Writing Advice from those Who have Found Success

I have been reading a book by author Anne Lamott called Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life and so far I've been really enjoying it. (I was actually supposed to read it for a class in college but never bothered). It has some great perspectives on the writer's mindset and observation, and of course, it's witty too. I like the realistic approach--Anne Lamott doesn't shy away from the disappointments and setbacks that writers face. She encourages aspiring authors to take these in stride as part of the experience, that bits and pieces of bad drafts can be salvaged, that it's not all a waste of time. Writing is done bit by bit, slowly over time, by what she calls "short assignments." It's not an overly romantic view of writing, though it does skew that way at times.

But this isn't to say that I think the book is perfect. There's some advice that I think is kind of unhelpful and Lamott almost immediately refutes her own advice within those pages. She describes that in writing, character comes first and foremost. I agree with this somewhat, but from there, I think I disagree. As you get to know the characters better, they will direct the plot. Who they are and what they want will take you, as the writer, on a journey. You'll kind of find the plot along the way. Lamott explains the writing process almost as something that happens to you; like you're just the scribe, jotting down dictation from the characters that reside in your mind. It's like this uncontrollable experience. She says that as you write, the scene or the moment that you had in mind from the start may never come to fruition. As you write and develop the story, the ending you were working toward may no longer make sense or fit.

While I think it's good not to try to force something that's not working, I feel like you as the author should probably have a little more authority over the story (I mean, it's kind of in the word: AUTHORity). To me, plot is equally as important as the characters. You cannot have one without the other. A great premise is often let down by characters that readers cannot relate to. You can write the most interesting people, people who, by all means, should lead exciting or enthralling lives, but you have got to give them something to do. And they should have some purpose in life. They shouldn't just be meandering along with the hope that maybe, eventually, they'll stumble into a plot.

Anne Lamott details the foibles and follies of writing her second novel. She wrote the first draft, with incredibly relatable characters, in her sort of meandering way. The draft was rejected by her editor; she was told that the story didn't work and made no sense. So she dissected the story, page by page, and reordered scenes and moments until she felt it fit better. Her editor was still convinced it wasn't right. So she got drunk and ranted at him, explaining to him, at last, what the book was really about. And the editor told her that what she described to him in her fit of frustration was a story that he would actually read, but that it wasn't the book she had written so far. So she created a "plot treatment" wherein she broke the story down, chapter by chapter, point A to point B. And after she turned in her plot treatment, she got a sort of greenlight from her editor, and then she got her book published.

But doesn't that story kind of prove that meandering along and following your characters on every little whim that they want to pursue will make for a story that isn't coherent? To me, the characters and the plot should be developed in tandem. You need a telos, a goal in mind. A theme, a motif, a moral to chase. You need characters who fit the bill for the task at hand, people whose desires align with what the story demands. Yes, they must be real and relatable, three-dimensional. I don't think that focusing on what you want your story to be about means that your characters can't also be good.

In addition to her sort of backwards view of plot and character, I think she's got this opinion that you have to have compassion toward yourself in order to identify with other people, and to, therefore, have an appropriate reverence for life. And a reverence for life is essential to writing. If you think life is meaningless and that there's no beauty in the world, if you cannot look at another person and imagine their life, then yeah, what would even be the point of writing? But I think her assertion that being compassionate toward yourself, of viewing yourself as this pitiful puppy going through house training, is not really necessary. I think you can probably have a terrible view of yourself and still write an interesting book. I think people who also hate themselves would appreciate it. I think that narcissists might also be capable of writing decent stuff. I mean, you have to be kind of self-absorbed to think that anyone cares about what you write anyway, don't you? I think the best way to be patient and compassionate to yourself is to find the beauty in the world and, more importantly, be compassionate with others first. You don't have to love yourself to love others, in my opinion. And aside from that, I don't find it to be that critical to writing. Writing is just making stuff up. You can just pretend you're totally sure of yourself if you want to.

Whatever. Anne Lamott is a published author and I'm not, so I guess she knows much more than I do. Every writer, I'm sure, has their own approach and her approach works for her. I think that some of her advice, maybe even most of it, is helpful. Each writer must consider his or her own method and style, and maybe the best way to do that is to study others.