M. Darusha Wehm

Science fiction and mainstream books by award-winning author M. Darusha Wehm

author/storyteller/writer

The Craft of Writing

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Grammar counts. Spelling counts. Constructing a well thought-out paragraph complete with coherent sentences counts.

You’d be surprised how many people argue about those points.

In this final instalment of a series about the three aspects of being a fiction creator, I’m going to talk about writing. The craft of writing well.

Oddly, this is the part of the equation which causes many writers and readers to argue. There’s certainly an idea out there that the quality of the story is the most important part. Grammar, formatting, cover art — all those things don’t matter if the story is good enough.

Part of me wants to agree. After all, most people read fiction for enjoyment, for escape. Hardly anyone would read an utterly dull book with perfect grammar, but there are many people who are content to enjoy a rollicking great tale with less than stellar spelling and punctuation.

This is, of course, because of these three different aspects to fiction. Some readers really do only care about the story. And, of course, if you’re a great storyteller, you can always hire or barter for other people to take care of the details. But if I’m serious about creating fiction, then the craft of the medium is an important part of the work. If I were telling stories through film, I ought to have a good working knowledge of the nuts and bolts of filmmaking. If I’m telling the story in written words, I should work on the craft of writing. Just as if I’m seriously trying to get other people to read my work, I have to tend the authorship part of the process.

In many ways, this aspect of the work is the easiest, since it is entirely a skill which can be learned. There are numerous writing courses, books on craft, technical manuals on grammar and punctuation, which can all help people improve their skills in this area. Also, there are technological tools available which help with some parts of this process.

My point with this series is to highlight the many aspects of the serious print fiction creator. It’s not enough to be a perfect grammarian, just as it’s not enough to tell a great tale. To be on top of one’s game all these aspects need to be involved: authorship, storytelling and writing skill.

Tell Me A Story

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I love Henry Rollins. I love his music, his books, his tattoos. But mostly, I love his stories. I’ve seen his spoken word shows live several times and I’m always in awe of his ability to spin a yarn.

The ability to tell a compelling story is the second aspect of being a fiction creator that I want to talk about. To me, this is the part that relies most on innate talent and less on skill. Some people are just great storytellers.

Unlike authorship or good writing technique, it’s hard to teach storytelling. Sure, there are formulae, tropes and structures which help move a story along. And there’s always the tried and true method of just bringing in a man with a gun*. But the really great stories don’t come from a paint-by-numbers kind of process. They are built from an alchemical combination of the author’s experience, imagination and creative prowess.

I do think that we can become better storytellers by coming into contact with more better stories. Watching great films and tv, reading widely, delving into memoir, playing narrative-driven games — all these aspects of storytelling can expose us to different kinds of stories, different takes on those X number of basic plots that are the basis for all tales.

* This is not to imply in any way that Raymond Chandler is anything less than a brilliant storyteller. Seriously. Go read some Chandler. Everything else can wait.

This post is the second in a series about the three aspects of being a fiction creator: Author, Storyteller and Writer.

 

What Does It Mean To Be An Author

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I came across a list by Terence Blacker, designed to elicit whether you are really, truly an author? There’s a lot of gold in that list, and I agreed with many of the items (disagreed with a few, too).

It got me thinking about the three aspects of being a fiction creator which I’ve been meaning to talk about anyway. I think the triad is, in alphabetical order:

  1. Author
  2. Storyteller
  3. Writer

I think they are three very different aspects to the craft and require different skills and talents. This post will focus on the first: authorship.

Blacker has some poignant thoughts about authorship, which I’m defining as the professional content creator. His list covers specifically writers, but I’d argue that authorship applies to scriptwriters, playwrights, game designers, et. al.

Blacker’s quiz, in a Jeff Foxworthy “You might be an author if…” style, includes the following ideas which resonated strongly with me:

  • You write a book, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. It turned out not to be the perfect work you once envisaged but, for better or worse, it has reached its destination. If you are lucky enough to be asked to talk about it months later when it is published, you will see it from the outside, almost as if it has been written by a stranger. Your mind is on what you are writing now.
  • You find yourself, rather shamingly being rather sparing when you write letters. You are not being paid. It is not part of your work. Words are your capital.
  • You feel guilty when you are not working. Even on Christmas Day, there is a niggling sense within you that you have something more important to do than drink, laugh and have fun.
  • You are aware that bitterness is the professional and personal enemy of every long-term writer. You have seen it erode the lives of fellow-authors, who brood over past slights and setbacks, and rage at the success of their contemporaries. You have made a mental note not to fall into the same trap.

These concepts tap into the professionalism of authorship, the feeling that the writing is not only fun, compelling or personal, but is in a real sense work. Work the author loves, ideally, but work nonetheless.

The comments to Blacker’s post include a link to more thoughts on being an author by Katie Ward, who points out that “authorliness” also includes the marketing and other adminstrative aspects of being a professional.

The author has an author website to maintain, tweets author tweets, has an author Facebook page, and an author photograph. The author gives author talks, does author interviews, keeps author accounts, files an author tax return, and answers author email.

It seems to me that a lot of the drama that surrounds some of the conversations among fiction writers boils down to a conflation of these three aspects of what we do. A lot of the backlash against the marketing parts of the work comes, I think, from people who aren’t accepting the “author” part of their career.

However, the synthesis of these three parts are what allow someone to have a successful career as a fiction creator.

It’s perfectly fine to write and not to be an author, just as it’s perfectly fine to be a storyteller who doesn’t write. For those of us who do want to synthesize all these parts, I think it’s useful to break down what each aspect does. Particularly since the skills are different and none of us are likely to be equally adept at all parts, it’s good to be able to identify those areas we can work on and focus on increasing those skills.

Call it professional development.