Writing for writers
MANILA, Philippines — How can a beginning writer know a good how-to book on writing from a bad one? Is there a way to sort one from the other? What are the guidelines?
Students and Campuses Bulletin corresponds with Peter Selgin, author of “Drowning Lessons”, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, and the novel “Life Goes to the Movies”, as well as two books on writing, “By Cunning Craft” and “179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers”, which is just out from Writers Digest Books.
STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES BULLETIN (SCB): As a successful writer, how do you get your ideas?
PETER SELGIN (PS): Ideas are never in short supply — at least for me. It’s very seldom that a day goes by without an idea for something — a story, an essay, a novel — occurring to me. Most of them I brush away like flies. But then there are some that are too good to resist, and others that keep after you persistently to where you finally give in to them. I think the real challenge for most writers isn’t coming up with ideas, but choosing which ideas to pursue. You have to make informed judgements about the kind of raw material that you can make the most of. On the other hand, it’s also not a bad idea now and then to try your hand at something completely unusual—say, in my case, a murder mystery, or a biography.
SCB: What was the biggest challenge you encountered while you were beginning your first novel?
PS: The answer to this question depends greatly on whether you mean first published on unpublished novel.
By the time “Life Goes to the Movies”, my first published novel, was finished, I’d written three others. The first I wrote when I was twenty-three and knew nothing about how novels were written, or how hard they are to write. This blissful ignorance made the task relatively easy; but it also accounts for the failure of the result. I think a certain amount of blind faith is good when writing, but it needs to be tempered with at least a general understanding of how fiction works.
As for my first published novel, the biggest challenge there — since the material I worked with was almost entirely autobiographical — was making autobiography work as fiction, to shape it as art while still doing justice to certain experiences and relationships in my own life that I wanted to portray and pay tribute to.
SCB: In what ways was your writing process different on your next succeeding works?
PS: Since every project presents its own unique challenges one never gets the feeling — at least I don’t — that one “knows how” to do something. I’ve also been a painter, and as a painter I had the same experience.
Every painting is a series of discoveries and accidents (some happy, others disastrous). You never know how things are going to turn out. If you do, then the result is usually dead. In any creative process involving the imagination the real creativity happens in the space where you don’t know what you’re doing. Keats coined the term “negative capability” to describe this space. Every new work presents us
with a new set of unknowns that are the fertile ground in which, with luck and perseverance; a work of art will take root and flourish.
On writing
SCB: What do you enjoy about writing books on the craft?
PS: I’m glad you asked this question. Great books about craft — books of practical instruction — are fairly rare. I could count those that I like using the fingers of one hand. When I set out to write about writing it was because I noticed how many books there were on craft, and how poorly written and even unreadable (in terms of style) most of them were.
This seemed to me not only ironic but abominable. How can a good book about how to write be poorly written? The answer is that it can’t— or shouldn’t be. And while there are many very readable writing books that deal with the spiritual and emotional side of writing—Anne Lamott’s “Bird By Bird” comes to mind—such books have little, really, to say about craft. The challenge, then, is to provide reasonable instruction in a way that’s exemplary and useful—and honest, since too many craft book’s prey on the delusional hope that an enormously difficult undertaking can be made easy. Great art may be many things, but “easy” isn’t one of them.
This doesn’t mean that writing fiction can’t be lots of fun.
SCB: What piece of advice have you received over the course of your career that has had the biggest impact on your success?
PS: I was lucky enough to have a mentor who taught me to “pitch my voice to the ceiling”— to get as much power out of language as possible — and to be on my guard against clichés big and small. So much of good writing is a matter of avoiding cliché; but avoiding clichés isn’t easy, since we’re so accustomed to them that they seem entirely natural.
SCB: What message do you find yourself repeating over and over to writers on writing the novel?
PS: When I teach, I don’t emphasize novels over short stories; instead, I encourage writers to think in terms of scenes, since scenes are what both stories and novels are built from. Two bits of advice I give often, “Always be writing scenes” and “No point of view, no story.” Many works by beginning writers have faulty or non-existent viewpoints.
SCB: What’s the worst kind of mistake that new writers, freelancers, or book authors can make?
PS: The worst mistake a new writer can make is to give himself a deadline for success. If one is self-critical, willing to learn, and persistent, one will succeed. But the best answer to the question, “How long should I give myself to succeed” is always “As long as it takes.”
‘Style over plot’
SCB: What’s the one thing you can’t live without in your writing life?
PS: This is one of those dramatic questions with a drum roll. In my “writing life” I’ve had to live without many things: quiet, a good desk, a comfortable chair, a computer, coffee. If the desire to write is strong enough, you write. The German writer Hans Fallada composed one of his novels on a single scrap of paper in three weeks while in prison. I’d like to think that — under similar circumstances — I’d do likewise; or at least that I’d try!
SCB: How do you deal with writer’s block?
PS: I find that I can always write something — letters, critical commentaries, blog entries — if only to alleviate the pain and guilt that I’d feel if I didn’t write anything at all. And I do other things — exercise, take long walks. Also, I try not to think of it as writer’s block, but just as a fallow period where the mind is resting and preparing itself. I know very few writers who don’t endure these fallow periods.
SCB: If you could change one thing about publishing, what would it be?
PS: In an ideal world I would wish for more appreciation of language and style over plot. But given the state of things these days I just wish more people would buy and read good books. I think publishers are largely to blame for the diminishing audience for great fiction. They haven’t done a good enough job of promoting innovative authors and educating their audience. Instead they’ve chosen to pander.
SCB: In what way (if any) has your writing/publishing life changed in the past years?
PS: For years I earned my living and supported my writing as a visual artist — a painter and illustrator. I’m now teaching full-time at universities. It’s a very different life. I love teaching, though I also miss painting.
SCB: Do you have any advice for new writers on fostering a strong author/editor relationship?
PS: Good editors are rare and should be valued. Consider an editor’s suggestions and never dismiss them offhand. That said, editors can be and often are wrong. The best editors will either defer to or at least defend their author’s wishes; the worst are the ones that assume that they know best. The best relationship between an author and an editor is one of mutual respect and consideration.
SCB: What do you see as your biggest publishing accomplishment?
PS: By the time I started writing seriously I was already thirty. Though I sometimes wish I’d knuckled down sooner, I’m glad I did it at all. I’d say my biggest accomplishment has been sticking with it through thick and thin—and there’s been plenty of thin.
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