The Rigid Hierarchy of Writing Ability

As I mentioned in our class meeting last Friday, I found particular interest in Stephen King's idea of the Hierarchy of Writers that exists in the writing world.  The idea that a writer's ability is predetermined and immovable; the only improvement that any writer can hope to have is in the development of his or her writing skills, but one can never change his or her status as a writer.  I disagree with King's explanation of such a hierarchy, and think that a good writer does have the ability to become someone great.  

I cannot help but think of all the writers we call great today and wonder how many people read their works and designated them to be "good".  I think that a writer's status is determined by his audience's reception of his work, and can be changed in an instant.  Think about Robert Frost for example, (this instance is fresh on my mind, only because I am taking a course on Robert Frost).  He is often recognized as one of America's greatest modern poets, yet for almost half of his life,  he struggled to get even his most famous poems published.  He wrote poems for 20 years before anyone recognized his talent.  For twenty years this man sent out countless poems and short stories, and struggled to find any publisher who was interested.  Then, almost out of no where, Robert Frost became one of the best known poets in modern day.  For the first 40 years of his life, was he regarded as a "great" poet? I doubt it.  

Surely, the majority of people today would call him great, but if he has always been great, then why was his "greatness" not recognized from the start?  If he was always a great writer (and only refined his great skills in his first 20 years of writing), then why did it take so long for that to be recognized?  

Even Stephen King, who we may categorize as a high level "good" writer.  Surely at one point during his early career, amidst all the rejection letters he received, some publisher must have thrown his stories away and slapped the "bad" writer label on Stephen King.  I guess it all comes down to this question:  Who has the authority to designate a writer to live in a specific category of greatness.  A great writer only becomes one when the world recognizes him as that.  Until then, he can be bad, good, or even almost great.  Without this mobility in the hierarchy of writers, good writers would never be recognized as great.  Stephen King writes about inevitable rejection when a writer first decides to try and get published.  If great writers were once and always great writers, then they would never get rejected.  Great writers take a journey to become great - it is not just talent that forms a great writer, but a combination of timing, public reception, luck, and circumstance.  This is why I believe that there is a degree of mobility in any hierarchy of writing ability.

 

Nobody's perfect

Lukeman's introduction includes a great quote highlighting the importance of good editing. He says, "There is no such thing as a great writer; there are only great re-writers." It's nothing earth-shattering, but I found myself nodding along as I read. I agree that even if your thoughts seem to pour smoothly onto paper, it's almost always helpful to give your writing a second look. Not editing your work seems ridiculously egotistical.

This reminds me of a guy I talked to yesterday. We were at the Winter activities fair in the student center. He started to tell me he loves to write poems because his come out perfectly the first time. He mentioned that though he submits to Northeastern's literary magazine, his poems are never well received. I debated suggesting that a little revision might help his "masterpieces" not to be so misunderstood. I didn't. As Lukeman says, "All you need is the willingness to be labeled 'writer,' and with one word you are a writer." Some people too easily take this idea to heart, imagining the second they scribble something vaguely resembling a poem that it ensures a lifelong career awaits them. I didn't want to encourage him.

The First Five Pages

I have to admit that the first chapter of The First Five Pages impressed me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was a pleasant read containing “insider” information. Every author wants to know how their work will be received by an agent or editor. The advice on what not to do from the viewpoint of an editor is a genius approach to a writer’s guide. Early on, Noah Lukeman stated that the purpose of the book was not to teach someone how to write (thereby encroaching on creativity), but to teach them how not to write. I admit I felt somewhat relieved.

The first chapter was a pleasure to read. The divisions of the chapter were perfect. Each point was delineated, making it a simple task to extract and follow the purpose of each paragraph. The subtle humor and easy manner kept me interested in what could otherwise be a very dry subject. The beginning quote (if that’s what it was, I’m not sure) stood out to me. Honestly, I was a bit outraged at the reasoning behind why an editor or agent should only be called at 4:30 PM, if at all. I hope it was a joke used to point out how difficult it is to get through to an editor/agent. Regardless, it stood out and made me think.

I suppose it was not the subject of the first chapter itself which initially grabbed my attention, but Lukeman’s introduction of the topic in the first paragraph. There was a sort of comedy in the fact that he was originally going to omit the subject of presentation from the book altogether, but then ended with putting it as the first chapter. He began by stating that the topic of his first chapter was “nearly offensive”. This strong, somewhat ironic statement made me regard Lukeman as what Stephen King would refer to as an honest writer. And I completely agree with Lukeman. In a book about what not to do as an author, it makes sense to begin with the first reasons an editor or agent would discard a manuscript. It would be the first errors to fix in order to get to the next round, or pile.

I breezed through Lukeman’s first five pages, which in his book would mean success; and I look forward to gleaning the instruction following the first chapter.

Feeds and Digests, oh my!

This may be old news to some (maybe even all) of you: RSS Feeds. Anyone who is a blog addict probably knows all about them, but as I try to keep my Internet time minimal, I had only ever seen the link for an RSS feed without giving much thought as to what it actually was. Tonight I discovered the utility of this little feature as I was perusing the list of blogs provided by David on the right hand side of this page. What is RSS? It stands for Rich Site Summary - what that has to do with anything is lost on me, but I did find that an RSS feed allows one to keep track of multiple blogs in an organized manner. How does it work? Well, with the program I used - Google Reader - I just typed in the address of the blog much as if I were adding a contact on gmail and the last several posts on the blog would appear in the window. Once I scrolled past them, they were marked as having been read. I can look at all of the most rececnt posts in all of the blogs to which I have subscribed, or I can look at them one blog at a time. My description of all this may sound poorly versed in technical vocabulary, but if anyone is looking for a way to keep track of several blogs I would highly recommend RSS feeds. Google Reader is free and easy to set up, though there are several other programs out there from what I have gathered. And, if anyone is curious, I am subscribed to Booksquare and Time to Write from David's list, as well as Zen Habits. EDIT: I just found out that many online literary magazines also offer RSS feeds.

Next item: Duotrope's Digest. This website is incredibly useful. It is basically an online version of the Writer's Market, providing abstracts, pay rates, publishing dates, etc. on an awe-inspiring range of publications, both in print and electronic. The best part is that the database, which is updated daily, is searchable based on several criteria: genre, payscale, media, awards won by the publications' authors, even whether or not electronic submissions are accepted. I spent a couple of hours on it the other night, and I was able to come away with quite a list of publications I would like to look further into. I forgot to mention that are also acceptance statistics for each publication's profile, as reported by patrons of Duotrope. As can be imagined, their presence on each profile inspires mixed feelings.

On Writing

Although I have read quite a number of Stephen King’s novels, reading On Writing was, in a way, more fascinating than those that I’ve read. King opens the chapter of his book by recounting his physically painful experiences as a child-the frequent visits to the ear doctor and the throat doctor and the unforgettable wiping-of-the-ass with poison ivy. Throughout the book I noticed that there’s really no bullshit. King doesn’t hide anything, even his past alcohol and drug abuses. He approaches his book with truthfulness, without any fabrication in writing. Just as he is honest in telling the readers about his personal experiences, he approaches his stories, characters, and situations with honesty.

I would say that On Writing is a combination of an autobiography and a set of practical advices on writing. As an aspiring writer, I took from the book a) not to be discouraged by rejections slips for even Stephen King went through the same thing and b) to avoid adverbs, passive voice, etc. As I finished the book, I couldn’t help but question what King is doing in this particular book on the whole. This thought brought me back to the First Forward. King points to Amy Tang’s remark: “No one ever asks about the language”(8). According to King, language is “the art and craft of telling stories on paper”(9). Throughout the book, King conveys his attempts to become a successful raconteur through writing. He is talking about language the whole time. Towards the end of the book, King writes: “I’d try to answer some of the questions I’d been asked in seminars and at speaking engagements, plus all those I wish I’d been asked…those questions about the language”(266). Now I perceive that King’s language is marked with complete honesty-no bullshit.

On Writing

In On Writing, King gives a glimpse into his creative process and his attitude towards writing. His most significant piece of advice, in my mind, is that each author should bring his or her own experiences to the work, rather than trying emulate at style of writing because it is popular. King writes, “Every book you pick up has its own lessons,” and that is absolutely true, but I think this can be expanded to encompass every experience an author has in his or her lifetime. King believes that authors tend to have very keen observational skills and this, coupled with the ability to synthesize particular events that occur in one’s daily life with one’s imagination, is a precursor to writing believable fiction.
A corollary to this concept of imbuing one’s fiction with real-life detail, is writing honestly. This is necessitated by King’s organic approach to writing. Once he has fashioned characters and placed them in a novel situation, King is ardent about letting the characters evolve until they take on lives of their own. I find King’s approach fascinating; while King is the conductor of the train, he may have no idea where the tracks will lead. His metaphor about the story being a fossil buried in the ground is relevant here. King, ultimately, does not seem to know what his unearthed fossil will look like until he is done excavating.
With this metaphor, King continues to give some of his best advice. I agree with him that it is with subtle techniques that the most complete version of a fossil can be recovered. Because we all have different perspectives and experiences of life, each one of us has an inherently unique fossil to find. It is our directive, thanks to King, to incorporate our lives into our fiction and create honest characters and believable stories.

After finishing King's "On Writing", I found myself agreeing with many of his ideas and questioning others. I really enjoyed his ideas about editing one's own work. Having the willpower to leave a fully finished draft of a novel in a drawer for three months takes an immense amount of talent. I sometimes edit by reading backwards, but my memory still automatically seems to correct certain errors, and, therefore, I miss them. By ignoring a finished work for so long, one begins to forget what they wrote, and, ultimately, one is able to become their own soul-twin (as King calls it).
I do, however, somewhat disagree with King's theory of an "ideal reader". Particularly, I would not want my reader to be personally attached and connected to me. This is because I do not want my editor to have a biased opinion, which I think is extremely difficult and not as easy as King says. Moreover, I definitely could not see myself watching someone that was close to me edit my work. It would be complete torture. It seems much more practical and realistic to find someone who you are not close with to assist you in this process. If they love it then they love it. If they hate it then they won't hesitate to tell you.
Additionally, people are generally attracted to each other because they share some sense of common ground. Therefore, having your identical soul-twin edit your writing is almost like editing it yourself. As a writer, I think it's more helpful to have someone completely opposite to your way of thinking read your work, because they represent the other half of the reader population. An editor shouldn't "know what one means", and I feel as though an ideal reader that is closely related to the writer would more easily understand what the writer meant because they understood them on a general and basic level. This would get in the way of true editing.

The Ideal Reader and workshop worries

Later into his book, Stephen King mentions something he calls the "ideal reader" which feels rather counter-intuitive to me. The no-plotting rule and the character-driven story also felt a little hard to swallow, nowhere as easily at the mostly commonsense and write honestly rule that ran through previous chapters; but even those are can be easily accepted after a little pondering and giving King some wiggle room as all writers do not write and do not compose their writing the same way. Concerning the IR, it seems to me that writers want to appeal universally, not to just a single person. I find the concept of the IR a strange one (never heard of this, at least not put in such terms) and hard to wrap my head around because in my own writing, I know I'm not writing it for or to a specific person, more for the general audience. What King might be saying is the IR is not a person who has invested a lot of time in a writer's works and so doesn't have the background story, details, and the general feeling the author meant to pen down, but sometimes, doesn't. So, things that seem obvious to the author, doesn't read the same way to the IR and to combat this, writers should make sure to have that distance from their writing, so they can read it as if it was something fresh. I think that's what King means, but my impression is also that if you don't have an IR, a specific person in mind, then you're doing something wrong and that doesn't sit well with me.

I do agree with his dislike for workshops, for while it is a very encouraging thing to have "write anything" as your assignment, the atmosphere can also muddle your writing. Sometimes, your peers are trying so hard help each and not hurt each others' feelings over criticizing someone's writing (which is admittedly, a private thing for me) that they end up not citing the weak points in pieces, which is more damaging than a better-worded "I didn't like this piece." In workshops writers sometimes act so cautiously, tip-toeing around each others' work (especially in the beginning), that we don't hear the straightforward and sometimes, harsh criticism that we need to hear. "Yes, this piece was horrible." Or, "please, check your grammar and your verb tenses!" Don't get me wrong, I loved the workshops I was in. I got some really great suggestions but at the same time, it felt like my work was being coddled and not getting the serious cut and edit workout I believe it needs. (And I may have just defined my role for editor.)

Put forth your thoughts with conviction and intensity.

In the part of “On Writing” entitled CV, King says that in the earlier years of his marriage, it occurred to him that he was simply repeating his mother’s life. “I’d think, this isn’t the way our lives are supposed to be going. Then I’d think, half the world has the same idea”. King’s concept of a story is that it is a pre-existing thing, a fossil in the ground. Through writing, King was able to unearth the story of his life as a writer, the tools that worked and those that did not work so well. It was only by trial and error that he was able to discover all of the knowledge that he seeks to impart through “On Writing”, and this is King’s greatest lesson to us as readers and aspiring writers and editors: read a lot, write a lot, and after that, for the most part, be your own teacher.
In high school, my English teacher told me never to write “I think” or “I believe” before a statement. “I think”, suggests that one does not “know” and this is problematic because writing is supposed to convince the reader of something. For King, “writing has always been best when it’s intimate, as sexy as skin on skin”. His tastes parallel my own. The reader should feel the force of the writing, an energy that transcends time and space.
Among King’s major dislikes in regard to writing, a couple of them stood out to me as similar to what I dislike. First, King tells his readers, “You should avoid the passive tense”. Later, he says that he loathes adverbs and, in most cases, dialogue attribution, for reasons that come back to the same main point: if one is to be a good writer, one must bury the notion that he can also be a timid writer. “Writing is seduction”, says King, and I, for one, am convinced that I cannot be seduced by shy, half-hearted language.
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“On Living: A Postscript”, along with the final pages of “On Writing” expose the part of King that is profoundly human. He writes in clear detail about the 1999 accident that almost took his life. King says that, “Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life”. I have found this to be true, although whatever one’s passion is can have the same effect. With writing, as with anything else, one must be prepared to try and fail and try again and know that this is the only way to succeed. This sense of purpose invigorates a person and, quite literally, can bring them back to life.
This last portion of the book stirred me and caused me to consider my reality. As a soon-to-be graduate, I have been contemplating my future a great deal these days. King concludes the “On Writing” portion of his book by stating that he is not, and has never been, in writing for the money. He says, “I have written because it fulfilled me…I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever”. This conveys a passion for one’s career that far transcends what I could ever have envisioned for myself five years ago at the start of college. Now, however, I see that this is the only way to live rather than simply exist.

The First Five Pages Ch 1 and On Writing

I just read the introduction to The First Five Pages and I think that the book has some good goals, it definitely piqued my interest in what Lukeman has to say on "staying out of the rejection pile." I wasn't very impressed with the first chapter however, it seems to me that if you are serious about having a book published you would already know that you shouldn't send in a manuscript that was worn or dirty. I think that the advice on how to find a publisher or agent and how to approach them seemed like the most useful part of the chapter but even that also felt like common sense to me. Lukeman even acknowledges that starting with presentation is "nearly offensive." But on the other hand being that this is sort of an instruction manual for how to get ones work published, I can see that this chapter could be useful. Just because Lukeman's advice here seems unnecessary to me perhaps not all writers are aware of the advice he is giving.

I also wanted to return to King for a bit, I haven't finished On Writing yet but I felt like commenting on two things: one, the part about plot I found interesting. I think it was a bit too preachy for me, everyone writes differently and just because King doesn't believe in plot doesn't mean someone can't have a plot and write a good novel. J.K. Rowling has become wildly successful on a book series which she basically had planned out before she wrote the first book. But in that section I really enjoyed the story about how he came to write Misery. I think it is so interesting to see how his mind works, to learn that the story of Misery originated from a crazy dream he had on an international flight. I think for me his personal epithets are the richest parts of the book. Not that I feel like he doesn't have valid points about the craft but sometimes I feel like he is a bit too pushy. But on the other hand, this book is supposed to be his advice on how one can become a successful writer, so if we didn't want to hear his kernels of wisdom, we wouldn't be reading it.

On Writing - Round Two

I suppose I can say that On Writing is my favorite book by Stephen King. But that would be deceitful, as I have never read anything else by him except for a few of his (quite humorous) editorials in Entertainment Weekly and the short story "1408."

When On Writing first came out, I was in 8th grade. My father, an avid reader of King, told me about the book when he saw it in stores, and later bought me a copy. Oddly enough, I had never read any of King's fiction, but based on my father's interest, I was eager to see what knowledge the author had to impart to the amateurs. I have wanted to be a writer since I learned to read, and at the age of 14 I was no less enthusiastic about this calling then I am now. However, at the time of my first reading of King's book, I was still writing hokey, nonsensical tales of giant robots and teenage bankrobbers inspired by my minor infatuation with animes like the original Gundam and Akira. I breezed through On Writing, and as I can remember, the main points that stuck were King's distaste for adverbs, his advice to let finished manuscripts "mellow," and his nasty habit of drinking mouthwash. I did my best to follow these lessons, though at some point in my senior year of highschool I slipped and let my stories drown in adverbs and needless description. At least I didn't drink mouthwash (I did hazard everclear a few times, though...) Somewhere around two years ago I suddenly recalled King's advice, and began reining myself in a little bit.

Now, eight years from my first visit, I have returned to King's book, and have found it even more useful. This is likely because I am more familiar with writing and publishing and because I am hopefully a little more mature. I haven't watched an anime since high school and giant robots, as cool as they may be, have ceased to appear in my writing. Particularly insightful for me were King's words regarding dialogue, and his sense that a writer must simply have faith in him/her self. Also, it had never occurred to me to read while waiting in line at the supermarket! In any case, I took a lot from this book, and I was relieved to see that another writer (a very popular one at that) did not rely so much on plotting. And somehow I had forgotten that King and I both share the fear of letting a story get stale if it is left for even a day without being worked on. To see that someone else felt that way was a relief, as well.

I try to avoid "how to write" books for the most part, but King has shown that a text on the subject can be written, and admirably free of bullshit too. The only other book I know of that has accomplished a similar feat is the Writer's Workshop in a Book - which features transcriptions of lectures given by the likes of Michael Chabon, Richard Ford, and Amy Tan. I turn to this book when I am blocked or when I feel unsure of a piece of my writing, and it has usually helped. It is more of a self-help manual than a "how-to", useful for the practiced writer rather than the just beginning one.