From Quill to Keyboard Page 4
You can do this by checking out the magazines and newspapers that you hope might accept your article for publication, not forgetting to study the advertisements, which are a good guide as to who the readers might be.
Now you are ready to start writing, if you haven’t already. You have sorted out something to say, you have collected material, and developed ideas about an angle. It’s time for the first draft. A draft is a practice attempt and need not be taken too seriously. By that I mean that a draft can be altered, rethought, redesigned and even abandoned if it doesn’t work out. It is not set in stone, it is only words on paper, or on the screen, and it is nothing to be afraid of.
The best way to write a draft is to start somewhere near the beginning with some introductory words (which you will probably discard fairly soon) announcing your subject and what you want to say about it. Then just keep going. Try not to stop. You already have the material in your head as well as in the notes you have made, and all you have to do is get it onto the screen, paper or even dictaphone if that is your preferred method. You should not be worrying about the right words, or the spelling, or whether you have forgotten anything. Aim to get up a momentum, to keep it going, and you will be amazed at how the words tumble out because you have done the preliminary work.
When you’ve gone as far as you can, evaluate what you have done. First, read it critically for content. Check you have said what you wanted to say, said it clearly, included all the points that you think are important, and in the most logical order.
When you are satisfied with the content, read it again for the details. Have you used strong, interesting words? Check the spelling, punctuation and grammar, they matter more than you might think. Is the tone of the piece appropriate for your target readership? Are there unnecessary words, clumsy sentence constructions or waffly passages? Finally, does the piece flow smoothly from beginning to end?
There you are - it’s done!
CREATIVE WRITING COURSES
You have enrolled in a creative writing course, perhaps at a community college or learning centre. You and another fifteen or so people turn up with pens and paper at the ready, eager to learn how to write. The tutor is leaning against a desk at the front of the room where the whiteboards are and he or she greets you cheerfully and hopefully - tutors are just as keen as you are that the course should go well.
The people in the class are all at different levels of skill and experience. A few will have definite goals, most will simply say that they have always wanted to write but haven’t had the time, the opportunity or the encouragement to follow their dreams. They don’t say so, but they would really like the tutor to wave a magic wand over them so that they instantly become writers. That is not going to happen. It is useless to say, as Peter de Vries once said, that “I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.”
There are some assumptions that tutors make about the people in the class. The first is that they can actually read and write passable English. This is not a class for anyone wanting to learn how to spell, or brush up on their grammar and punctuation. It is definitely not the place to learn English as a foreign language. There are excellent classes where they teach those things, but not here.
Another assumption is that people who want to write are people who read. That is, they read books and magazines, newspapers and articles, and they read for pleasure. A writer who doesn’t read is unlikely to be any sort of writer at all, and you will be wasting your time and money enrolling in a writing course.
So, how do you make the most of the opportunity you now have to learn something about writing? Here are some basic suggestions.
Turn up: Classes are designed to take students step by step through the learning process, and each session builds on the one before. If you miss a class, you not only miss the discussions, questions and interactions that have taken place but you don’t know what assignment has been suggested for trying at home.
Obviously if you are sick, or someone at home needs you, it can’t be helped, but please don’t be like the woman who appeared for the first session of one of my classes, and thereafter used to ring me every Sunday night saying that she couldn’t be there tomorrow but could she have the notes please? Be advised: there are no notes covering two hours of class time.
Do the assignments: Writing is supposed to be fun, liberating, exciting, inspiring, fulfilling, challenging (insert whatever comes to mind). Writing is also hard work, frustrating, financially unrewarding and hair-tuggingly infuriating.
Writing also has to be done. Tutors set assignments, either to be completed in class or done at home, so that you can practise what they preach. They are designed to stretch you, interest you, sort out what kind of writing you want to do, and above all help you to learn the craft. Doing the assignments does not mean arriving at 6.57 pm and spending the three minutes before the session starts in scrawling a few ill-considered and insultingly careless lines.
Nor does it impress anyone to smile winningly and say that you meant to do it but you couldn’t find the time. You will never be a writer if you can’t find the time.
Be open to suggestions: A good writing class will be challenging. There will be surprises, digressions, clashes of opinion and personalities. There will be points of view expressed that may seem preposterous, and exercises and assignments that don’t appeal to you. Remember that there are other people in the class and tutors must somehow ensure that every one of them will derive some benefit from the course.
A rugby-mad farmer, who wants to write reports of club games for the local throw-away newspaper and doesn’t want to write stories or anything fancy like that, might be outraged at being asked to look around the room and write about something insignificant that he can see. Who wants to read about a doorknob anyway, he will say.
But writing involves observation and imagination among other things, and a writer need never run out of subjects because they are all around us. A lively report of a rugby game should include more than a bald account of fifteen muddy men romping around a paddock with a ball.
Some people bridle at the idea of writing about themselves or their families. Their lives aren’t interesting, they say. But once they try it, writing about themselves gives most people great pleasure. A grandmotherly woman with her glasses on a pearly loop around her neck is a pleasure to have in a class because she almost certainly wants to write about her life for her grandchildren, or perhaps she has researched her family history and has been collecting material for years. She is enthusiastic, and the difficulty may be to curb long-winded recitals of family trees, historical anecdotes and happy discoveries.
The point is, attending a creative writing class gives you the chance to try different genres, even ones that you haven’t thought worth considering. Maybe poetry will be a revelation. Letters to the editor might get you going. You might be a whizz at household budgeting so perhaps you can pass on your expertise in an article or even a book.
Enthusiasm, coupled with persistence, gets more writing done than the latest computer, the perfect time and place, and especially inspiration. Follow the example of that industrious writer Somerset Maugham, who said that he arranged to be inspired every morning at nine sharp.
Trust the tutor: Tutors are there to guide proceedings and to respond to the needs and wishes of those attending. They are writers who know things that you may not know, and they give good advice based on experience. At least give them a chance to pass on that knowledge.
They might suggest that you reread and revise your work. People who reply that they write from the heart, the words just flow and they can’t bear to change a thing, might reflect that no
t even Shakespeare could write perfect prose or poetry straight off. Words written down in a steady or heady stream almost always need sorting out and refining, if only to get rid of the clichés and other detritus.
Tutors might also point out that there is no such thing as writer’s block. That this is an excuse for not writing. That it is almost as ridiculous as saying that you have been struck dumb. You can always scribble some words down. The difficulty is only in the quality of those words, and quality can be improved. Once you have some words down, you have broken the ice and you can continue. If you can’t continue, you probably don’t want to, and if you would rather do something else, why are you in a writing class?
Get a dictionary, and a thesaurus: A young man in class was writing about something that he badly wanted to get off his chest. That gave him motivation, but his scripts were almost unreadable. He used words because he liked the sound of them but had little idea what they meant. He was like Humpty Dumpty, who said “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less”. No writer, even an experienced one, can afford to do without a dictionary, for checking spelling and for the meaning of words, even when you think you know.