Office Hours

My (Approximate) Method: A Pithy Review

Last Sunday, behind the paywall, I talked a bit about the dangers and limits of becoming obsessed with talking about process.

In the Comments, a few newcomers asked if (speaking of process) there was, somewhere in the vast Story Club archive (which now extends back some two-and-a-half years(!)) a concise summary of my approach to reading, writing, and editing.

Likely there is (and that’s basically what A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is all about). But I thought that, today, since I’m traveling, I might just quickly summarize it, in the flavor in which I’m feeling (and using) it these days.

(But: all my cautions about becoming too intent on articulating a process, and too loyal to a process, still apply, ha ha.)

What do we do when we read?

I’d say we’re in a continuous state of assessment – of being drawn into, or pushed out of, the text. 

I think this is true of anyone reading anything, really. 

We might say there’s a little bag, into which credits accrue if we’re liking what we’re reading, and out of which we “pay” if we’re not liking it.

If the bag empties out, we put down the text and walk away.

Of course, some people are more generous readers than others, and insist on finishing whatever they start.  (They are able to keep reading long after that bag is empty). 

Others are more touchy and will leave the text after just a few debits. 

We might note that, when a credit is given, this might cause us to feel affection for, or trust in, the author.  When a debit is taken, we feel a little distance creeping in there, and might even become annoyed or insulted.  The author, we may feel, is testing our patience.

So, when I analyze a text, I’m really just watching myself as I add credits to that bag or take them out, noting where this happened, and, eventually, asking myself why I added credits or took them away. (Why did I feel a surge of interest here?  Why was I exasperated there?)

This process can start to tell me something about myself - about what I value in a work of fiction, what I resist.

And, ultimately, this tells me something about my view of life.

That, then, is the basis for criticism: noticing what we like, and making a case for it.

When writing, I am, more or less, doing the same thing as described above: reading along, seeing how I feel about it (and seeing where I “feel about it”).

The only difference is that this text is still in-progress and can be altered.  I can note the “debit” places and decide to do something different there.

These alterations can be on the line level (I improve a sentence) or on a larger scale (I always feel resistance when I start a certain section and so finally come to realize (voila!) that it’s in the wrong place (or is in the wrong story).

I make a fix and next time I read that place…the “debit” moment is gone, replaced, I hope, by a “credit” moment.

And my story just got better.

A metaphor I’ve found really handy is that of the Positive/Negative Meter:

I imagine I have a meter mounted in my forehead, that drifts into the “P” for Positive during the “credit” moments, and down into the “N” for Negative when it encounters a “debit” moment.

What we’re doing in revision is trying to urge the needle, via our changes, to stay in the “P” zone.

None of this is original to me.  I think most of us read this way.  And I think most writers edit this way.  (They change what they don’t like, until they like…everything). 

Where my application of this method gets somewhat unusual (perhaps even unnatural) is in the excessive way in which I apply it. 

I go through stories again and again, for months, even years.  I have faith in the idea that, approached this way, a story will begin to be more than I could have imagined at the beginning (funnier, wilder, tighter, more expansive, you name it), and that, when using this method, I don’t have to do much thinking about themes or plot or rising action or any of that – with obsessive attention to the line-to-line progress, these will (the theory goes) take care of themselves.

Anyway, that’s how it works for me – my natural obsessiveness and a very strong verbal sense incline me to work in this way and I benefit from it - this method allows those traits to the fore.

I don’t think the excess with which I apply this method (and my extreme trust in it) is for everybody.  But I mention it because I think it’s applicable, in smaller doses, to just about everybody, because, as mentioned earlier, it’s ultimately based on the way we read.

In this method, the real (ineffable, unteachable) skill comes in (a) that split-second of reaction to one’s text, and (b) one’s willingness to make changes to the text in response.

The first, (a), depends on a growing confidence in what I call one’s “micro-opinions” – those small, sometimes very small, inclinations we feel when reading our text.  Regarding (b): over time, we can get more sensitive to these inclinations and more willing to give them a shot.  (We lose some of that beginner-inclination to treasure every phrase we’ve written as it first occurred to us, and we become more playful.)

But not everyone can access their micro-opinions and I suspect that, for some people, repeated iteration just leads to confusion. 

I revise mostly by ear; some people rely on other, equally innate and intuitive (and valid) criteria.

My “thing” is the excessive extent to which I trust in intuitive line-editing, applied over many iterations, to produce a work of art that surprises me. 

But it’s not for everybody.  It’s just how I work.

I offer it to all of you in the same way that, say, an old knuckle-ball pitcher might teach the knuckler to a young pitcher who already has great traditional “stuff” – just to use in a pinch, as needed, or not used at all.

I always tell my students to try this method, on the side, and see if it works for them. If so, great. If not…great.

One exercise I’ve given to students who, it seems to me, might benefit from at least trying this method: On Day One, write 100 words - just burst them out, with very little intention or forethought. Put that page in a corner of your desk and forget about it.

Then, for the next week or so, have your normal writing day but then, at the very end - for another, say, 10 minutes, very lightly, fart around with that 100-word text. Read through it and edit by your gut (for sound, or just…by whatever floats your boat - but trying to honor the impulses that arise quickly and, if you will, “indefensibly”). Put those changes in quickly (still not thinking or planning or trying to “find a story”) and print that out…and put it back in that corner of your desk.

Do this every day for that week. You’re trying to edit to taste, in a new and perhaps more free and playful way. You’re working at the job of having no hopes for this piece (no plan, no intention). You’re mostly just trying to see what strange places your prose might go, by way of a different method.

Then, at the end of that week - see what you’ve got. You might line up the drafts and do some light thinking about the course the piece followed. The main goal here is to put aside whatever normally motivates your edits — you’re really trying to “hear” and then honor those micro-decisions I mentioned above.

Another aspect of my approach is simply to allow that my goal is to compel a reader to keep reading.  And/or to wildly entertain/amaze/outrage/engage that reader.  I see myself, very much, as an entertainer.  I am trying to entertain you by talking about something important and urgent that we have in common.  By the above method, I am trying to find out, for that particular story, what that common thing we share is going to be.  I don’t know at the outset and try not to know – well, ever.  I am trying to design a thrilling roller coaster for you without knowing the exact effect riding it will have on you.  My mind is on the thrill. I know that the story will have an effect, and I know where it will. (Or, anyway, where I hope it will). But I don’t know what that thrill means, exactly. If a story thrills - it will mean something. And whatever it means will be bigger and better than, you know, the “planned thrill.”

My artistic journey included a pivotal moment at which I realized I’d been neglecting/ignoring my desire to be entertaining (by keeping humor out of my work). It was like I’d been fighting for my life in an alley and then looked down and noticed I had one hand behind my back.

So, part of this “method” is just to recognize that, if our aim is to charm our reader, it might occur to us to ask how we go about doing this in real life.  What are our natural gifts? How do we keep a conversational partner engaged?  When a conversation starts to flag, what do we tend to do?  When bored, where does our mind tend to go?  (What do we like to talk about? What fascinates us beyond reason? What lights us up?)

This, unfortunately, is not an investigation we can make just by thinking it through. (We can’t, sadly, just say, “Since I do A in real life, I’ll do that in my prose!”) For me this investigation begins anew with every story, by way of the editing process.  (I am hoping to find a new mode of being charming in every story).

The essence of this method is this: I try to imagine that the reader is as smart and sharp and worldly as I am, and edit accordingly. That is: I try to show respect by way of the intelligence, respectfulness, speed, logic, and efficiency of my prose.

One way we charm a conversational partner is simply by being aware that they are as real as we are; by trusting them and thinking highly of them; by conducting the conversation with respect.

In this way, editing is, really, about having a relationship. With the reader, yes, but also with one’s characters - who also deserve respect, which we give by paying attention to them, in draft after draft, and trying not to override their wishes.

So, this method is not for everyone, but it rests on certain ideas that are, I think, universal – we are all, when reading, reacting to the text.  (That’s what reading is.) 

When we analyze or critique a text, all we have to work with, really, is our (informed) reaction to it.

Likewise, when we’re revising.

So, this can get kind of deep: writing fiction can be a practice of noticing what is really happening (in our sentences, in the fictive reality we are creating, in the (imagined) mind of the reader)…and then reacting to that condition.

And…isn’t that true about every moment?

So, in a way, writing like this can start to feel like a spiritual discipline: we’re training ourselves to observe accurately (and there are volumes to be written about the difficulty of this), then react in a way that makes things better.