Thank you for inviting me to address this year's graduating class at the Academy of Young Fiction Writers.
As much as I appreciate the invitation, I’m utterly unqualified to give you any advice, since you are growing up in an entirely different world from the one I inhabited (Planet Mid-20th Century). However, I’ve already cashed the honorarium, so I’ll give it a go.
It was suggested I give my own take on Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Good Writing. However, I’ve found as soon as one starts in on rules, one is on shaky ground. And frankly, I’d toss out half of Leonard’s rules and rejigger the rest. But I can think of a few essential ingredients.
Every writer I know reads a lot. If there’s any way to avoid this particular penchant, I don’t know what it is. Anymore than a professional sax player can be unaware of Charlie Parker or Johnny Hodges. It’s also preferred to read all kinds of things – fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, blog posts, encyclopedias, cereal boxes, doctoral theses, etc. It almost doesn’t matter as you’re simply training your mind to be fluent and versatile with the language. To be aware of the various forms and styles, no matter what you end up specializing in.
This also means reading things you find distasteful, either in form or content. If you confine yourself only to works that comport with your aesthetic, religious or political sensibilities, you might live with a pure heart and soul, but you won’t be a very good writer. And who knows, if breached frequently enough those self-imposed boundaries might get a little more elastic over time.
It’s important to develop your own voice. Everyone says a strong voice is indispensable, though no one can tell you exactly what that means. If you’re lucky, you’ll know it when you hear it, or someone has the generosity to point it out. Your voice could – it should – change to suit the specific work you’re laboring over. But you need to know what voice is all about or you won’t get very far.
Being a good writer takes a tremendous amount of work. This often comes as a shock to people starting out. The main culprits are beloved authors whose prose flows as effortlessly as a sparkling Rocky Mountain stream, which can give a person false notions. Ask the writer to show you all the drafts and marked-up pages that led up to this and be ready for the avalanche.
Other than those three little
guidelines, pretty much everything else is up for grabs. As much as I love going to writers
conferences and listening to my fellow authors render sage advice from the
panel tables (much of which can be extremely entertaining), by itself this
probably won’t change your trajectory. You’ll
hear a lot about process, but the only worthwhile process is the one that works
for you. The magic isn’t in the mechanics,
it’s in the imagination. Whether your
work finds its way through a keyboard or a quill pen, in a Parisian loft or
chicken coop, is irrelevant.
I think it’s good to read tutorials from
Strunk & White, Stephen King, and especially Anne Lamott, but there’s
little they can teach you that you don’t have to learn yourself.
As noted above, your world is going to be radically different from the one I’ve been living in, so you’ll have to adapt accordingly. Digital technology will impart unimaginable advantages, and detriments, and you’ll have to figure out which is which. Style will be as fluid as the cultural weather, though it won’t likely sound like late-Victorian or early-Beatnik. Some harbingers may be lurking on the bestsellers lists, but you won’t know which ones for a few years.
Language itself may morph into something entirely new. For all I know, you may have different rules for grammar and syntax. Dictionaries and remedial English teachers will have to scramble to keep up. But novelty doesn’t have to result in amnesia.
I mentioned Charlie Parker. Classical musicians often notice a Bach interval sneaking its way into one of his spiraling improvisations. This wasn’t just a sly homage, or hipster satire. Charlie was part of a continuum of genius, not a fatherless bolt of lightning.
Natural historians will tell you evolution never creates in whole cloth. Life transforms itself by adapting available material. What makes us human is nothing more than the clever repurposing of primordial spare parts.
Every generation needs to decide
what constitutes quality writing. So
ultimately, your peers will be much more valuable than your heroes. Though you’ll still be standing on the shoulders
of giants, so it’s best to get a good sense of literary anatomy so you don’t
lose your footing.
I think a healthy dose of optimistic skepticism is a healthy thing in a young writer. It’s fine to listen to advice, even what’s being spoken here, but don’t take anything to heart until you’ve proven it to yourself. And even that may slip out from under you when you least expect it.
Always remind yourself, you’re sailing a ship guided by ever-changing constellations.
