Know How

I have one bookshelf at my house devoted to books about writing. Several are by well-known, very successful writers. Others are by academic sorts who discuss the spiritual and philosophical reasons for writing. I’ve read them all — glad I did — and found them thought-provoking, encouraging, challenging. 

But there were times, as I read those books, that I felt like I was back at the Oxbow Meadows Nature Center, in beekeeping class, and someone has just asked the four old experts how best to treat for varroa mites. 

Book writing is much like beekeeping (and songwriting, for that matter). There’s no one right way to do it. And the only way to figure out the right way for me has been to start writing. (Cue up rule number one.)

So here’s what I figured out for me.

Maybe I can explain it best if I use two points of reference, two very successful contemporary writers, Stephen King and Amor Towles.

In recent years, several friends suggested that I read On Writing by Stephen King. I did. It’s the only thing I’ve ever read by Stephen King and, for me, it proved to be the most practical, helpful, usable book I’ve read about writing. But his mode of writing, as I understood it, is this: begin with a situation (for instance, ’a man is sitting on a park bench and a bus drives by’), start writing, and let the story unfold organically. In other words, launch with no idea of what the story is going to be. Just throw some dry straw into the wind and see where the wind takes it. If you’re Mr. King, you end up with a bestseller, a movie contract, and all the notoriety you could ever hope for. That method obviously works for him (and many others apparently). That’s how he treats varroa mites.  

When I began the book I’m working on, I tried that approach. I had no outline, no list of characters, no narrative arc, no idea of what was going to happen. All I had was a situation, a coffee shop with lots of portraits on the wall. I wrote tirelessly, in expectation of a magic moment when the story would rise up and declare itself. That moment never came and, yes, since you asked, it was extremely frustrating. (But, I was learning! And I was being brave. And I knew why I was writing the story. And I had you in mind! So I didn’t give up, except for the 14 times that I gave up and quit.)

Now consider Amor Towles. (His novel A Gentleman in Moscow is one of my favorite reads of the past few years.) His method, as described by one interviewer is “an outlining process in notebooks (that) takes years.” Even more endearing, to me, about that process is that he does his outlines (and early drafts) in longhand. Before he really digs into writing and doing applied research, he knows the entire story he wants to tell — characters, chapters, action, settings, everything.

When I heard Towles describe that process, it was an ‘AHA’ moment. His approach felt very much like preparing a case for court, something I was familiar with. (Trying cases before a jury, after all, is very much about the art of story-telling.)

The Towles approach inspired me to put on the brakes, revisit my story, do some outlining in longhand, and then resume Theo of Golden. It was still hard work but I had a path and a flashlight.

Next time I write a novel (and I do hope I’ll get to do another), I’ll know HOW to approach the process. There will still be plenty of room for magic to happen but I think I’ll waste a lot less time and paper than I did this time around.

Be brave, know why, know who, know how. 

And then what?