The Genesis of “In the Spring of Coronavirus
Tony Vallone "In the beginning was the word, and that word—in my case—was “pandemic.” Like most people during this time, I practiced social distancing. Along with my wife, I stayed…
Why I Write NOW
Ann McCauley I have a sign above my desk, ‘Today we do what we must… Then someday we can do what we want!’ After reading that sign, my grandchildren have…
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What Even is a Writing Life
Stacey Gross Writing the next David Sedaris Novel I took a break with my kids today. I knew I told Jess, who’d asked me to write her a story, that…
The System is Broken: Using Dissonance to Engage an Audience
Engaging and engrossing writing can be simple or complicated, but never flat. Just as in real life, we can incorporate adversity and differences, rather than avoid them, in order to build a system that feels real and moves our readers. Even when our goal is to find patterns, draw conclusions or describe a beautiful future, our stories are more powerful when we consider the exceptions to the rules we create. Introducing dissonance into our writing invites our readers to bring themselves into the story and empowers them to take our narratives personally.
Why Expose Your Work to an Audience?
There is a golden moment in writer’s meetings that I both dread and relish, every time. It’s that few seconds after you have finished reading your work, just before you look up from the page. You are filled with elation. What was conceived as an idea and hatched in a battle of words has now discovered flight. Your story is your secret no longer; it has left the nest and taken on a life of its own.
scribo ergo sum
There’s a difference between young writers who are trying to “find their voice” and faking the voice. “The Voice” is the person the reader hears telling the story or reading the poem. So whereas you may indeed be able to sound like Anne Rice or Tom Clancy for a few amazing paragraphs, no matter how hard you try the real you will come through. And both the reader and you will hit a wall like an egg-splat when that happens. The reader will say something like, hey, wait just a minute . . . you’re no Stephen King or whomever you are trying to sound like. That loss of trust is catastrophic.
Discovering Originality
Our communities are not always sure of how to handle original writing. While some groundbreaking works are taught to middle schoolers, others are burned or banned. While some writers are hailed as saviors of humanity, others are excommunicated or censored (or worse). Those who toe the line of social norms and challenge society to question their pillars are not only risking being misunderstood, they are asking their readers to take a risk as well.
Two More Things
We have all survived our English classes -- elementary, middle, high school. . . some of us college. Many taught by the best intentioned people, teachers we ever had. Because they knew if we could not communicate, could not write clearly we’d encounter problems from our relationships to our employment. And yet there were two things not taught. These things I learned years after my comp classes but from my comp prof, Art Seamans, who wrestled with and continues to wrestle with the Poseidon nature of language. He ultimately forced the two blessings which follow.
When “Show, Don’t Tell” Breaks Down
Telling is appropriate for many things in a story. It allows you to better control the pace and feel of events than going full force with “showing.” Showing is good for some types of writing more than others. There needs to be a mixture of telling and showing, the proportions of each depend on the story the writer is trying to tell and how he wants it told. To a large degree “Show Not Tell” is pretty flippant advice – not always wrong, but not the solution for everything.
Am I a Writer?
Certainly, writing is an inspired process, driven by passion and made possible by discipline. Like anything else, it is a practice. We become better by investing the time and honing our skill. But are we only to be considered writers once the Nobel prize has come in? Do we cease to be writers the moment our pen rests?