Lessons from the back of the closet

Every so often I’m asked how one learns to write. There are a lot of answers to this question, especially given that there are many approaches to writing, such as planner, pantser, and let’s-just-cannonball-into-the-pool. A good tool kit is gathered from a variety of experiences. I picked up techniques writing as an academic, for newspapers, and eventually as a fiction writer, and blended them together into a method that works for me.

Recently, I was excavating a closet and discovered a long row of binders containing the many, many articles I wrote as a freelancer for various newspapers. They covered 13 years of work and took up far too much space. Following the advice of assorted downsizing experts, I scanned them and only kept a few clippings for scrapbook memories. This was the least painful way I could think of to let go of a body of work that defined me until the papers I worked for stopped paying for freelance arts coverage.

Going through the lot piece by piece reminded me of many fabulous people and performances, old friends and teachers, and my own musical experiments. It also reminded me (yes, I’m getting to a point) how much that work informed my fiction career.

First, I learned to write to particular specifications in terms of content, length, style, and anything else the editor asked for, including deadlines and revisions. In other words, I was far better prepared to navigate traditional publishing houses.

Second, I learned how to ask questions and, better yet, listen. The art of the interview is essentially digging for gold while under a time pressure. It’s getting beyond the obvious to the emotional truth that’s not in the press release. The right question may reveal the mainspring of an artistic genius, and sometimes it results in a good shared laugh. I’m thinking about (among many others) the internationally-acclaimed instrumental soloist who invited me over to look at his train set, and the opera singer who confessed that performing is better than sex. Those were very human and entirely unpredictable moments.

Interviews are handy in terms of research, and they’re also incredible grounding for characterization. People are layered, complex, contradictory, brilliant, and breathtaking. They contain the gloriously unexpected, and so should characters in fiction. In other words, create far, far beyond the archetype and write the character no one else could duplicate.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, I learned to pick through a mountain of information and tell a story in a set number of words. The obvious thread is usually not the right one. The process is all about sifting, connecting, and bringing the most impactful narrative to life. Also, the writer must make it hooky, snappy, and exciting for an audience who will quickly move on to something else with more pizzazz. This is exactly what commercial fiction requires.

In short, I learned a ton of transferrable skills as a newspaper writer. Even though the industry changed dramatically, and I moved on to greener pastures, it served as a kind of apprenticeship. Of course, fiction writing requires more in the toolbox than what I’ve mentioned here, but I had an excellent starter kit when I got serious about constructing novels. I’m absolutely grateful to those editors who put me through my paces back in the day. It was humbling and occasionally frustrating, but I learned by doing, which is how I learn best. Call it artisanal intelligence—entirely from scratch.