What’s that in dog years?
asked Ryan, when I said earlier today that although I’m a crabby old bat, I’m actually a young writer.
What I mean of course, is that I have a lot to learn; and I’m hoping it is possible for an old dog to learn new tricks.
I’m currently reading a book about writing by the science fiction writer Samuel Delany, and it’s taking me a long long time because there is such a lot to absorb. So many things I didn’t know, or that I had sensed but not articulated.
- Image by Giant Ginkgo via Flickr
“Ninety per cent of all bad writing is either too cluttered, too thin, or cliche” he says, and in my case it’s all too easy to find all three in the same story.
As well as being somewhat alarmed by how much I still have to learn, I am occasionally encouraged by odd things he says that make me feel I am a writer. My current obsession with structure predates reading his chapter on how fundamental a sense of structure is to a novelist, and the one thing my best short stories have going for them is often a kind of shape. It’s an instinctive thing rather than something consciously achieved, mostly, but I am beginning to be able to nudge stories into a better kind of shape.
But it really is time for me to move on to focussing on writing novels. I’ve been looking at one of the best stories that I produced for my Open University course, and seeing it differently. I worked hard on its structure, and there is some good heartfelt writing in there, and a few really good scenes that I think do the job I intended them to do. But the story doesn’t work – and the reason why was abruptly made clear to me when I looked at it today – and saw that actually it needs to be a novel, not a 2500 word story.
Unfortunately that now means in my notebook waiting to be developed and written I now have ideas for my crime novel, my nanonovel, the historical novel I’ve been thinking about for three years, a novel set in Liverpool in the late 70s, what I call my Mr Hatchard and the Mills and Boon porn novel, and the story that should be a novel.
That would take a lot of words, but I reckon if I wrote them all, at least one of them might be good enough. On the other hand the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon was supposedly asked how he felt about the fact that so much science fiction is drivel, and to have responded “Ninety per cent of everything is crap”
In that case, if I should manage to write a novel a year for the next ten years then maybe there’s a chance that one of them won’t be. I do hope it’s not the last.
Martin Amis recently claimed that writing isn’t for the old, but I think he was just being his usual self – trying to stir up a bit of controversy in advance of the publication of his latest novel.
I always enjoyed the novels of Mary Wesley, and her first novel wasn’t published until she was seventy, I think – although I’m sure she had been writing a long time. I don’t think she got up one morning aged 68 and thought I’ll start writing that novel today.
I suppose this is the real problem with procrastination – at some point if I want to write that novel I just have to settle down and do it. So at the moment I am suffering from a real sense that I should have started this maybe ten years ago…
What do you think? Should our ambitions have a “best before” date? Is there anything you want to do that you’ve been putting off, or anything you wish you’d done sooner?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=407aabd7-7fd7-4792-92a8-531d158cc7e4)
About Ann GodridgeAnn Godridge has just completed her first crime novel, The Mermaid's Shroud, and has started work on the sequel. Her story the Tree of Knowledge was shortlisted for the Asham Award. She writes about writing and sometimes about textile arts at her blogStraw into Gold. You can find out more about her here - About Ann G.
View all posts by Ann Godridge →
9 Responses to What’s that in dog years?
All that jazz – All in A Day
Review of: Cousin Alice Jazz Music by Cousin Alice: Elaine Sturgess Reviewed by: Elaine Sturgess Rating: 5 On January 21, 2012 Last modified: January 30, 2012 Summary: What makes Alice so distinctive is her wonderfully smokey voice, a quality that furniture designer William Yeoward found so arresting at a concert she was performing for the [...]
Pingback: uberVU - social comments
Speaking as a fellow writer I like to think “just do it,” but it's easier said than done, whatever Nike would have us believe! With your work, Ann, do you blueprint the whole book with each chapter or section in detail so you can then “word in” the plot and sub-plots all the way through to the end? I've done that with my two naughty novels and I found it helped – when I tried with an earlier effort to work without a clear plan, I ran out of steam about halfway through.
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
I've only ever finished short stories, Suze. I've started about four novels now, but each time have run out of steam. So this time I have a plan – 20 chapters and some idea of what needs to happen in each of them. Some are a lot clearer than others though. I've been putting off getting really into this by working on short stories, and I think that was probably right. I've learned a lot of things that will make the novel writing better, I think.
But still I know there's only one way to learn to write a novel, and that's to do it. I was ready to get stuck in at the beginning of this week, but I've had the most awful sinus headache (viral, according to the doc, but what does he know?) that has been holding me back, so I've only done a couple of thousand words – but I have added to my plan. The good news I think, is that I am getting increasingly frustrated, and really am ready to get stuck in.
But in the end just do it is probably the right advice
With nonfiction I always teach people to plan the whole book chapter by chapter in as much detail as possible, because that makes the eventual writing much easier. And I think it works for fiction too; the plan enables you to decide what happens to whom and when, etc., and because it's all in note or bullet form it's easy to change around until you're happy with it. Changing large sections of fully-written up text is a bummer and very depressing when you think how much more time it has taken you to write it. Go on – get stuck in! (Can't wait to read it!)
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
I have to say, I'm following the Suze Plan at the moment. I started with a two page precis of the novel plot. Then I decided to break it into roughly 4000 word chapters, which I sketch out as I come to them, before actually writing them. I'm really getting into the idea of 18th century pre-chapter notations “In which X happens – and Y happens – and then we get to Z”!
When I finally finish it, I'll let you know how I got on.
Writing is structured! that's why I shall never be a writer!
I do believe in the just doing it bit though, sometimes some much effort goes into planning that when you get to the just doing part it all goes quiet, because your creative juices have on into planning rather than doing.
As you all know, I am a big “do it” person until I get distracted or belted off course.
Sounds good Morag.
I had to do a 1000 word synopsis for the Debut Dagger, as well as the first 3000 words. To get that far I had a big a4 notpad filled with my scribbles so I had way more than the 1000 words.
But the idea has changed such a lot so far, and even when I write stories they alter a lot.
Actually I don't mind altering in later drafts – it's only the first draft I hate writing…but I take Suze's point – I don't want to end up throwing fifty thousand words away…
I think in a shorter piece the structure does happen by instinct – and for some novelists too, maybe. But even in a longer piece I think there has to be a lot of getting on with it and just doing it.
I have to say, my short stories sort of write themselves, and they also structure themselves naturally as well. No idea how.