Most writers have one.
We keep it stashed under the bed, or high atop a shelf in the guest bedroom closet, or hidden at the back of a drawer behind the socks. We take it out now and then, when we’re alone and the house is quiet. It doesn’t take up much space, but it’s a huge part of our lives. What is it?
It’s a box, in my case a box that once held a ream of typing paper. It’s filled with all of the stories, poems, character sketches, and plot ideas I wrote that never saw light.
Most of the stuff in that box is there for good reason. Namely, it stinks. Some of the stories are far-fetched. Some are outdated (Civil War romance, anyone?). Some fizzled out after a few chapters, because the idea that I thought would power an entire book…didn’t.
I decided recently, just for archaeological purposes, to take the box out and have a look at some of those early literary attempts. Most were just as bad as I remembered – overwritten, overwrought efforts like the typed manuscript of a historical romance I wrote when I was thirteen or fourteen.
The 1830s-era ship’s captain missed his wife and wrote in his journal, ‘Damn the ocean! Damn this ship! I miss you unbearably, my dearest, my darling, Miranda!’
Damn the typos! Damn the melodrama! Damn the loathsome, laughably bad writing!
I also had a few pet phrases I liked to use…repeatedly. Here are two examples from a couple of Regency romances I wrote.
Example 1: She stared up at his hawkish face, at the hair as black as Satan’s breath that crested his forehead, and a frisson of fear chased up her spine.
Example 2: Sophie lifted her gaze from the white shirtfront and black wool-clad shoulders before her and nodded dazedly up at him. With his hair as black as Satan’s breath, and eyes of dark and impenetrable gray, Julian was devilishly handsome.
I quite liked that phrase, didn’t I?
“Good, but too much melodrama” was the criticism I received from a creative writing instructor in the tenth grade after she read one of my short stories. I don’t remember her name, but I never forgot what she said.
I remember being indignant and stung by her criticism, and when I got home I stomped around and said (sneeringly, no doubt), “What’s wrong with melodrama? It was good enough for Charles Dickens, wasn’t it?”
The problem was, I was no Dickens. My teacher knew it, and eventually, so did I. And I also came to realize that she was right. Dickens might’ve written his share of melodrama, but the man was also an amazing storyteller who knew his craft well and used that knowledge to create characters and books we still read and cherish to this day.
LESSON LEARNED: Take constructive criticism on board. If it’s well intentioned, it just might contain a useful kernel of truth. You might not like it, but if it makes you a better writer, it’s worth a listen. Then take what you’ve learned and use it to improve the quality of your creative output.
I also liked to use big words when simpler ones would’ve done just as well. My characters over-emoted, and everything they said was said passionately, angrily, sneeringly, condescendingly, fervently. Good grief – I had a whole lotta adjectives going on. I read those sentences now, sentences like this – “She had bought the violets from a street vendor, on the advice of the prison ordinary, to mask the noisome odors inside Newgate Prison” – and I cringe.
Noisome odors? Why didn’t I just say ‘the stench’ or ‘the smell’?
Here’s another one: “His gaze devoured Sabrina from her hem to her head as rapaciously as a man of his girth might regard a tankard of ale or a leg of boiled mutton.” Why didn’t I say “greedily” instead? Because, I’ve no doubt, I wanted to show off the fact that I knew what ‘rapacious’ meant.
LESSON LEARNED: The best writers use clear, simple language to convey a story. Don’t use five words if two will suffice. Don’t try to impress readers with your extensive vocabulary. Just tell the story as clearly, simply, and vibrantly as you can. As Stephen King says, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
In college, I once turned in an English Lit paper and forgot to put my name at the top. It was a discussion of “My Antonia” by Willa Cather. My teacher graded it and handed it back to me at the end of the following week’s class, and I was surprised.
“How did you know it was mine?” I asked. “I didn’t put my name on it.”
“I always know which paper is yours,” she replied. “Your writing has a flair-y quality.”
Hmm, I thought later. A flair-y quality? Was that a good thing, or bad? If my writing stood out as distinctive, at least I hoped it did so in a good way.
LESSON LEARNED: Develop your voice when you write. How do you do that? It takes time, like anything worth doing, and it takes practice, and reading (lots of reading), and writing. Study the way your favorite writers put their sentences together. Is their style short and brisk? Dreamy and evocative? Do they use a lot of dialogue, or only a little? When you read, pay attention to the writing style and syntax. What words did the author choose to convey emotion? How did they ratchet up the suspense? How did they quicken the pace, or slow it down?
Then…find your own style. Use your voice, your impressions, your passions, all of the things that make you, you – and let them shine through in your writing.
You’ll end up with some good stuff, and some bad. Either way, it’s time well spent…because the more you write, the more you learn the craft of writing. And that’s important. Polish up the good stuff and put the bad stuff away. You’ll end up like me, with a box filled with the flotsam and jetsam of your efforts.
And then, like me, you can take the box down from the shelf on a rainy afternoon and amuse yourself reading all of those early literary attempts. You’ll laugh. You’ll groan.
But you might find (to your surprise) that some of it really wasn’t that bad.
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Look for my new ebook, Manolos in Manhattan, out 20 March 2015
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