FOR a man with the social skills of a small goldfish and the misanthropy of a much larger person, I’ve met a lot of fellow writers over the years. At conventions, book signings, and parole hearings, I’ve discussed writing a lot, with these conversations usually beginning with me insisting I don’t know anything and concluding with a four-hour presentation by me as I attempt to explain how I write novels despite clearly being an idiot.
What my fellow writers want from me largely depends on their level of experience. Older, more experienced writers usually want my secret moonshine recipe for making liquor out of old socks. Younger writers want surprisingly precise answers to questions like how many characters am I legally allowed to have in a novel or is ‘Randy’ an acceptable name for my sentient toaster detective character? Which means I have to expend energy explaining that there are no rules, really, which then leads to a subset of question regarding how to figure all this stuff out if there are no rules.
The answer to that, invariably, has two parts. First, read. Reading a lot of other people’s fiction inside and outside your comfort zone and sphere of interest will show you some pretty amazing things, and impress upon you that the only limitation to what you can do in a story is what you can sell to your audience.
The second part is, of course, to write. Write a lot. More importantly, challenge yourself when you write. If you dream of publishing dinosaur erotica, naturally you’ll write a lot of dinosaur erotica. But you shouldn’t write only dinosaur erotica. Just as with your reading, your writing should be varied and challenging.
One technique I’ve used a lot is to restrict myself to a specific tool, like dialog, or exposition. In other words, treat your writing practice like a gym workout and concentrate on specific aspects of the craft that need work.
Don’t Skip Leg Day
The word practice throws some people off, because writing is supposed to be an explosion of emotional truth, an artistic expression. And it sure is. But so is writing a song, but no one argues that you shouldn’t learn how to play and know something about music theory — and then work every day to master techniques. It’s really not that different with writing.
In music, you practice stuff like scales, training your fingers and hands to find notes in a pattern, training your ear to notice when you’re out of key, and stretching your muscles to learn new shapes. You can do something similar with your writing by trying to write a story using just one aspect of writing mechanics.
For example, many years ago I wrote a series of short stories that were entirely dialogue. I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could write a successful story without any exposition, or stage direction, or narration. If I could shape a character on the page just from their speech. If I could avoid confusing the reader without any tags. It was a lot of fun and some of those stories turned out really well, and I learned a lot about my tics when it came to dialogue, lessons I still use today.
It’s best to think of practice like this as experiments, because there is a very good chance the end result won’t be marketable; getting something that works as a story in general is a benefit, but not the goal. The goal is to get a sense of your own level of control, and to identify (or shore up) weak spots. Have trouble with characters? Write a story that is just a character study, an obsessive neighbor observing someone. Trouble with pacing? Write a story that has a new plot twist every paragraph, for the sense of control, like you’re shifting a car’s gears while driving through the mountains. Forget about balance and artistry and just do one thing for 5,000 words, like you’re doing musical scales.
Of course, this advice is free and you get what you pay for. And consider that the other thing I practice regularly is whiskey appreciation. So, you know, it’s always a 50/50 shot whether you’re getting real writerly brilliance or the incoherent ramblings of an inebriated man.