Excellence in Writing

What makes good writing just good and excellent writing immortal?

You Speaka My Language?

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I was in a store the other day, trying to spend a gift certificate I received from my mother over the holidays. After twenty minutes of picking things out, I was told at the register that the gift certificate wouldn’t work at this store.

I looked at the logo on the little card. It matched the one above the counter. “Why not?” I asked.

What followed was one of the stranger conversations I’ve had recently.

The woman behind the counter was trying to tell me that they were a) a franchise, and b) as such, they weren’t hooked into the Master System at National HQ, so they, c) wouldn’t be able to redeem my gift certificate.

I, in turn, tried to communicate that a) in this age of instant communications it was incredibly stupid they weren’t connected to the people that had my mother’s money, b) referring to the previous point, could she maybe talk to someone up the food chain into changing that policy? And, c) I probably wouldn’t be shopping there until they did.

This discussion ate up ten minutes of my life better spent doing anything else, like cleaning the litter box. Very little was accomplished. The cashier acted as if I wasn’t speaking English. She had one of those beaded tethers around her neck for her glasses and would take them on and off as she tried to make her point, as if lecturing a particularly dense freshman class. My own sentences became clipped and terse as I realized I wasn’t going to get one iota of satisfaction out of the encounter, but unable to help myself from digging in further.

Neither one of us actually communicated more than a fraction of what we wanted to say. I left the store, growling and grumpy. Eventually, however, I got to thinking about my writing.

How is it, I wondered, that I hoped to reach anyone with words when I couldn’t even get my point across to someone in person? Face to face, I had multiple chances to make myself clearer, hear the counterpoint, and respond…but I’d failed. What was going to happen when I had one make-or-break shot at a reader–a blog post, a short story, a novel–and missed?

After walking the streets of Old Town Alexandria for a while, trying to make sense of things, I came up with a two-fold answer: write the best story you can to not give the reader a chance to hate it and…you’re simply not going to please everyone all the time. The old saying might be trite, but it still holds. Some people are going to love your writing, some people aren’t going to like it, some people (maybe a lot of people) aren’t even going to get it. That’s life and the sooner you deal with it, the sooner you’ll enjoy what you’re doing.

Then again, some cashiers just suck.

The Point of Defection

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I was at a New Year’s party, talking to one of the guests about favorite books. He mentioned some comics, I mentioned some mysteries. The conversation turned to ongoing storylines: what we liked and why.

“What series do you like?” he asked. “Like, a character that you really can’t wait to read again to see what they’re up to?”

I hemmed and hawed, and eventually chose Robert Parker’s Spenser character. “But only the first seven books or so,” I amended.

I went on to explain that, while I loved the character and the first half-dozen novels, Parker’s writing became so formulaic (to me) after a certain point that I read the rest of the 40-odd novels in the series only out of a sense of loyalty. Subsequent books had all the excitement of tucking into a favorite Sunday dinner: it was familiar, and comforting, but I wasn’t ever going to be wowed by it. And, far from being protective of the characters and plots, I would’ve welcomed a radical change (in the same way I could use a different side-dish on the table…or, hell, ordered Chinese).

My friend said he’d experienced the same thing with comics, but that–with few exceptions–he always kept coming back to his favorites. I agreed; I’ll never stop loving those first seminal Spenser stories, even though the vast majority of them are cookie-cutter renditions of those first few great ones.

“Why is that?” he asked. “What makes us stick with these series–or even a single book–if whole parts of them stink?”

So, right there on the spot, we cobbled together a pretentious academic theory: The Point of Defection. It goes like this:

At some point, a writer will interest a new reader in their story. The tale can be of any length: if it’s a series, maybe Book One does it. In a single novel, a particular plot line. In a short story, it might be the first sentence.

If the writer is skilled and careful, as the reader moves along he or she will become so invested in the ongoing life of the character/plot/world that they pass The Point of Defection. They’re hooked, and after this moment whole lines, chapters, and even books can be a disappointment and it won’t matter: the reader will stick with the author through thick and thin (i.e., won’t defect). Can you imagine any fan of The Game of Thrones not buying the next book just because they didn’t like A Feast for Crows…even though it’s one-fourth of the entire series to date? Or a Sue Grafton follower not buying the Z is for Zebra (or whatever the next Kinsey Millhone mystery is) because G though M didn’t tickle their fancy?

(Of course, it certainly helps the overall “health” of a series if the writer raises his game again: as many movie-goers know, “Sequel-itis” stings a lot less if Number Three delivers.)

After we were done admiring ourselves for codifying and naming this common-sense principle, I suggested an addendum: the more legs a story has to stand on, the less likely the defection. In comics and related short story collections, there are enough “legs” (mini Points of Defection?) that a reader is free to take or leave a number of them without defecting.

The original Conan series, for instance, are all collections of stories; Robert E. Howard never wrote a Conan novel. Same with Fritz Leiber’s immortal Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series; there is only one novella and one novel; the rest are short stories. Comics and graphic novels, the same: they often rely on an underlying premise to carry the life-story of the protagonist forward, but individual adventures can be dismissed or embraced without requiring the reader to “drop” the whole series.

My love of the Spenser novels can be seen in this light: I could only tolerate 30 mediocre novels if I’d already loved seven of them (a ratio of 1:6). Give me one great book and six stinkers and I’d probably walk away from the series (and maybe the author).

Reverse engineering a series’ success this way doesn’t really tell us much as writers, since the lesson seems to be: write a good story, hook your readers, and let yourself skate when they’ve passed the Point of Defection. Theproblem is, since you don’t know when that ‘Point is, you could end up really screwing yourself.

So, you’re left with something you already knew: just write a good story. Keep doing that and you’ll never have to worry about where your Point of Defection is.

Writing Resources

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I’m far from an expert on the craft of writing, but I do know what’s helped me and what hasn’t. This is a very small group of writing guides, but it’s my “marooned on a desert island” list. It also doesn’t include what I consider the indispensable basics, either, like Elements of Style or Garner’s Usage. These titles are more concerned with the intangibles of writing and its result.

On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King

On Writing is fittingly called “a memoir”, as much of it is made up of autobiographical musings by King. But the narrative style actually works well in putting the reader at ease, standing in stark contrast to other style, grammar, and writing books that can be terse and dry. I found it especially helpful when I began my first novel, as King touches on just about everything you need to get started: approach, commitment, daily word count, the importance of action, when to let yourself off the hook and when to put yourself back on. You won’t find a lot of hard and fast rules about writing or grammar here; as the title says, the book is more about the intangibles of craft. Worth reading in its entirety before you fully commit to a novel-length project. The book ends with a sample chapter of King’s with hand-written proofs and corrections followed by a short list of authors King admires.

Get it on Amazon

On Writing Well
William Zinsser

Zinsser’s books are primarily intended for those writing non-fiction, but his tips, guides, and anecdotes are a goldmine for any writer. Zinsser uses his own personal experiences to illuminate his career as a journalist, and result is a homey and comfortable approach to writing. Unlike King’s On Writing, however, he also has a lot of the “bolded-header” type of rules and regulations you might find in a manual: when to drop in an exclamation point, using the right word for the job, avoiding the wrong or hackneyed word, paragraph length, the best place for contractions and so on. He uses quoted examples of his own pieces as well as writers he admires so that you see the lessons in action. There aren’t any exercises, per se, as the whole book is meant to be instructional.

Get it on Amazon

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print
Renni Browne and Dave King

Self-Editing is the kind of book that puts a keen edge on the dull knife of your writing. It’s a more business-oriented version of the traditional help manual, pointing out the common errors, trite phrases, and basic mistakes that drive agents and editors crazy–and result in your manuscript being rejected. Browne and King aren’t just mercenaries with a red pen, however; they’re obviously concerned with good writing, just good writing that gets published, too. There are dozens of examples of bad and good attempts–made-up excerpts as well as famous ones–and each chapter has particular exercises meant to strengthen your writing in important areas: point of view, dialogue, tempo, sophistication, voice.

Get it on Amazon

The Art & Craft of Novel Writing
Oakley Hall

Hall’s Art & Craft is structured almost like a manual, with sections for dialogue, point of view, plotting, etc., but has always felt a little nebulous to me, with a suggestion here and a guideline there, and no real structure to sink my teeth into. Despite that, it’s the book I return to when I feel “rules” aren’t working anymore and I want to get back in touch with what makes writing, as the title implies, an art. There are many demonstrative examples of good, nuanced writing and many of the chapters are annotated. The book ends with a detailed examination of the entire first chapter of The Columbus Tree by Peter Feibleman, an example of a synopsis of one of Oakley’s own novels, then a lengthy reading list of other authors, focusing on the writing process and craft.

Get it on Amazon

Don’t Murder Your Mystery
Chris Roerden

This book and it’s less genre-centric big sister, Don’t Sabotage Your Submission, should be within arm’s length of all novelists of mid-level experience and onward…that is, those of us that know just enough to be dangerous (mostly to ourselves). Roerden addresses a host of writing mistakes that even veterans are known to perpetrate, from subtly bad POV to poor exposition to bad word choice. This is the book that will buff your writing to a high gloss.

Get it on Amazon

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Great Quotes: The power of language

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Concise, elegant descriptions are sometimes all we need to convey what’s necessary in a scene. Take this example from Walter Mosley’s, Devil in a Blue Dress:

Joppy was cleaning one area on his counter until it was spotless, except for the dirt that caked in the cracks. The dark cracks twisting through the light marble looked like a web of blood vessels in a newborn baby’s head.

It’s just two sentences. But do you have any doubt what that bar looks like? Will you forget it anytime soon? Does the spotless counter–but the  “dirt…caked in the cracks”–maybe imply something about Joppy or his character?

How about this description of a hulking mansion from someone known more for their action scenes:

It was a long drive up to the house. Gray ocean on three sides. The house was a big old pile. Maybe some sea captain’s place from way back when killing whales made people respectable fortunes. It was all stone, with intricate beadings and cornices and folds. All the north-facing surfaces were covered in gray lichen. The rest was spotted with green. It was three stories high. It had a dozen chimneys. The roofline was complex. There were gables all over the place with short gutters and dozens of fat iron pipes to drain the rainwater away. The front door was oak and was banded and studded with iron. The driveway widened into a carriage circle. I followed it around counterclockwise and stopped right in front of the door.

– Lee Child, Persuader

Notice how saying “The house was a big old pile” is like a summary statement, giving us the macro-view before following with particular, specific details like the lichen spotted with green and the “fat iron pipes”.

Child isn’t afraid to use repetition when it works for him: “It was three stories high. It had a dozen chimneys.” The two sentences together should be too short, too choppy, but they work precisely because they’re not made into one compound sentence. It’s also how you would see the house as you drove: short bursts of recognizable detail. This selective sentence length isn’t accidental: it helps break the rhythm of longer sentences to follow, like the longer “There were gables…” sentence. Other truncated sentences also work well: “Gray ocean on three sides”, and not the more obvious and plodding, “There was gray ocean…” Child even manages to sneak in Reacher’s sniff of disapproval with the line, “..when killing whales…”.

For an example of character description, how about the piercing observation of Pyle as seen by Fowler in The Quiet American:

I had seen him last September coming across the square towards the bar of the Continental: an unmistakably young and unused face flung at us like a dart. With his gangly legs and his crew-cut and his wide campus gaze he seemed incapable of harm.

Pyle, as a character and a person, is almost entirely summed up in a handful of words. And, of course, there’s the prophetic mistake Fowler makes in underestimating Pyle (foreshadowing and intimating that the presence of innocence and the ability to do harm have nothing to do with each other).

Language is beautiful, malleable, and—with enough practice—able to create entire worlds out of nothing but letters.