New Tricks?

There was a time when I looked forward to writing something either as a parody or "in the style of." An assignment for 18th C. Literature in college involved writing an essay as Jonathan Swift might have done. I had a ball. At this late stage, an acquaintance whose taste and ideas I admire has been pressing me to write a novel using a theme he suggests with a plot line he supplies. It's not anything like what I've done before, and I'm finding myself truly baffled as I try to figure out how to go about it.

The idea is a good and probably salable one. It's a mystery (he defines only the conflict). I can't seem to manufacture the train of events leading to the crime and its aftermath. Furthermore, he fails to understand how hard it is to make a story unless you (the writer) know the characters who will act it out. I can't get my head around the four main ones. I have thus far three versions of a beginning, complete with different names in each attempt.

Having just taken a look at a passage from one of my novels, I realized something that doubtless should have been obvious from the start:  if my style or voice or whatever you want to call it is too set, how can I hope to create people and motives from someone else's original notion?

Apart from the challenge of producing something analogous to a work for hire, I now face a question that should have occurred to me long ago:  should I try to learn flexibility again, or should I stay stubborn and loyal to what I seem to have become?

And anyone who wants to point out the old saw about an old dog and new tricks, you may keep your remarks to yourself!   ;-). It's a fallacy. You can teach even an oldster if she's willing to learn.

What's a Writer to Do?

It seems presumptuous and even foolish to be writing a blog about writing. No one who would bother to read it would have missed the mantras that are supposed to help us "get published." You know: write every day, submit, enter contests, write a blog, network, don't give up, write what you know, enter contests, don't just write what you know, you always need a "hook," enter contests...on and on. If those instructions were all it takes to see your work (and I do mean "work") in print, there would be an even bigger glut of e-books and print books and screen plays and poetry than there is now.

Some day there's going to be somebody who will honestly want to know why you write. Maybe it's worth considering what your answer will be--worth thinking seriously about it. My guess is that a survey would reveal a relatively small number of answers.

Then there's the entering contests question. Of course, if you should happen to win one, there's the satisfaction of a small success (unless, of course, you just won a nationwide  one with a big monetary prize and publication by Random House). Do you enter contests depending on who runs them, on the size of the entry fee, on who is familiar to you who has won it before, in hopes an agent or publisher will notice you? Or do you do it because it's on the list of things every wannabe has to do?

There's a pretty interesting website on which a book on how to win writing contests is regularly advertised. I admit to being tempted. Then it occurs to me that unless you have some knowledge of the judge(s), or are just plain clairvoyant, your entry is in the same category as weekly lottery tickets. Maybe the odds aren't quite as long, but pretty nearly. The author of the book on how to win must be willing and able to be a chameleon. Either you have a voice of your own or you don't, or you're able to imitate someone else's voice. Here I'm using that word the way literary critics like to: meaning the diction and themes that distinguish you and your work from others'. Even if you write so-called "genre" material, we all know it will be better than the run-of-the-mill if only you could have written it, and a reader can spot that right away.

Whether it's contests or just getting published without paying for it, you're up against fashion, the difficulty of reaching the right audience, and, let's face it: how good you are at what you do. It's certain that not enough writers who are exceptionally good ever get the audience they deserve. So that part of the list of "Dos" for writers that says "Never Give Up" is the hardest one to remember.