Writer's Rehab #2: Reading Rehab

I made part of my writer’s rehab “reading-hab.” I am forcing myself, a little each night, to read some of my oft-neglected books on writing that I keep as a shrine to inaction beside my bed. You know how it goes, if you buy a shelf full of writing books and never read them, then you are a writer.

Today’s book is one of my non-e-book favorites, just because the way they printed and bound this makes it look like an old-fashioned book. The pages are this yellow-ish newsprint paper, almost like an old paperback book, and the sides of the pages are rough cut – they wave back and forth in an uneven pattern like the book’s paper was cut on the flipping edge with a table-saw.

How Fiction Works, by James Wood. Now, a couple warnings are in store here before we begin. The book is written in the style of one of those snooty film critics, who goes on and on about the feeling and verisimilitude of a work, and then proceeds to tear things down in a quirky and self-affectionate method for the critic’s task and the writer’s goal. It rambles. It goes off on tangents. It proclaims truths and contradicts itself. There is a pretentious and elite air of superiority here. All of which, gives the work insight, meaning, and significant entertainment value.

I liken this to listening to an extremely knowledgeable but opinionated film critic. You learn a lot, you disagree a lot, and you come away feeling like you know what you like and don’t like about a writing style. You cannot form solid opinions without being challenged, and I find wishy-washy feel-good books about writing don’t do this for me. Now, that said, I love the wishy-washy self-empowerment writing type books a lot, but if you don’t include roughage in your writer’s reading habit I feel you are doing yourself a great disservice.

You need counterpoints. You need stuff you find pretentious and disagreeable. You need to challenge your assumptions. And from time to time, you need to be humble enough to put your ego away and say the other side may be right this time. In writing, yes, I see this. I know what I like. I can read other styles outside of what I like and find merit with them. However, if I shield myself from opposing viewpoints on ‘what makes writing good’ I won’t have the yardstick in which to measure the merits of a style and work of which I am unfamiliar.

It is like a high-school student being forced to read and understand Shakespeare. You start off not wanting to do it, and you recoil at being forced to read this mangled Old World English. Every sentence feels like a slog through getting both the translation down and the meaning through. What is the point? Can’t we read Harry Potter instead?

There is a point. You need that ‘getting out of your comfort zone’ experience in order to reflect upon your life, your experiences writing, and to learn methods and writing styles you may have never known or been exposed to in your limited reading life. How can you judge something without knowing what it is, other than not liking it because it isn’t your style?

And the other side does make great points every once and a while.

This book feels like it was written in the sixties, as it has the feeling of books written during that era – plus a healthy base of reference on the pre-60’s classics. The book starts off as a really strong advocate of the third-person close style, you know how this goes:

As Sylvie sat there writing today’s article, she knowingly smiled at the thoughtfulness of her craft; how she carefully weaved words together, how she smartly measured paragraph length and tempo, and sprinkled her wit and love of writing upon each skillfully-chosen word.

Of course she was good at this! Having reviewed nearly a thousand erotic books made her a seasoned expert at her self-important craft.

If comes off sounding like a Prince Charming and Cinderella tale, but I feel understanding this form of writing and what makes it ‘good’ is key to understanding how to read and critique works written in this style. There are words in that last passage belonging to both to the character and the narrator, and that ambiguity is one part of what makes great third-person style – in Mr. Wood’s opinion.

But that opinion has value, and that yardstick of quality – for this writing style - from a critic’s point of view is invaluable. How are you supposed to know this measure of quality exists? Do you agree or disagree with this point?

If you don’t know, the best you can do is make happy or sad accidents as you try to emulate the style. If you do know, then you can make informed decisions on if you like doing this or not. The more you know, the better you can navigate the style. Good or bad. Things you agree with or not.

Ignorance is not a good replacement for knowledge.

And it isn’t just this one aspect of third-person close style, there are a ton of other observations here that define good and bad writing in this critic’s view of the writing world. I am just getting started with this book, with my subscription renewal card for Penthouse Letters firmly stuck on page 24 as a bookmark.

Reading every night is a part of my rehab. Writing each day is as well. I threw out another bile-filled piece this morning of over a thousand words, something which feels more like a nasty Facebook post than something I would write and be proud of. I got to a point where I said “this isn’t me” and I saved the document and put it away. I didn’t delete it, because I want some record of my feelings at the time to compare my future progression against.

But learn to throw away your trash.

And then learn from it through reflection.