” that is the real measure of whether you’re doing well—not how much you adhere to principles of fine writing. Even in revision, learning to cut or reshape your words to honor that ineffable sense of flow is often what makes your manuscript engaging.
All of which returns me to that humble moment of truth with which I begin my classes, where I admit I have no absolute answers, just a few tricks and some advice disguised as a methodology. The best guidance, the truest guidance I can offer lies within a quote from Saul Bellow that I continue to cherish: “Writers are readers inspired to emulation.” I will never be your best teacher. Your best teachers will always be those authors and books that inspired your own desire to write.
The real education will begin when you return to a book you love, a book that inspired you, that made you think, “I can do that…I want to do that,” and read it with new eyes, eyes informed by what you have learned in your writing classes. When you understand how a book you admire both observes and defies the rules, subtly or blatantly, when you take that lesson to heart and make it your own, you will begin to feel the liberating confidence of real creativity. The edge of the cliff won’t scare you. It will beckon you forward. It will welcome you.
What books or authors inspired you to write? What lessons did they teach you? Have you returned to them lately as your study of craft has proceeded? If so, what new lessons did they provide? Did they reveal how they conformed to some guideline you were trying to understand better—like honoring three-act structure, or embedding backstory in behavior? Or did they defy some rule you thought was sacrosanct, and worked regardless?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Writing guides seem to be a cottage industry all on their own. I’ve read a fair number but only found a very few that are genuinely insightful and helpful. [I haven’t read any of yours.]
Mostly, as you say, I’m inspired by other authors, seek to figure out how they do it, and emulate them.
Thanks you, David, for kicking this comment thread of with an appropriately curmudgeonly flair.
David, most recently I read a gem of a book by Dean Wesley Smith titled Writing Into the Dark. Reviewed it on my blog. Pasting it here: I loved this book so much. It reminded me how I used to write when I first began, when I didn’t know many rules, but my stories had tremendous heart. However, after more than a decade of selling work from outlines, I’ve practically forgotten what it’s like to write into the dark. It’s both exciting and frightening. I want to know everything before I start. Dean Wesley Smith has outlined a method wherein I learn to embrace the uncertainty and trust the process. Thank YOU, Dean! If there’s one writing book you buy this year–make it Writing Into the Dark.
I’ll look that book up, Vijaya, thanks for the tip. I also recommend Robert Olen Butler’s From Where You Dream. It’s his concept of Yearning that lies at the center of my upcoming book.
I didn’t know Butler had a writing book! Will check it out. But just from its title I can tell how much it’s going to be about accessing your subconscious. And yearning–it reminds me of St. Augustine’s restless heart. I’ll look forward to reading your book too, David. And Congratulations!!!
Funny you should say that, Vijaya. I mention Augustine’s restlessness in the book.
Great writers are important to good writers-they show them what they should be doing.
I’m growing weary of buying a book whose blurb makes it sound interesting only to find after 50 pages that it’s a dead ringer for several others I’ve already read.
Here’s to experimentation – in your words, jumping off a cliff. Readers want to be surprised, not put to sleep. Take chances.
Or, as Don Winslow once put it at the Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference: Write the book you’re afraid to write.
Wonderful post, David. And sound advice.
There are no rules to art; there is only creation.
Dee
Award-winning author of A Keeper’s Truth
Thanks, Denise. Every now and then, we do need a scaffold to reach the higher ranges of the canvas, but just getting up there won’t complete the painting.
My analogy of the day. (In other words, think of writing guides as toolboxes; use only what you need to get your job done–of course, if I have to explain my analogy it couldn’t have been a very good one.)
More damage has been done by teachers claiming their way is the only way than by any other rule I know. Beginners want guidance – anything – and will try exceedingly hard to follow a method supposed to be foolproof, and feel like failures when they can’t.
I love Lawrence Block’s books on writing – what is not to like about a book entitled Telling Lies for Fun and Profit? But it turns out he’s a pantser extraordinaire, and I’m an extreme plotter, and it took me years to realize that. Not his fault – except that most writing books (and writing teachers – here I admire your humility) don’t put any nuance into their claims of The One True Way, either in the title (who will read One of the ways you might consider developing characters?) or in the contents.
Lots of time gets wasted on the wrong path, even if you learn something.
Maybe we need a sorting hat at the beginning of the journey.
I love Block’s writing guides as well. They’re compiled from articles he wrote for Writer’s Digest, and are both wildly eclectic in subject matter and generous in their reliance on the work of other writers. But yes, if you’re looking for THE PLAN, he ain’t the guy.
This: “The real education will begin when you return to a book you love, a book that inspired you, that made you think, “I can do that…I want to do that,” and read it with new eyes…”
That’s it in a nutshell. Thanks for this!
The good news is, it’s true. The bad news is, it doesn’t really make writing any easier. Thanks so much for chiming in, Densie.
There’s a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Tender is the Night’ that, when I read 35 years ago, made me sit up in bed with goosebumps and say “I want to be able to do this to people.” Meaning, transport them to another country, another world, and make then smell the cold air and feel feelings that aren’t their own. Your post makes me want to go back and re-read. And it also inspires me to become a “slimy piglet.” Also, I love this; “…when you take that lesson to heart (the re-reading and twigging on of the magic!) and make it your own, you will begin to feel the liberating confidence of creativity.” Thank your an inspiring and instructive post.
We’re all slimy piglets. Even plotters. (Sorry, Alicia!)
Ahem.
It can be daunting, going back to a writer you love and realizing just how much work you have to do. But that’s the gig.
Thanks for the lovely comment, Susan.
David, Congratulations on the upcoming new craft book. You have a great wealth of knowledge and insight that is inspiring. I am quite new to writing. I have always been an avid reader and when it came to my first book (2015) and now nearing completion of the second, I can confirm my agreement with you – “The best teachers will always be those authors and books that inspired your own desire to write.” The authors who continue to inspire me Ian McEwan for character motivation and the consequences. Murakami’s, Kafka on the Shore; I keep going back to it for so many reasons. Jim Harrison (particularly Legends of the Fall for gorgeous prose) James Salter, Paul Auster, Richard Ford for telling quotidian stories that explore one’s reason for being. I just finished Outline, by Rachel Cusk. No coincidence she set the book in Athens, home to Socrates (The unexamined life is not worth living.) Elizabeth Strout has been inspiring to me for character development. I am so glad you took a moment to write this piece. What’s your list of authors who have inspired you?
Hi, Luna.
Ironically, the final chapter of the upcoming book is titled “Character Work as the Examined Life,” and it deals with how creating and developing your characters will only be enhanced if you conduct the same explorations with yourself–ask the same questions, honestly seek the answers. Again, humility will likely be one result.
The principle writers who inspired me were Robert Stone, Pete Dexter, Raymond Chandler, Richard Price, Denis Johnson, Joan Didion, and Kate Atkinson. There are several writers I admire but don’t emulate, such as Kafka, Borges, and Kundera.
But lately I’ve read two books that have truly shaken me to the core — Craig Davidson’s The Fighter, and Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys. Both explore very dark, uncomfortable aspects of human longing, one from a man’s perspective, the other a woman’s, with incredible clarity, intensity, and pathos. Right now they’re speaking to me with particular authority, give the novel I’m also working on.
Thanks for the list, David — I am adding both The Fighter and Good Morning to my TBR – and moving them to the top :) Human longing — the Yearning — is what I am writing about now. Looking forward to both of your books.
I am exploring the writer in me. There are days I feel like I am on a safari and can’t wait to see what’s ahead at the waterhole. Then there are days, like today, I feel so intimidated and seriously entertain the thought of just hanging out by my window and watch the chickadees at my feeder. It feels much safer.
Thank you for the encouragement and great advice! It’s much appreciated.