On Method and MAs

Many years ago I trained as an actor, then worked as one for three years. After I left acting I wrote several editions of a book called 'A Guide to Drama Training in the UK' which involved going to visit all the drama schools and interviewing staff and students. One of the questions floating around was: could acting be taught? Some schools taught using The Method, based on the methodology for acting developed by Stanislavski. Others expected drama students to pick up good practice by osmosis, giving them the chance to work with established directors.

Creative Writing MAs operate on not dissimilar principles. Students work with established writers (one hopes) and pick up good practice from them. I'm not aware that much craft is taught. When I did my MA I was surprised that there weren't any straightforward taught craft sessions. I was told that they expected students to come already knowing 'all about that.' But they don't. It's not taught.

If you read extensively then you do absorb the principles by osmosis. Jane Austen never had the benefit of reading Syd Field, for example, yet Pride and Prejudice shows a perfect understanding of Three Act Structure, including Syd Field's 'pinch'. Perhaps she'd read Aristotle's Poetics, but I think it's more likely that she simply read and read and read.

All writers should read widely, from the best to the worst, and particularly in the field in which they wish to write. But they can also learn craft techniques in a methodical way. These can be taught, but I suspect most MAs would prefer to stick with osmosis. I loved my MA course - osmosis is fun - but, just like actors learning to project and not bump into the furniture, craft should be taught as well.

Editing in Action

My most recent novel came back from the editor with the request that I 'looked again' at the opening scene. It's a big party scene, with two plot-important conversations (A and B) interspersed with an inconsequential - but I hoped, funny - interchange (X). So the scene went, intro, X A X B. The editor wanted for the X scenes to be joined, or cut, or moved, or in some way changed as she felt the flow wasn't right.

I started a long email explaining why I'd chosen that configuration. There needed to be a run up to conversation A, and you couldn't have A and B right next to each other, so X A X B was the absolutely perfect order. As I wrote my justification, I thought as a concession I'd try XAB, but that obviously didn't work. I tried A B - no, it definitely needed the X in-between. AXB was on the surface the straightforward choice, but that would mean rewriting the intro, rewriting the X interchange, writing a completely new run up to the A conversation. As I wrote explaining why my first choice had been the right one, I could feel this new scene in action, how it would flow.

I looked at my long, long email full of self-justification and realised: I didn't want to change the order simply because it meant more work. After a short bout of internal wrestling I deleted the email and wrote another, shorter one. You're quite right, I wrote to my editor. I'll do it.

And I did. And it was better.

The Sudoku Novel Method

My friend Nancy has tried her first Sudoku. 'I'm sure I'll find out all the short cuts and tricks if I stick with it,' she said. 'I'm just not sure I can be bothered.' It was on the tip of my tongue to burst in and tell her some short cuts, but decided against it - there was some serious gossiping to be done after all. But afterwards I was thinking about what tricks and short cuts I'd have suggested. I decided that the most useful one was to be flexible: when one part of the puzzle appeared impossible, stop struggling and move on to another section.

As I get further on with writing novels it seems to me that flexibility is a useful tool for novelists too. When you get stuck in one particular section, move on to another which looks more promising. Never let it become a drag on the soul. When I was writing A Single to Rome it was ages before I knew what Natalie, the main character, did for a living. So I skipped through the work scenes and came back to them when I'd decided - more than half way through. Apparently, when Mike Myers is gets stuck he simply writes 'And then something amazing happens', and carries on.

For me, the really satisfying moments in writing are the ones where the difficult piece that didn't seem to fit anywhere at all suddenly slots in and the whole picture becomes clearer. So, once I knew what Natalie's job was, a lot of other scenes fitted into place, and a lot of future scenes became clearer. It takes faith, of course, to believe that if you leave a scene half written or sketched in it will resolve itself later. But at least, unlike Sudoku, if you go wrong you don't have to rip it all up and move on to something else.

Be Quick!

When the weather's like this, the big decision of the day is when to walk the dog without getting drenched.  I peer out of the window trying to calculate the odds on it brightening up later on, while factoring in the last chance of walking in daylight.  

And at some point the novel will have to be written.  Like the dog walk, I know it should be done every day, but unlike the dog, the novel doesn't have big appealing eyes and a mournful face. Perhaps if it existed in physical form - a stack of paper beside a battered typewriter, or a series of notebooks - it would be less easy to ignore.  Because it's incredible how easy it is to spend a whole day intending to get down to writing the novel and end up going to bed without being a single word further along the line, especially when the deadline is months away.  

When my dog was a puppy I trained him to perform to the command 'be quick'.  It's especially handy on the late night walk around the block.  If only I could train myself to respond to the same command because just as the dog needs walking every day, so does the novel. Be quick, Sarah! Be quick!

To Plan or not to Plan

Changing the duvet cover this morning led to the same old argument as to the best method - I'm a 'feed the ends in, hold tight, then shake it down' person, t'other is an 'inside out and flip it over' afficionado. It struck me this is a little like writing a novel. Do you plan extensively, or simply go with the flow?

Each method has staunch supporters. I once read an article about Ken Follett that said each novel started with a full synopsis - full being about 300 pages. Stephen King, on the other hand says that he sets out with an idea and sees where it leads him. For myself, I'm somewhere in the middle. I like to know a few key moments that I can aim for - woman falls in love, woman falls out of love, for example - but the how and why and what are all mysteries to be solved along the way.

I've only once tried fully planning a novel, and the result was that, although I loved all the planning and plotting, I never actually wrote it up. It lurks in all its colour coded wonder at the back of the writing cupboard, having absorbed all my inspiration into its perfect plan. For me, extensive planning was a substitute for actually writing a novel.

But, in the end, it doesn't really matter how you change the duvet cover, so long as the bed gets made.

NaNoWriMo and writing tricks

Well, I've done it.  Joined NaNoWriMo, that is.  Not done any novel writing though, which doesn't bode well for completing in 50,000 words by the end of November.  It's strange: this will be my sixth novel but at this stage I can't believe that I'm really capable of writing 100,000+ words.  And looking up at the books doesn't help because once they're properly typeset and wrapped up in their covers they stop looking like mine.  

But, five novels down, I've learned a few tricks... 

1.  Little and often is best.  Even if there's only ten minutes available, grab it and write.

2. Anything you write can be made better, so it's worth writing rubbish.

3. If stuck, write description: what your character can see, hear, touch, feel, smell.  Where are they? What are they wearing?  How do they feel? What are they thinking?  It's usually good for a couple of hundred words.

4.  You often don't know what you're writing until you've written it.  The act of writing unleashes all sorts of imaginative ideas and connections. Don't think, write.

Which is, of course, what I ought to be doing instead of blogging.  

Shelving Stupid White Men

More moving books around. Last year I organised them into categories: novels in the conservatory, books about writing in the study, to-be-read in the bedroom and so on. As I move books from the landing I come across Michael Moore's Stupid White Men. It's been on the shelf for books I don't really have a category for. I weigh the book up in my hand, trying to think where it should go. Reference, probably, downstairs in the dining room, but it's not going to sit comfortably with The Shock of the New or The Timetables of History.

There's been a bit of a flurry around the Crime Writers Awards: someone referred to romantic novelists as being back-stabbing bitches, or so it's been reported. I've been told that the original remark was made about fifteen years ago and the CWA regularly trot it out. No one's quite sure why - perhaps they think a little professional rivalry might drum up some publicity, but it seems unimaginative, like expecting all romantic novelists to dress like Barbara Cartland.

After a few moments of consideration, I decide to shelve Stupid White Men along with the crime and thrillers. I don't suppose that this will be its permanent home but it seems to fit in quite nicely for now.