Suggestions for Writers

[pameladean]

I got this, too, from Making Light; really sometimes I hardly know how I would organize my day without Teresa's weblog.

She calls it "Gene Wolfe's Rules for Writers." I had to go look. I admire Gene Wolfe somewhere the wrong side of idolatry.

They sit so much better with me than anybody else's. I might argue with one or two, but they do not provoke an allergic reaction, a resistance like that of a two-year-old threatened with being deprived of a large fragile glass object, a mad "I won't do it and you can't make me" or "what the hell is your problem, you moron" response.

So I thought I'd provide the link:

http://subnet.pinder.net/onwriting/index.asp?name=./References/19970101wolfe.htm

I think the reason I like these better than most is partly that Wolfe and I have similar aesthetics, though hardly similar practices; but mostly it's that it hardly ever says "Never" (except in one ironic bit) or "Always," does not toy around with forbidding or prescribing very specific words and phrases, and often says "Try to" rather than "You must."

I'm quite sure a person could violate every one of them and write a good book, but I don't feel the usual desire to do just that, IMMEDIATELY.

Pamela

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I hadn't spotted that when I first looked at this entry on Making Light, but now you posted a link, I had a look. I think some of this is also in The Castle of the Otter.

A couple of them leap out at me, though. I think the one about maintaining a single viewpoint throughout the story... well, I think being strongly attached to that explains a lot about Wolfe, and although some of the consequences of that are things I like a lot about his writing, I'm again twitching with regard to whole classes of stories for which that's not apt.

The other one is labelling at least every second speech. This may be a twitch of mine, but to my mind, if only two characters are talking, paragraphing does this for you; and my own preference is only to get a "Fred said" in there when it's conveying additional information - about Fred's tone of voice, or ewhen Fred has a visible reaction to something the viewpoint character just said, or whatever. And even in multi-way conversations, I'm not sure. Am I the only person in the world who was taught that if a multi-way conversation is set down in print without identifiers for who said what, to assume that it's a two-way interchange between the last two identified speakers ?

Those niggles aside, there is a great degree of good sense in there, and I do not think I've seen a set of writing advice with so much of which I could agree. Which probably says more about Wolfe and/or me than about good writing.

[pameladean]

Those are two of the ones I'd argue with, perhaps unsurprisingly. I will note that thes stricture on viewpoint includes a qualifying phrase. I actually don't think one needs an excellent reason to do much of anything in writing, one just needs to make it work, but perhaps those are two ways of saying the same thing. I agree with you about speech attributions. I must say, however, that I like Wolfe's better than the assertions that everybody's speech habits in a book must be so individual that speech tags are never needed at all.

The other one I'd quibble with is "Perfection is not sexy." Perfection is by definition sexy, it's just very difficult to write about perfection convincingly.

Pamela

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It depends on your value of perfection. A more orthodox take on angels than the ones I am working with, for example, might make them both closer to perfect and less sexy. [ I am aware that not everyone thinks of the Archangel Raphael as Tim Curry circa Rocky Horror, but that's where I seem to have ended up. ]

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I took it more as a sort of refutation of the Flaubertian "le mot juste" thing -- "Load every rift with ore," which causes a lot of writers (well OK all right me) to sit there paralyzed with anxiety. And hell, a lot of flawed books are Great. Look at Dostoyevsky -- someone pointed out to me recently that Dostoyevsky's St. Petersburg doesn't resemble, mapwise at least, the one on earth. So what? It reminds me of that chestnut I've heard of that some weavers include a tiny flaw in the rug/wall hanging/tablecloth whatever to indicate....well, life isn't perfection, maybe. Life has flaws. Everything has flaws. Life's imperfect -- that's what makes it interesting to me. Anyhow, that's what I took it as -- I mean, you could look at a rose and think it's perfect, but it's also going to wither and die. Well, I am making no sense, obviously.

moi

[pameladean]

You make a lot of sense, but I don't think that's what he meant. That stricture is in a collection about characterization, and I don't somehow think he'd refer to goodness in a work of fiction overall as being sexy or not, I think he'd just use it of people. This is getting fairly far into weird exegesis, I do admit.

Pamela

[pameladean]

Argh, talk about making no sense. I don't know what I meant by "collection" up there, really; what I was trying to say was that "Perfection is not sexy" was in with a bunch of other remarks about characters, so I assumed that it referred to characterization.

Pamela

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Ahh. ((looks at list again)) Yes, that does seem to be referring to characterization....maybe "make sure your hero has a tragic flaw" or something. Well. It's slightly vague enough I can make it refer to non-Flaubertianism if I want, right? Does he have email? We could ask him. "Dear Gene Wolfe, Hi! Little did you reck when you wrote up this jaunty little piece on the 'rules' of writing...."

moi

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

The other one is labelling at least every second speech.

Hm, in principle I agree with you—I prefer the speaker-identification to be an oppportunity for including some additional information and think that when it doesn't, it can be left out.

On the other hand, I have read books which went on for pages without speaker-identification and eventually I got so confused as to who was saying what that I had to go back and count the number of exchanges. In those cases, I'd prefer a "Fred said" to nothing, but a "Fred said, looking away in embarrassment" or something would be best of all.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I agree. Sorry I can't think of a more modern example just now, but there is a passage in _Shirley_ (Charlotte Bronte) where I have to go through with my finger EVERY time, muttering "Caroline, Shirley, Caroline, Shirley, Caroline ... yes, it WAS Caroline who said that! Now, where was I?"

I'd stake something that the confusion between the two there has led a few critics to assume that all the more hotheaded speeches are Shirley's, which IIRC they aren't (it's about honors even really).

Helen

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

Mmm, that's it exactly. The last one like that I remember reading was Steven Brust's Cowboy Feng's Space Bar & Grille, which I quite enjoyed on the whole. It just had this one part that went on for a couple of pages that I had to read twice (with finger, attributing as I went) before I got the sense of it. And I still had the overlay of my initial impression of the conversation having gone the other way confusing me...Come to think of it, Zelazny does that a bit, too.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Brust has a couple of conversations that he bobbles -- two speech tags show up in a row that wind up having to be the same person saying both of them. If memory serves me right, there's one in Orca and then another one in the Paarfi books somewhere. Perhaps following Wolfe's rule would have helped prevent that.

[pameladean]

I bet that's a typesetting error that didn't get caught or got caught but not corrected. Following Wolfe's rule might not have made any difference; you'd just have got, as in fact I just did in a kind of shabby Ruth Rendell novel published paperback in the seventies, two "X said"'s in a row.

Pamela

Perfection is not sexy, amen

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Oh.

Oh oh oh oh. I love him.

Why don't these put my back up? Well, I think that most of them are qualified or worded as suggestions helps. -- And as someone who taught a freshman creative writing workshop long long ago -- "It is better to repeat a word than to use a series of far-fetched synonyms" -- God, yes. I don't feel lectured. I don't feel condescended to. And notice, no nonsense about whether the author's wrapped in mummy bandages or not.

But I really think what I love about it is the sense of humor ("Never name a character Fred" -- how can you not love writing rules that include that? Now that IMHO is the proper way to approach such a thing).

moi

[kiya]

Shared the link with oneironaut, who said:

Then again, this doesn't really read like 'how to write, for inexperienced writers'; it reads more like 'if you're a good writer, this is probably how you're doing it'.

I wonder if that explains its lack of inspiration of frothing outrage.

[pameladean]

That's a good point, and now I'm wondering if it is ever a good idea to approach anybody that way -- "Here's your kindergarten lesson, small one." It probably isn't. Not with people over six, anyway, and maybe not at all.

Pamela

[firecat]

Main characters should be striking in some way, attractive or grotesque or interesting in appearance.

This is the only one that gives me hives. I mean, of course the main character should be interesting in some way, or why write about him or her. But the guideline seems to focus on appeance or first impressions.

If you wish to flout fact (for example, have argon the principle constituent of the atmosphere) provide some explanation of how the change came to about.

If you wish to flout a widely accepted theory, such as relativity, provide an alternate theory.

I've read a number of very fine books that don't follow these. I probably would, but mainly because I'm insecure in my grasp of science-fiction tropes.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Frankly, if a trope is being flouted but is commonly so, e.g. relativity vs. most FTL, I'd rather see the pseudoscience mechanism glossed over rather than poorly explained. (If there's a good explanation, by all means use it!)

I'm reminded of a thoughtful review of one of my stories wherein the reviewer noted, " My problem was with the characters, who are really only sketches and thinly drawn counterparts, or vessels, for the author to fill past the brim with her obviously thorough knowledge of an abstruse science." Mea culpa on the characters, but...oh, God, the abstruse science is quantum mechanics, and I quit taking physics classes after honors E&M in college. I will admit I'm more comfortable with popular science than average, but my "thorough knowledge" is no more than that of an interested layperson.

In that case, the fakery worked for that one reader. I think it was the apparent confidence of the writing, as opposed to how I actually feel, which is that any day now a real physicist (or mathematician) is going to walk up to me, grab me by the shoulders, and dress me down loudly for Getting It Wrong.

If you must fake, be sure to think things through, and having done that, do it with gusto.

My two bits.

[firecat]

If you must fake, be sure to think things through, and having done that, do it with gusto.

That's a much better guideline, IMO.

[pameladean]

Yeah, that one made me squint a little, and if I were sure that "in appearance" referred to "attractive" and "grotesque" and not merely to "interesting," I'd be feeling itchy. It probably does. It may be a kind of shortcut for helping readers tell characters apart; dunno.

Pamela

[eub.livejournal.com]

My guess is he does mean a striking appearance. He once claimed that Severian's character all follows from his striking appearance, which was because Wolfe wished somebody at a con would dress up as a Wolfe character. "When I was a young sprout, I flouted this rule myself, and look where that got me: no masquerade presence, none." I like to take this rule that way.

(Who is the "Gene Wolf" these rules are stated to be from? Surely a Wolfe reader has to suspect that Wolf is a distinct character from Wolfe, and likely an unreliable fellow; and the reader can only gather data and speculate about the Wolfe pulling his strings.)

[pameladean]

Yes, I've heard him tell that story about the genesis of Severian.

As for Gene Wolf, well, what can one expect from something associated with Turkey City?

Pamela

[ionas.livejournal.com]

Some of them seemed odd, and one I disagree with (the one about cliches) but at least for this reader, the one about naming the antecedent before loading in the pronouns forgives all.

I am so tired of stories that begin coyly "He walked into the room. He sat down, and he began to read the paper.... He . . . him . . . his . . ." and 'he' doesn't get a name for, oh, roughly half the story.

Moreover his tone is so refreshingly absent the Moses on Mount Sinai I can read his list, think about his work and other books, shrug, and move on.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

This is a very nice list of rules, and one that treats its reader as an intelligent person, which many don't. I do quibble with "maintain a single viewpoint" and tagging every second speech.

And I have to ignore several of his rules right now, because I err on the other side. (Underdescribing, underexplaining, no adjectives, adverbs, etc.)

[pameladean]

Knowing what rules to ignore, no matter which set you've got hold of, may be the true key to wisdom.

I agree that the tone of the list is very different from many. I think Leonard's tone is okay too, but I don't speak his dialect and we're not trying to do the same thing.

Pamela