However beautiful the singing voice you’re born with, you need to learn breathing techniques.

From photography to oils, the visual arts are also about communicating, and like writing, they’re about communicating feeling (the passion we’re talking about) as well as information. A picture has a frame, or at least edges. Anyone who has responded to a beautiful landscape by pointing the camera at it will know that’s the way to get an expanse of sky with a green stripe at the bottom, which communicates very little to your mum who wasn’t there at the time. But pick a detail, think about the composition and lighting – and frame it. The focusing-in gives the picture its frame, even if it’s not a traditional rectangle. For me, the learnable principles of writing, of any art, are the frame.

In transferring that attitude to my own writing, i have found studying the craft of poetry very helpful. I’ve really learnt to remove every word, every comma, that isn’t working hard. It’s like sculpture (hey, a simile instead of a metaphor!), chipping or whittling away the rough bits to produce something really fine, instead of the rough idea that may have suggested the piece in the first place. (Say, the driftwood that struck you as looking like a dragon.) In fiction you’re doing that to the events in the plot as well as the ideas and images.

AS Byatt said she over-described when she was starting off; she saw each scene so clearly that she put every detail in, thinking that would put it across to the reader. In fact it obscured it. Back to visual art again – with skill, drawing two or three lines can convey a face, complete with the expression on it, better than any amount of accurate detail.

As for the honeymoon, that’s an excellent parallel, and i would liken the revision stage – or the knuckle-down-and-treat-it-as-a-job stage – to an arranged marriage. Accept that you have no choice, put the hours in, and the result will be love. (Or if it isn’t, you’ve found out you’re in the wrong marriage, which is better than kidding yourself for the rest of your life.)

Tessa McDermid, you’ve said exactly what i would have. Lucky you got there first as i’d have been far more long-winded! Rather nice to find a published writer telling me to do what i do anyway… ;0)

Erastes, ‘one should write what one wants to write, then sit down and look hard at it and see where it can be improved.’ I couldn’t agree more, though i can say a bit more: get others to look hard at it. Feedback from friends n family is usually flattering and not very informed. Feedback from writers whose opinions you value – who write high quality stuff themselves, understand what you’re trying to achieve, and will be constructive rather than negative – can’t be bettered. That must be what an editor is? (though i haven’t had one myself).

I’d say our writing needs to communicate BOTH the literal sense of what we’re saying, the what-happened, AND the emotion that goes with it. (Which in the case of non-fiction would be lively interest, and in fiction would be the feeling appropriate to the scene – never boredom!)

As for how i do it (which was the question, oops): I say to myself that i’ll keep the first draft and go back to it if i don’t like the revision. I won’t commit myself. That’s how i am able to kill my babies. Almost always, the revised version is so much stronger that i forget the original and don’t even feel like looking back at it. I’ve also learnt to look to the future all the time, not agonise over this or that adjective, etc. It’s partly a maturity thing.

Reading this discussion reminds me of another passion, one i’ve only recently discovered in myself: teaching. I have a natural talent for explaining complicated things simply. If someone asks a question, i can help – but tell me to plan a lesson and i don’t know where to begin. So that’s my current writing target: earn enough for some training in how to teach. Isn’t that just the same as we’re saying about writing?

The trouble with blogs, sites and comments about writing is that they’re frequented by writers, and writers write, and i’m a slow reader! lol

Perhaps the best thing I can add is this: Learn to love your craft and not just your story.

I think, Rachelle, that if I were to advise your author, I’d suggest that she take a community college creative writing class, where she will have to create a number of pieces on which to practice the “rules.” The level of personal investment can be much lower; it’s not like taking a hard self-editorial whack at a cherished novel.

Someone else has pointed out that this is the “honeymoon phase,” and that’s probably an apt description. If I had to guess, I would say that your client had never done much revising of any kind, and hasn’t learned yet to see a creation as a flexible work in progress. If she can come to the point where she sees how a change has worked for the better, she’ll find it easier to consider changes as they need to be made. I don’t like changes myself, but I’ve learned from experience that a work can change dramatically and still remain true to the author’s vision.

There’s far too much in this subject for a simple blog post, but I wish you both the best!

She responded I had a natural talent and if I would listen to her, she would teach me.

The first thing she did was point out crutches I used frequently. Then we moved on to the, “you have to know the rules before you can break them,” lecture.

A California professor used her editorials about horse racing as examples of “style” in his creative writing courses.

I’m in the revision process of my novel now and I have to admit it’s been frustrating. One person wants this and another person wants that. What has really helped, though, is knowing some of those rules so I can keep the reader’s eye focused where I want it instead of pondering grammar or lack of it that takes them out of the story.

I live by the motto, “Give them no reason to leave your world.”

I was going to suggest that passion drives drafting; then, practical rule-following takes over during revising. But I doubt it’s that cut and dried. Sometimes, my passion is on the tip of my pen (er, my fingertips!) Other times, I “find my passion” as I cut, add, and tweak.

I suspect that a few writers have “the gift” — an almost magical intuition that simultaneously encompasses and supersedes passion and rules.

Then there’s us mere mortals. For some of us, understanding WHY certain methods work better than others gives us confidence which, in turn, fuels our passion.

“I think of it like going a sports game. Say you’re watching basketball: Michael Jordan grabs the ball, runs down the court without dribbling, and sinks the world’s most amazing slam dunk. And then everybody boos. Yes, the slam dunk is more impressive than dribbling – but people expect athletes to play within ALL the rules of the game, not just the big ones. Otherwise, it’s cheating.”

Years ago, one of my critique partners gave me the best writing advice ever. Learn the rules of writing. Once you know and understand the rules, you can break them at will.

If you don’t know the reason for the rule or how it works, you won’t know how or why to appropriately break the rule.

I agree with the comments about passion fading. It’s kind of like a marriage… sure, when you meet and get all ga-ga over someone, life is fabulous, everything’s wonderful. But what happens when you find out that the prince leaves his stinky socks everywhere? Ew! Total passion killer. And yet, somehow, you have to find a way to stay married. As a writer, you will someday open up that Word document and find stinky socks. So you have to have something else to stand on.

We used to have a NYT bestselling author in one of our local writing groups. I would argue that she’s of about average talent. And yet, she’s had more books than she can even remember published. I know she didn’t do it relying solely on passion. I used to see her at chapter meetings, taking notes on whatever the speaker was saying. Even if we were talking about basic writing rules, she always found something new to learn.

If you’re truly passionate about writing, I think you need to take the time and effort to put into making that relationship work. Learning the rules, improving your craft, and giving yourself a backbone for when the passion’s not there and you’re faced with a pile of stinky socks.

And I have leaned to actually fear to get out my manuscript until I have had devotions.

Passion is a fast flame the soon fades. Craft comes from discipline that’s a smoldering, building fire that can endure and is often fueled by passion.

I posted on my blog about this not long ago, also using football.

There was a young Ohio State player Maurice Clarett who had a great passion. But he was not disciplined. On the field, he was incredible. But off the field, he was a bit wild. His passions ruled him and where is he today?

Certainly not the great ball player he could’ve been.

Once my husband and I met up with a former youth. She surprised us with her college degree – architecture!

She talked about her passion of architecture in the community and the art and creativity. For the longest time, she did not want to learn the “rules” of design or even the physics and math required for laying foundations and building buildings.

She didn’t want to be stifled. Finally her professor convinced her to learn the math. Once she did, she found she had SO much more freedom and she could actually build the buildings she wanted to build – artsy and all!

Writers who feel like the rules stifle them won’t last long. The passion for one book fades quickly and it’s really hard to stir it up for book 2 or 3 or 4 if the writer doesn’t get a hold of the rules.

The more I use and know the rules, or better said, the tools, the more I love writing and am confident of my stories and my work.

I start with a template to develop my characters and THEN I get excited. There’s where my passion comes into play and fuels the dry days when I have to face the structure and rules-tools of the craft.

What your client is suffering from is “honeymoonitis.” 🙂 She’s in love with her story and the process of writing, just like when we’re in love, newly married and on our honeymoon.

The real marriage begins when we go home and live it out day to day, choosing to love even when we don’t feel like it.

Hollywood is driven by feelings and passion and we see how long their relationships last.

Tell your client from me the “rules” and tools will ultimately make her a greater, longer term writer!

Blessings,
Rachel

A good editor is priceless, IMO. One writer I know is amazed, now that he has a national publisher, that his editor is finding inconsistencies such as “you italicized this on page 22 but did not here. Which do you want?” or “You’ve over-used this phrase or word,” etc. These are things his earlier editors never pointed out. I know, you could say he’s lucky to have a contract with a national publisher now – but his stories are wonderful and they certainly saw the potential. But he’s learning after the fact.

Maybe at some point an accomplished author’s craft will be so well-developed that they’ll only have to concentrate on the passion.

With me it’s alternating spurts of both. But too often that nasty little editor on the shoulder interferes with the passion and won’t wait her turn.

Let me see, what was the question?

Yes, rules are essential in sports, in writing, in conduct. But in writing, I can relate to a passionate writer feeling stifled by the insistence to adhere to certain rules which tend to constrict innate skills. In some cases go ahead and throw the yellow flag, but in others let the writer play on.

That is true with almost everything we do. Speaking as a reader, it is obvious when a writer has lost his or her passion. It’s like the soul has been cut out of the author’s work. Sure, it is technically solid, but the life is gone. I hate to think of the number of times I have heard someone refer to an author and say, “she doesn’t write as well she used to.” As with a football team that isn’t playing as well as they once did, the author’s fans will stick around for a while, hoping the next book is better, but if the passion doesn’t return, they will lose interest.