I didn't say I wanted an elephant -- a set of muddy reflections on methods of writing

[pameladean]

David is fond of referring to the joke, or parable, or whatever it is, that begins, "I wish I could afford an elephant." The victim or interlocutor then responds, "Why do you want an elephant?" and the perpetrator replies, "I didn't say I wanted an elephant, I said I wished I could afford one."

All right, put that up on the shelf where it can wave its little trunk at you in a beguiling fashion from time to time when my sentences get too long.

When I looked at my Friends list entries today, I saw that both matociqualaand melymbrosia both have links to this set of remarks by Anne Rice about her working methods:



Discussion is quite brisk, and, the last time I looked, pretty universally condemned Rice for self-indulgence and having an elevated opinion of herself, or at least of her work. Since I have written and deleted about four responses as being too long and possibly too heated for other people's comments sections, I'm putting them here.

I don't actually like Anne Rice's work and never have liked it. This does mean that no matter what I may hear about her working methods, I will not have that moment when I realize why I had such a sense of betrayal when I read this or that work. I don't have any personal stake in whether she has gone off the rails or off the deep end into some mirrored cave, wasting her substance on navel-gazing and self-satisfaction rather than being humble enough to write better books; or whether she has made a difficult decision to trust herself and be true to her work as she understands it. I have in the past felt about once-adored writers that they had taken the trip over the cliff into the cave (miraculously not breaking any mirrors, metaphor being the flexible thing that it is), and it is indeed a painful sensation.

However, my sympathy in this matter is almost entirely with Rice. Writers operate along an infinite number of continuums, one of which has to do with what one might call feedback, or outside input, or merely consultation. Some can hardly function without it; others can bear it only at certain junctures in the work; others can hardly bear it at all. Some can move from state to state, depending on their mood or, more often, I suspect, on the work in question. That is the case with me -- I have finished some books only because I got constant encouragement, and others only because I completely disregarded all commentary.

Where I sympathize with Rice, however, is in her description of how she writes, of how everything is put into its proper shape as she goes along, everything is related to everything else as she conceives necessary; so that the finished work is one whole thing, not readily susceptible to requests to make this character older or add more stage directions to long conversations. I don't work the way she does, because I do in fact do successive drafts, recognizable as such to me and others. But my sense of the work as a whole thing, of its parts as connected at every level, so that a lack of stage directions here points up a plenitude of them there, and a character's stated age forms the way in which zie sees the world, is similar to what she describes.

This sense of the whole five-dimensional object is very fragile. It's hard to hold it in one's head. The very best and most necessary commentary disturbs one's grasp. I've refused to make changes to keep my grasp on the object I had made, and I have hared off eagerly to make changes I acknowledged as essential, and then found that there was no longer a whole object there and that in a number of ways I needed to start again from the beginning and envision the book all over again. This process is difficult and scary, and I have lost my grip on several books I was working on and had them plunge into the abyss, never, or at least not yet, to return.

I want my books to be good, and I understand that my conceptions of goodness in books, even in my own, are incomplete and askew and flawed. But sometimes it feels more important to retain my grasp on the whole living object, even if it has six eyes, than to let it go and make something with only two. I don't think that this is self-indulgence; I think it's a hard choice among imperfect outcomes.

I wish I could afford to do what Anne Rice has done. And because she can afford it, I am really not at all sure that it was the wrong choice for her to make. Some people really do want an elephant.

Pamela

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I think I would have more sympathy if she said, "This is the best way for me to work--the best way for me to try to remain true to my vision of a story--even though it also has downsides." But when she says,

"I asked this due to my highly critical relationship with my work and my intense evolutionary work on every sentence in the work, my feeling for the rhythm of the phrase and the unfolding of the plot and the character development. I felt that I could not bring to perfection what I saw unless I did it alone. In othe words, what I had to offer had to be offered in isolation."

it sounds more like she's saying that what she does is perfect, and editing could only damage it.

But a lot of my reaction may be simply the response of someone who can't *help* but look at writing sort of intellectually after the initial draft, who finds that a very important and rewarding part of writing, to a more emotional and fluid sort of writer.

[cofax7]

What she said (naturally, at this point: I tend to follow Mely around the internet and parrot her).

I understand the desire to produce something in isolation, particularly as one gets more experienced in the craft. You want it to be your own vision, uncolored by others' expectations or desires.

I get that. I also get that Rice's work sells, regardless of its quality. But I just don't get the conviction I hear in that statement that her work needs no improvement other than spelling and grammar corrections.

Nobody's that good. There's not a novel in the universe that couldn't have been improved, a little or a lot. And that's what another eye is for. That's what my editors are for.

If I'm ever at the point where I really think my prose is so perfect and jewel-like as to be in need of no review, that my narrative structure requires no tweaking, that my plot works perfectly and all my characters are fully-fleshed and engaging, all without outside review? ... Actually, I can't think of a suitable punishment because I can't see it happening. Nobody would ever let me get away with it.

[marith.livejournal.com]

I understand the desire to produce something in isolation, particularly as one gets more experienced in the craft. You want it to be your own vision, uncolored by others' expectations or desires.

I get that. I also get that Rice's work sells, regardless of its quality. But I just don't get the conviction I hear in that statement that her work needs no improvement other than spelling and grammar corrections.


That's pretty much what I was going to say. The all-in-one draft writing process Rice describes is mostly how I write, and it obviously works very well for her. And your point about losing hold of a story if even the most careful outside force intrudes is an excellent one.

But - if you finish the story, you blow the soap bubble and there it hovers, complete, and _then_ your editor points out a major structural flaw - what do you do? You can lay it aside and start something else. Or you can wade in grimly with a hacksaw and try to fix it. (Ow, either way.)

Anne Rice can choose to ignore the flaw and publish as is. If she does, then in my book she's a hack. But her message suggests that she's never even been faced with the choice; perhaps that's what raises hackles.

[pameladean]

Here I abandon any attempt to say what I think Rice was on about, and merely note that an attitude similar to hers may not arise from a conviction of the jewel-like perfection of anything, but rather from the conviction that one can produce a work without heeding various kinds of input, or not produce a work at all. I have had the latter happen, not produced a work at all, in the end, because it was overwhelmed by commentary. And I'm not altogether persuaded that all such works are better off dead.

Pamela

[pameladean]

P.S. I really like the soapbubble and the hacksaw.

Pamela

[cofax7]

but rather from the conviction that one can produce a work without heeding various kinds of input, or not produce a work at all.

Oh, absolutely. There are definitely projects which have to be undertaken in solitude, for whatever reason. That outside commentary might indeed damage because the reader/editor/beta doesn't share your vision (and how could they?).

But as I recall someone saying in this thread already, there is no one way to write a novel: just the right way to write this novel. What trips me up in Rice's discussion isn't necessarily the need to get it down herself but the (to me) apparent conviction that none of her work would be better off from an outside review.

I've written stuff that I didn't want outside review on, because I knew what I wanted and didn't care what anyone else thought; and then I've written things where I was too close, too uncertain, too something, to trust my own instincts. And I don't think I can assume that the next project will work one way or the other. If I continue to write, continue to challenge myself, then I hope that I would continue to be uncertain about whether I'm successful. If I ever come to the point where I know precisely how to write something, where there's no challenge or fear associated with it -- well, then, where's the fun? Where's the accomplishment of surmounted these difficulties?

::shrugs:: I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, by the way. It's a good point, particularly for those of us who depend on a lot of interaction during the writing process. That level of commentary isn't always good for the work. But then complete isolation isn't, either...

Thanks for your response.

[pameladean]

I agree that it's much better not to predict the future in this regard, not to decide that one knows what future works will be like or what they'll require; and that Rice does appear to have done so, which I hadn't really noticed. That would have got up my nose if I had noticed.

Pamela

Come out of there slowly with your blue pencil in the air!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I like feedback, I like having a check for making sense and balance, and I like copyeditors telling me I used the word "misappropriate" three times in one sentence and was I sure this was a good idea. (I also like being able to say "stet" when it was.) I've been edited, I also have people who read my stuff as I go along and when it's done.

But reading your last paragraph here I shuddered -- if anyone tried to mess with my structure, my plot, or my characters after the thing was finished, I'd probably bite them. They can just go away and write their own novel.

I don't think this is arrogance or thinking I'm perfect, I think it has to do with holistic writing methods.

Also, what Pamela said -- if you messed with my structure you wouldn't have a tweaked novel, you'd have a pile of shards, especially if you tried to give me the answer instead of telling me the problem. (Problem: there is water coming through the roof. Answer: you have to patch your roof. No. If you tell me there's water, I can patch the roof, I can put a bucket under it, I can tear off the slates and re-roof, I can move the walls closer together so that the roof doesn't leak, patching the roof isn't necessarily the answer, and thinking that the problem is the requirement to patch it can really screw up actually fixing the leak.)

Someone who didn't write it can see some external things better because they didn't write it. The kind of problems that people talk about needing editing come from this sort of problem being overlooked, because the writer's too close. But when it gets down to it the writer wrote the thing, and there does come a point with people who didn't not seeing it clearly and wanting to mess with that where you as the writer have to tell them to go away and write their own damn book.

And what your last paragraph looks like to me is that you're saying nobody can correctly claim competence in their own work.

I've never read any Anne Rice, she writes about vampires, and I have to say I find turpentine more inherently interesting. But nobody's competent to mess with my structure or my characters except me, if I'm not, then there's no hope for any of it.

Re: I didn't say I wanted an elephant -- a set of muddy reflections on methods of writing

[cofax7]

And what your last paragraph looks like to me is that you're saying nobody can correctly claim competence in their own work.

Actually, I don't believe I did say that. And I'm sorry if that's how it came across, it's not what I intended.

Speaking only for myself, I get a great deal of help and advice from my readers. Especially since I want to challenge myself and improve, and I find responses from others help identify those areas where my work can be made stronger.

What I don't want is ever to become complacent, and I feel that my relationship with my reviewers helps me in that way. They keep me honest, keep me from getting into a rut.

But everyone works differently, and every story can require a different process. Outside review can be helpful at different stages in the process. And I find it difficult to imagine ever being at a stage where I found outside review of no value at all.

But, again, YMMV and all that.