This is a quote from John Gardner's On Becoming A Novelist:
Artist, unknown
"Nothing is sillier than the creative writing teacher's dictum Write about what you know. But whether you're writing about people or dragons, your personal observation of how things happen in the world--how character reveals itself--can turn a dead scene into a vital one. Preliminary good advice might be: Write as if you were a movie camera. Get exactly what is there. All human beings see with astonishing accuracy, not that they can necessarily write it down. When husbands and wives have fights, they work brilliantly, without consciously thinking. They go precisely as far as it's safe to go, they find the spouse's weakness, yet they know without thinking just when to hold back. The unconscious is smart."
You would think that somebody (like me) who has had 9 years of college and who has been calling herself "a writer" for some years now would know certain things.
But I find myself continually going over things I've read before and thought I knew, and, as I'm reading, I feel as though I'm reading (and understanding) what is before me for the first time. That is the experience I had tonight when I read the passage above from John Gardner's book, On Becoming A Novelist.
I had read this passage before, many times. I thought I knew it. But I didn't know it, not in the deep sense, the intimate sense of knowing. As in the bible when it says a person knows another (intimacy). To me, something isn't real until it's known that way, with the same intimacy that lovers know each other, and with the same passion.
Sometimes it take a long time to get to know something!
What I learned: I have observed manytimes "how character reveals itself." I move shark-like through the waters, watching, sometimes striking. I can be both predator and prey. Life is that way.
I need to write that, as honestly as I can.
(No, I'm not saying that I had a fight with my husband! smile)
10 comments:
That subconscious "self-censor" instinct is missing in some people, I have observed. Not in my own life, thankfully, but in the lives of a couple friends. You want to see life at it's most ugly...hang out with two married people who BOTH lack that self-censor and just say anything in a fight. Certain authors, I instinctively know they have either dished it out or been the victims of abuse. Some things you just can't write unless you've lived it. You are correct. It goes way deeper than "write what you know". Sometimes it's "don't write it if you haven't lived it".
I think so much hinges on truly being observant, allowing ourselves to see actions for how they reveal character, which means ultimately trusting our unconsciousness for its understanding. One can mechanically describe in accurate detail actions which could show character and have flat writing or with intuitive, unconscious understanding, describe the same actions, and a character comes to life. For me, at least, the difference in observation and the writing that follows is how much real empathy and how much of a connection I allow into the observation.
Ah, Theresa...A great post. I remember when I first read Saul Bellow`s "Herzog". Smiling, nodding my head at every page! Rereading, smiling. It happens so seldom when you pick up a book and feel; "Boy, if I were talented, this is exactly what I would write!"
V
I look at the statement "write about what you know" and I see endless possiblities. I know passion, fear, love and hate. I know how to feel and how to not feel. Those things are just a drop in the bucket as to what I know. I know many things. Some things I know just a little of; about other things, I know a great deal.
This is wonderful, and a great encouragement to us would-be writers. "Write what you know" puts me into a tailspin, because suddenly I believe I know nothing. "Write as if you were a movie camera" makes much more sense. Interestingly, my 19-year-old son, who once wanted to be a writer, but is now determined to be a movie director, has already realized this. He sees everything in terms of how he would direct it so he can interpret it for others. Out of the mouths of (relatively-speaking) babes...
Thanks as always for sharing what is revelatory to you, and for passing it on, my dear,
Vicky
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vxv789/
It must be a secret pact that creative writting teachers take in order to join the teacher club.....eveyone one I have ever had has said the same thing and in my streak of ornriness I've always thought:
What if I don't know anything?
But then the wisdom of the advice has always served me well. Write about what I know....use the kind of words that people can relate to and try to insert them into my moment. Use words to paint a picture so vivid that by the end of the day they will be sure that my story is a moment from their own life.
That is what a writer must try to do, according to the teachers I've been privledged enough to know. (Now you are counted amoungst them, by the way.)
Hi, Thanks for sending me a link, and for visiting me! I know it was a while ago, but I didnt forget, just been really busy with things. I like the idea about the movie camera. Thats awsome. You get a picture in your head, and you do have to see every thing... the reader needs to see everything, even if the charactor dosn't.
I am torn about calling myself a writer. When I do, people always ask, "Oh, what have you written?" I tell them "lots" but nothing published. Hummm I get "that look.." you know the one... it says "quit dreaming and get a life."
I am really sick of that look.
Time to eat chocolate.
Have a great day!
And hope you visit again soon.
~The Dancing wolf~
One of my favorites books recently is Postcards by Annie Proulx. At various times in the novel she has chapters that begin "What I see". They really opened my eyes (pun not intended) and now I find myself doing the mental excerise of focusing on things where ever I am. It is like being a movie camera!
Having been trained as an actress, it always felt natural to write as if the story were a movie. Usually through the eyes of the protagonist. Write as if you were a movie camera puts it in a differnt POV. More colorful and exciting. I must meditate on that. Thanks.
Kathy
I tell my students to freeze the frame, zoom in, and tighten the focus. I didn't know I was stealing from Gardner, but I'll take it.
Post a Comment