A Letter to J. R. Moehringer

Dear Mr. Moehringer,

[long sigh, shaking head]

How do you do it?

How do you write with such style, and class, and grace?  How is your writing style so clean, efficient, and crisp?  How do you make me care about characters and situations I thought I'd care nothing about?  How do you draw me into a story and make me feel like I'm there?  How do you make your story come alive like it was just happening?  How do you write like no other writer?  How do you make me wish I wrote just like you?

When Sutton first came out, I recognized your name from the cover.  You were the fellow who helped Andre Agassi write his memoir Open.  Well, let's be honest.  Agassi didn't write Open at all.  You did.  I know that now, because the style of Sutton is so similar.  Actually, it's exactly the same.

I freakin' loved Open.  I recommended it to countless people.  I took great pleasure when it turned into a bestseller.  It should have been a bestseller.  It was amazing, some of the best writing I've ever read.  I read Open years ago, but I still remember it, vividly.  I still remember it being a fantastic book, one I must read again soon.  I couldn't wait until your next book.

So then Sutton appeared on bookstore tables.  But, Mr. Moehringer, it was about Willie Sutton, someone I knew nothing about, someone I told myself I didn't want to know anything about.  What did I care about the notorious Willie Sutton, who, according to the dust cover of the book, "was America's most successful bank robber"?  What did I want to read about him for?  I'm not even American.  So, disappointed, I put the book down on the table, told myself I'd have to wait for your next book to enjoy your amazing writing style again.

Fast forward several years.  Sutton appears on the discount tables at local bookstores.  I pick it up, again.  Read the inside flap.  Think about it.  Should I buy it or not?  The price is only $7.99 Canadian.  Not much.  I've bought many discounted books before.  Some of my favorite reads have been discounted books.  So, what the hell.  I bought it.  And, once I'd taken it home, despite everything else I had to read, I started reading it, right away.  It called to me.  I didn't know why. 

Was I in for a surprise.  Sutton is one of the best books I've ever read, and I don't make that claim lightly.  I was disappointed when it was over.  I didn't want it to end.  I never say that about a book.  Most often, I can't wait for the book I'm reading to end, so I can move on to the next one, something I hope I'll enjoy more, be more engaged in.

Your writing is like a pop-up book.  You use a minimum of words, but everything still pops up off the page.  I see the setting.  I see the characters.  In fact, I'm with the characters, I'm one of them.  I'm doing what they're doing, feeling what they're feeling.  No writer can ask his writing to do more.  No writer.  That kind of writing is as good as it gets.      

Nothing is an accident.  I read Sutton exactly when I should have.  When I'm having so much trouble editing my own novel.  When I need all the inspiration I can get to help me through my writing sessions.  When I need to see in front of me an exceptional example of writing.  When I hope your skill with words transfers over to me. 

I can't tell you how many times I've wondered how you'd write my novel, how you'd put something I'm struggling with, how you'd make my story come alive, in a way I can't seem to.  The good news is, I have Sutton to refer to.  I've earmarked entire sections I will return to again and again, breaking them apart, investigating how you did what you did.  I'll use what I learn to edit my own novel.

There are countless books about how to write a novel.  I own a good number of them.  But, in my opinion, writers need only one book:  Sutton.  Everything we need to know about writing is right there, in every beautiful page of your extraordinary novel.  Thank you, Mr. Moehringer, for the generous gift you've given us all.   Thank you.

[sigh]

And thank you for being the gifted writer you are, and for showing us how it should be done.    

Was

So before I sent Chapter One, Scene Two to my beta reader for his feedback, I completed one full round of edits on the scene focusing only on the word "was."  My goal?  To delete as many wases as I could.  The reason?  Because, in general, the word was weakens writing.

Here's an example:

I was walking to school the other day, when I saw a homeless person rooting around in a dumpster.

Technically, nothing wrong with it.  In fact, most of us talk like that all the time.  But how we talk doesn't necessarily translate well to how we should write.

Consider this instead: 

I walked to school the other day and saw a homeless person, rooting around in a dumpster.

I don't know about you, but, when I remove the word was from my writing, my sentences are stronger.  There's no word between the subject and what the subject is doing.  In the case above, nothing comes between me (I) and the action (walked).   The writing sounds not only stronger but clearer.  Why include an extra word when you don't have to?  Writing should be pared down to the absolute minimum, still allowing you to get your meaning across (paring it down as much as you can usually allows for clearer meaning).

Did I delete every was?  No, I didn't.  There were occasions when, if I deleted it, my sentences sounded stiff, stilted, formal.  Sometimes, to maintain that conversational tone–if that's what you're aiming for–you want to keep your language a little looser.  In those cases, you keep constructions that include words you might not otherwise use.

But, in general, I find, just by focusing on eliminating the word was as many times as I can, my writing sounds better, more assertive, even more exciting.  Entire scenes are literally transformed, just by doing something as simple as that.  The difference is between writing that sounds droopy, and writing that snaps.  

Who wants droopy when you can snap?

Clarity

I'm back to work.  Back to work writing, that is.

Sometimes, real life intervenes.  Sometimes, you can't ignore the signs anymore, and you find yourself drawn in an unexpected direction.  That's what happened about a week and a half ago, when, after my partner, Chris, had bugged me for six years to get a job done in the house, I finally decided to do it.  Problem is, that job led to another one, which led to another one, and…well, you see where this is going. 

I didn't think so at the time–in fact, I was resentful of it–but taking a break away from my writing was a blessing.  I'd been working so long and so hard on the feedback I'd received from my beta reader–on how to improve a difficult and lacking Chapter One–that all I wanted to do was get it over with, so I could resume edits on Chapter Sixteen (or wherever I was at the time I received the feedback from my beta reader).  But that wasn't the right attitude at all.  Why rush through something, and probably do a bad job, just to get it done?  What I needed to do was take a break, as it turns out, not just from Chapter One, but from writing altogether.  Get out there, do something different, give myself some breathing space.    

Yesterday, I returned to Chapter One, Scene Two for about an hour and a half.  I still had a few jobs to do around the house, and that's all the time I had to give my writing.  But today (Thursday), I was back to my usual routine.  And, on both days, despite having worked on Chapter One, Scene Two for weeks, looking at it again felt new, like I hadn't worked on it before.   Like it was someone else's writing, which is exactly what you want when you're editing.

And, what's more, I not only saw the problems I identified before, but also I knew what to do to improve them.  Do you know how many times, before I took a break, I looked at those pieces and had no idea what to do with them?  Do you know how frustrating that was?  Yesterday and today, I felt no frustration at all.  Rather, I felt refreshed.  And I have no doubt what I did with my work as a result was a hell of a lot better than it would have been if I hadn't taken a break, and if I'd continued to struggle when the answers weren't there for me yet.

Don't be scared to take a break from your writing.  Don't be scared to live a little life outside of your story.  It'll all be waiting for you when you get back.  Chances are, you'll be eager to get back.  And you'll see your work in a whole new way. 

Qualifiers

I like to qualify everything.  My writing is littered with this stuff, in one form or another. 

Here's an extreme example:

He walked through the garden sort of like he didn't want to be there.

Okay, a bad sentence overall.  And certainly not an example from my novel.  But I use it for a reason.

Qualifiers show your insecurity as a writer.  They're about you taking the easy way, because you don't want to offend the reader.  They're about not making a decision about what this character is doing, leaving your options open.  And they come across wishy-washy.  They soften your writing, instead of make it definite and sharp.

If you're going to write something, be bold.  Make a decision and state it as simply and straightforwardly as you can. 

Consider this:

He walked through the garden like he didn't want to be there.  

You've taken a stand.  Your character is walking through the garden.  And he doesn't want to be there.  No question in your mind, or in the mind of your reader.  

This is more effective writing.  Don't be afraid to assert yourself.  It's your story, after all.  It can be any damn thing you want it to be. 

Process versus Outcome

After a frustrating writing week last week, during which the progress on editing Chapter One, Scene Two still didn't feel like it was enough, and the results were not what I wanted them to be, I finally came to my senses.

See, if you're like me, the reason why you get frustrated with your writing is because you have expectations–expectations around what your writing will look and sound like, but especially expectations around how long you'll spend working on something before it's finally finished.

The reality is, getting something right in your writing takes as long as it takes.  You might get it right immediately, and you might need to work on it for days, weeks, even months before you're finally happy with it, before you know it's what it should be.

So the moral of this story?  Focus on the process and not the outcome.  As long as I focus on completing something by a specific time, I invite frustration, because, chances are, I won't achieve my goal.  But if I focus on what I'm doing right now, without telling myself that, by the time I'm done today, this piece will be right, then I give myself over to the process.  And I open myself up to whatever the process has to teach me, as well as the pleasures it holds.

We live a a time when we want everything right now.  But some things are worth waiting for.  One of them is seeing your writing turn into the best it can be, through your patience and hard work.

Copying

If you're planning to study another writer's writing, in order to learn how to be a better writer–which I highly recommend you do–you might want to go one step further than simply reading the words on the page–even if you plan to read them over and over again.  What I do is find a scene I like a lot, one that's a great example of that writer's writing that I want to understand better, in terms of how it was constructed using only words, and type it out, word for word (for this reason, it might be a good idea to choose a shorter scene, although there's the potential to learn more from a longer one).  

The act of typing out every word in the scene forces you to pay attention to each one, how each one relates to those around it, how a string of them forms a strong sentence, and how several sentences, constructed in the same way, forms a powerful paragraph.  You'd be surprised how doing this puts you in the shoes of the writer, making the decisions he did when he recorded each word, in the order he recorded them, what he was thinking at the time, why he used that word instead of another one, why he used that punctuation (or none at all), why his writing works, why it comes alive for you, why you think he's a great writer.   

Your greatest teachers are other writers.  And everywhere you look, there are books available to provide you with a master class of how to write (and, in some cases, how not to write).  All you have to do is pick one up, particularly one from a cherished writer, and figure out what he did, not by reading what he did, but by copying it.  I use this technique all the time, and I promise it works.

(And, if you want to go one step further, write out the scene, word for word, in long hand.  If that doesn't slow you down to ponder the magic of each word, nothing will.  Again, a technique I use often.)        

Reality Versus Fiction

The danger in using something that happened in real life, at least to some degree, as the basis of a novel is you may find, as I have, that you become too concerned with telling the story of what really happened, and not concerned enough with telling a great story.  I have my beta reader to thank for indirectly pointing this out through his outstanding feedback.

In reading the notes my beta reader wrote for me, sometimes, I wanted to write back and say, "But this really happened.  Why would you ask me to change it when that's not what took place?"

Fortunately, my beta reader has no idea what really happened.  All he knows is what he sees on the page I've written, and, on the basis of that, he knows it could be better.  It could be reduced here, and beefed up there.  Instead of your protagonist doing this, he should do that.  If you change it–that is, if you depart from what you remember happening, and imagine that this could happen in its place–then, potentially, your story will be stronger, your characters more compelling, and your reader more absorbed in what's going on.  Plus, I hasten to add, writing the damn thing might be more interesting too. 

So, although real life is often the source of material for a novel, beyond providing the characters and the basis of a situation, everything else should be open for re-imagining.  At the very least, don't allow yourself to get into a rut around recreating what really happened, to the extent that you can't see beyond it, can't see the possibilities.  What really happened is one thing.  What should happen in the story you're telling is something else altogether.      

Another great reason for a beta reader.