I’m always slightly offended when people claim that they can see what I was ‘trying’ to do with a story or character, or when they imply that I’ve replicated this or that literary device, mostly based on incorrect assumptions.

I mean, some of those comparisons are positive, which can be a compliment, I guess. But often, the suggestion seems to be that I don’t know about literary theory, that I don’t understand the machinations of story, and that maybe I’ve just read a few pop-culture novels and tried my hand at the same.

Make no mistake, it’s incumbent on any writer to do their research, and to understand the writers that have established the foundations of literature, so that they can then apply, and even bend the rules as they see fit. 

This is one of the main reasons that I’ve always been hesitant to try crime fiction, or a fantasy story, because I need to have read widely within a genre to be able to competently create within that space. And while you might be able to add a different take, I think you do need to know the building blocks of any story or creative type, at least in basic form, in order to be able to maximize your creativity. Otherwise you may well be headed towards replication and cliché, without even knowing it.

If you haven’t read Shakespeare or Hemingway, you definitely should at least delve into each a little, and get a sense for what was so great about them. The same for all the classics in whatever genre you want to write, you should be able to analyze and assess some of the key writing elements of the greats, and get a feel for how their stories tick.

You should understand the difference between narrative styles, and writing styles as well. You should be able to identify minimalist writing, and understand the nuance of exposition within the context and style of a bigger narrative. 

And definitely, you need to have a grasp of The Hero’s Journey, which is the foundational pathway for every story throughout time.

Understanding how stories have been communicated, and the common elements that contribute to a satisfactory narrative, in alignment with how we all understand such, is key to ensuring that your narrative touches on all the emotional pay-offs, and feels complete.

It’s the key formula, if you want to call it that, of fiction, and if you don’t understand it instinctively, it’ll show throughout your work. 

Every story that you’ve ever loved aligns with Joseph Campbell’s research into narrative structure, and once you see it, story writing will make a whole lot more sense.

I once heard a very famous novelist refute the ‘show don’t tell’ writing mantra by explaining that:

‘We’re storytellers, not story showers.’

My initial reaction was that I wanted to physically fight him, this man who’s sold many, many books, but whose writing I do not respect. 

Because show don’t tell is a critical tenet for great writing, because without it, then you’re more of a story planner than a writer. And that is a challenge in itself, don’t get me wrong. But it’s like the difference between someone who explains what they want to paint, and somebody who can actually bring it to life.

Great writing requires color, shading, attention to detail, and not just in the details of scene itself, but in the words that you use to illustrate such. Understanding the difference between showing and telling is the difference between making your audience comprehend your story, and feel it. And in some genres and styles, that’s fine. People who read thrillers are looking for fast-paced action, and they’re not as interested in reading a challenging narrative about the conflicting emotions of the main character. So you can succeed in telling not showing in that context, though I would still argue that you need to understand the principle, in order to apply or ignore it at will.

Stories that tell more than show will fail to resonate as much as they could, and won’t be as captivating, or emotionally involving as great writing. You want to recreate the scene in your head, and not just what’s happening, but the detail that the characters would notice, the expanded physical cues that point to how the people or creatures within it are feeling. It’s those elements that are the real gold, the real resonators that elevate a story to another level. 

You can argue against this if you want, but you’ll be wrong. And the more that you dig into the emotions and responses, beyond the core story elements, the better your writing will be.

I’m gonna be honest, I dislike Stephen King’s writing. I understand that he’s the originator of many elements that have defined generations of writers after him, and I don’t mind the creativity of his stories. But his writing style is not for me.

But I did find his “On Writing” book interesting, and in particular, his notes about creation, and leaving your work to sit in a drawer for at least six weeks after you’ve completed a revised first draft.

As per King:

“[After six weeks] take your manuscript out of the drawer. If it looks like an alien relic bought at a junk-shop or a yard sale where you can hardly remember stopping, you’re ready. Sit down with your door shut, a pencil in your hand, and a legal pad by your side. Then read your manuscript over.”

The idea is that this creates enough distance from the passion that you had in that first draft stage to enable more objectivity in your re-reading, which will then better enable you to see errors and issues that you may have been too attached to acknowledge otherwise.

The more your story reads like someone else wrote it, the better. And ideally, that someone else, you find, is actually a good writer, and has come up with some sequences that impress you.

Which can give you some encouragement, while also enabling you to review your work with a more critical, analytical eye.

And sure, that might also mean that you read some parts that hurt your head as you try understand what the heck you were thinking.

But if you know this, if you notice issues, if you get slowed in your reading process, if you get bored, chances are that your audience will as well.

Forcing a level of distance from your work will improve your assessment, and ultimately your writing as a result.

I find Jesse Ball’s writing process fascinating, though I doubt I could ever recreate it myself.

Jesse Ball has written nine novels, and various shorter works, which have been both lavished and criticized within certain literary circles. Not that he seems to care about such either way, because the way Ball sees it, creating a novel is a performance, and like any other form of performance art, the result is based on whatever factors were present at the exact time and place in which it was written.

Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad, but his writing process is very short, and built upon meticulous preparation, as opposed to most writers who focus on editing and revision.

Indeed, Ball says that the typical writing process for his novels takes place over 4-14 days.

Note, that’s “days” not “weeks” or “months.”

Ball schedules a writing period, when he’s away from his day-to-day life, then he goes on, essentially, a writing sprint, and completes his novels in these comparatively short bursts.

Which is a very deliberate choice. 

As per Ball:

“I want to take the least amount of time possible. I want to be deliberate. I don’t want to take any missteps. I want to have a genuine technique that allows the things that I say to be clearly said and I want to say them in the order in which they are meant to be said, to most clearly elucidate the idea. The reader should be able take the same path that I took.”

Ball’s view is that the writer and reader should be as closely aligned as possible in experiencing the story, and while he’s also committed to reading and researching in preparation for such, the actual writing process, in his view, should not be drawn out. So it’s writing as an in-the-moment performance.

“I don’t edit – I think the original form is best. Sometimes [my editor] will ask me for more, and then I will add a section.”

Yeah, it’s pretty hard to imagine that many writers would be able to get away with the same, and produce anything of publishable quality within a matter of days. But again, Ball says that this is a failure of preparation, not of the writing process itself, and that the right steps to establish the project in your mind will enable you to create a fresh and cohesive narrative based on such sprints.

I would guess that most writers would have trouble even putting down 70k words in two weeks, but there is a logic to his thinking, and I definitely respect his commitment to such process. 

And maybe it’s worth considering, that rather than trying to push through writing 1k words a day, maybe you should spend more time on planning and research, then aim to have more free-flowing writing sessions in focussed sprints.

Either way, it’s another process to consider (particularly for National Novel Writing Month)