Is there a right way to write?
Scarlet Wilde
All writers tend to be nosey, fascinated by people; how they behave, how they do things and what makes them tick. I spend time in airports, stations and buses watching people slyly and, by the end of the journey, I have imagined an entire life and character for four or five of my fellow passengers. So what could be more fascinating than watching how other writer’s write?
My writing at work has always been constrained by two things, time and length. I hadn’t realised how much this had affected my writing style, until I was sitting with a very serious group of women writers at a workshop in London.
Each woman had a unique way of writing. One polished each word as it strained to be born, producing little, but each glittering drop deliberated upon, cherished, then set reluctantly free on the page.
Another studiously applied footnotes as she wrote, her stories taking shape with great technicality, each intricate plot detail linking throughout the work, like an intellectual web.
One woman seemed blocked. Silent in front of the blank page for a long time, then, with her head suddenly alert, like a startled deer, she seemed to jump into the words and worked speedily and furiously, her heavy text denting the page.
I was watching, because I had done my usual thing, just dove straight in, went somewhere outside myself and wrote quickly and automatically at speed, my hand unforgivably slow, trying to keep up with my flying brain.
I had finished the assignment early, an embryonic short story in front of me and the feeling of being wrenched out of one world into an uncomfortable other. I prefer to go into my writing trances in silence and alone, in short, intense, exhausting bursts.
Looking to famous authors, their methods of writing are as idiosyncratic as you’d expect: Capote had several cocktails first, Kerouac liked to write by candle-light, midnight until dawn; Sontag wrote by hand on yellow legal paper in felt pen, then typed, annotated, then re-typed until she was happy.
Henry Miller’s routine appeals to me most, he wrote every day. If he felt ‘groggy’,
he just made notes for stimulus, if ‘in fine fettle’ he wrote to finish one section ‘for good or bad’, with strictly no interruption. Every day he made time to see friends, have coffee in a café, paint or sketch and visit museums, but for some reason, he refused to go to the cinema!
Writing is a deeply personal thing and I don’t think there is a wrong or right way. One discovers what works from of experience. I have to keep myself interested; sometimes I power through a couple of chapters or an entire poem, almost as if it is being dictated in my head, at other times I produce fragments that have to be carefully stitched together, patched up, then smoothed, to be a whole.
I have tried meticulous planning with novel software, using character studies, chapter outlines, mind maps and overviews, this has given me a support to work within, but I found it constraining to write in such a tight format, I swung into different chapters, characters, space and time; and soon my careful planning was unrecognisable.
In editing, I found issues with tenses, changes of style and inconsistencies of characters, I learned to work with a broader, looser, structure in which the words can flow and the story go where it wants to.
It helps me not to stop and edit as I go. This irritated me at first, leaving grammar and spelling errors on a page felt like ugly, itchy scars, but I found that to push the flow of words on kept more of the integrity of the story than polishing to perfection as I went. Editing, too, was more satisfying, tidying up all those typos instantly improved things!
Scarlet Wilde
I think most creative processes have a strange, mystical, component and it’s that which I Iike to tune into. I find that mundane tasks, like driving, allow me to pour new ideas into my head and the feeling of the story and sense of place is always quite strong and detailed in me before I sit down to write.
Sometimes writing is like bleeding onto a page, sometimes it is so intense the words come out like staccato knives. At its best, it flows like a meditative river and I am just an observer. Those are the times when I read back and think “Where did THAT come from?” and I feel I have been in the zone and time has flown by.
As to the famous “room of one’s own” eulogised by the wonderful Virginia Woolf, I have a small antique desk in a spare bedroom, surrounded by books, but I often find myself at the kitchen table in the winter, or half lying on the sofa, which is where I am now; the formality of sitting at the desk is saved for larger stints, when I am scoping out a novel or rough chapter plan. The rest of the time, comfort and the proximity of a cup of tea are more important!
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Scarlet Wilde self published her first book at 6, with a limited run of four, mainly consisting of crayon pictures. Since then she has written professionally as a journalist, feature writer, advertising copywriter, business writer (with a specialism in international retail strategy and branding), poet, short story author and hopes to release two books by the end of this year, The Con-Dem Dictionary and a literary novel, The Cuckoo In The Nest, a saga detailing the changes in the roles of women through two generations of an Irish immigrant family. Scarlet blogs at menwillpause.wordpress.com and is a vociferous Twitterer @Wilde. Scarlet lives in a cottage in Hampshire, UK, with two murderous cats.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips, On Writing
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- The Ploughshares Round-Down: The Right Way to Write | Ploughshares | November 18, 2014
I agree with you when you said ideas come when doing mundane things. I find myself thinking when I’m driving and get so frustrated when I can’t jot my ideas down.
I’m also a huge fan of handwriting first and then typing it up. Things seem to flow beyter from pen to paper.
Wow! I wish I could write like that with such depth and beauty to the words. In fact, I truly like your statement that it is very personal and the way you describe each different approach as if it was a gem inits own category. Simply Amazing! Thank you.
Definitely different things suit different people. For me, writing first thing in the day is great because i’m still half asleep and my over-critical thoughts are still switched off. Plus, if I haven’t checked my emails then my brain isn’t trying to problem-solve other things.
The only right way is to start and not stop until you write ‘The End’. What happens in between is up to you.
I find that different projects require different approaches. There’s no right way, and the only wrong way is not to write at all!
The right way is the write way. The wrong way is not write. That’s it. The better way is the way the allows you more creativity, more efficiency, more prolific expression, but as long as you write it is right.
True! There is no ‘right’ way to write!
For me it was to let go off the over thinking and just write. Often this works. But writing and writing no matter the mood is my routine. But I don’t think there is a right way or there can be just one way. I think every writer has a routine that suits them. But it mostly comes from the deep urge to write. For writing is the only way 🙂
No, there is no right or wrong way, only what works for you right now.
I’ve used most methods but I find allowing a story to tell itself in its own time is the best for me, whether that’s in days, months or even years.
No. The correct way to write is always the right way. From the heart. When a writer touches the keys on a computer or typewriter. Or even picks up a pen, each stroke, each clang of the key comes from the heart.
It is their souls bleeding to get out that thought. Writers can taste the words, they feel the emotion. The see the scenes.
There is no wrong way or right way. There is the only way…from the heart and soul.
“If it’s cheating, but it works, it ain’t cheating.”
I think the right way to write is whatever works – and as you say, what works will be different for everyone.
For years I couldn’t get anywhere because if I tried to just sit down and write, I’d end up in a deadend plot, and trying to outline killed my muse. What I finally found was a mix of pantsing and plotting, where I figure out a bare bones structure (characters, main conflict, how it will end) and have fun filling in the details. I works for me, but I know a lot of people it would drive crazy.
It also depends on where you’re at in your life or where you’re at in your writing. I recently went from one job to being unemployed for three months to being at another job. I went from writing to revising to polishing (book 1) to writing to revising (book 2). Each stage looks different in each time in my life.
Maybe part of it is just getting into the groove, but I also revel that part of anything (writing or otherwise). I like to tweak what I’m doing, always making it better and more effective. I don’t think I’ll ever change that about myself.
But a lot of writers do keep looking for the “right” way, as if following the rules will get them published. It seems like those looking for the right way don’t quite realize how creative writing actually is.
The only right way to write is to write, right?
It’s impossible to write one way correctly or incorrectly; that’s like telling someone who speaks with a born lisp shouldn’t to be understood. I’ve had it often told, “Tell the story how it needs to be told and the rest will take care of itself.” Once you get rid of the word counts limit worries and other mechanics a story is fussed over, it shines. Julia Cameron mentions this in The Artist’s Way. How true her advice is. God writing is instinctive and magical; it can’t be harnessed or captured. It just is.
If there was a ‘right’ way to write, some guru would have packaged it and sold it to the thousands of aspiring writers. Of course, that is why we all read those ‘how to’ books, go on writing courses, quiz established authors about their routines etc. We all hope to find that magic ingredient. I was just reading a book about Kenyan runners and why they are so dominant in long-distance running. It’s a combination of factors, there is no secret formula or ‘single’ way of doing it. Same with writers: genetics (talent), hard work, quirky habits, practice, luck.
I agree there is a right or wrong way to write – generally good writing comes from deep within, it can be very spontaneous or very structured. My own fictional writing style is quite feverish – any ideas have to be quickly expressed and released – before I lose my thought train, and quite often the editing comes afterwards – as you also mentioned. The one thing writers definitely have in in common is their fascination with observing everything around them and they tend to be daydreamers. I know a writer who puts all her initial ideas into scribbles and drawings of stick people and writes her story afterwards- which is quite unusual but it works!