Can You Learn to Write?
by Virginia Kantra

In e-mails and over coffee, the words pop up again and again: Hook. Turning point. Scene and sequel. POV. And writers encountering them for the first time wonder, Are such concepts and distinctions necessary? Are they even useful?

There are writers--excellent writers-who declare that each story is a voyage of discovery, uncontrived and uncontrolled. Scenes come to them in visions. Characters speak to them in the grocery line. On my best days, my story people talk to me, too. So, can't I accept the gifts of the muse and leave it at that?

Well... No. Inspiration and enthusiasm are wonderful things, but they can only take the storyteller so far. Next time a nine-year-old tries to explain the plot of his favorite movie to you, ask yourself if his re-telling would be improved if he could apply basic concepts like "synopsis" and "climax." You betcha it would. A wonderful idea and a love of language may get you through the entire first draft of your first novel. They won't get you through your fourth. The terms tossed around on-line and at writers' conferences are helpful in three ways: (1) to deepen the writer's understanding and mastery of storytelling, (2) to develop a shared vocabulary with other writers, and (3) to build a structure to lean on when inspiration fails.

I can't say my undergraduate studies taught me to write clean, compelling, commercial fiction. Maybe my professors were genre snobs. Maybe they were struggling with a freshman class that still hadn't mastered topic sentences. Maybe I was taking the wrong courses. For whatever reasons, I left school determined to write unfettered by the outdated rules of stodgy academics. Instead, I planned to read the books I loved and learn from them.

In a lot of ways, this approach to writing was like trying to re-invent the wheel. In the dark. I fumbled my way to some solutions, but I wasted years. I didn't have the tools or the perspective to articulate why one story left me sighing and smiling and another left me cold. By 1994, when I attended my first writers' conference in Atlanta, I knew enough to know I needed help. When Debra Dixon spoke on "Goal, Motivation and Conflict," enough flash bulbs went off in my brain to rival a White House press conference. She talked about my story in a way that made my own aims and characters clearer to me. By naming my instinctive urges, she transformed them into deliberate strategies.

There is power in names. From Genesis to latter-day practitioners of magic, names are used to create, to call and to control. In the writing process, such labels are most helpful when things aren't working. If you know what a "dark moment" is, for example, you can probably figure out if your story doesn't have one. But if a book sucks you right in ("It started the year I performed as a tap-dancing leprechaun at the St. Patrick's Day carnival and Roanie Sullivan threatened to cut my cousin Carlton's throat with a rusty pocketknife." -Deb Smith, A Place to Call Home), does it matter what you call the magic?

Yes and no. Writers love language and love to talk. Heck, most writers would rather talk than write (especially when the writing's not going well). A shared vocabulary not only alleviates the essential loneliness of the job, but enables writers to learn from one another.

But in developing this vocabulary to identify what works and why, writers are simply classifying something, which often takes place spontaneously: pinning labels on unnamed, elusive, chaotic impulses. Historian Henry B. Adams wrote, "Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit." Writing requires both chaos and order--chaos first. Fiction is not formula. Even the most devoted notebook-keeper needs to leave herself open to the creative spark, the wild mind, the unexpected turns of character or plot which give life to a story.

Once a story is born, however, the writer is responsible for bringing it along and turning it into something that can be introduced to company. This is where "order" comes in. There are very few absolutes. (Don't spit into the punch bowl, for children, and, Don't kill off the hero in the last chapter, for a genre romance.) Just as parents develop routines to coax their reluctant toddlers to bed, working writers develop guidelines to deal with their recalcitrant stories. "This worked last time. Let's do it again."

Specific guidelines can be good: "One story and one drink of water before lights out," or, "No more than one point of view per scene." But routines can impose their own tyranny. A writer who restricts herself to one arbitrary way of doing things risks limiting herself as much as a child will only listen to the one particular bedtime tale or drink from one particular cup.

Learning to write a book is like learning to raise a child. You go with your heart and your gut and the best of intentions, and occasionally you seek advice from experts. Most stories benefit if they are supported by knowledge as well as love. A grasp of basic concepts can help identify successes and pinpoint errors; a common vocabulary can sharpen the writer's understanding and make learning life-long; and the discipline of guidelines and reassurance of habit can give the writer the courage to dream big dreams in the night.

© Virginia Kantra 2000

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