Planning versus spontaneity

Last week I gave what may be called an introduction to my daughter’s article, ‘On be-coming a writer.’ Today I give the concluding paragraphs.

“There are two kinds of writers.  Some are planners; they will sit down and consciously craft their story. They will create characters based on people they have known, and situations out of their memories. They construct well-thought out beginnings, middles and ends, a balanced structure, build up to a climax, and taper off into a good and quick resolution. That is how many are taught in school, and in creative writing classes.

“The other kind of writer does none of this. Some writers simply sit down and let the story flow out of them. Before starting they have no idea, what their story is going to be about, or who their characters are; every new character is as much a surprise to them as it is to the reader. For a long time, this second method was frowned upon by teachers of the craft and other experts as too unmethodical, too sloppy.

“Yet there is a method to this second way, and this method is called trust. Writers of this second group – and I am one of them – start off with the knowledge that a story is there, inside them, ready formed as it were. They see their role less as actually crafting the story, as of allowing it to come out; the less they interfere, they feel, the better. When writing, they enter into what some call a “flow,” or a “zone,” a state where conscious thinking and the entire world is switched off, and only the story is there, alive, pouring out so vividly as if the writer were personally living it, Writing of this kind has a spark. “Done well, there’s nothing at all sloppy about this method – if it can be called a method. It requires an extraordinary discipline: the discipline of a silent mind. To the degree that such a writer can silence the inner chatter that occupies his or her brain, to that extent he or she can tell the stories nagging deep inside, and tell them well. This kind of storytelling is in fact more of a discovery.

“Most often, that which first comes out is, though rich in feeling, indeed sloppy and uncoordinated, and that’s probably why this way of spontaneous writing is frowned upon in schools. Yet it’s the way children naturally tell stories, and it should be fostered; because if it is not the excitement of storytelling withers and dies. Yet the story is not over. That’s just the beginning!

“There are writers who do this and then insist that “no comma of their work” should ever be moved, because it’s their creation and has to stand exactly the way they wrote it.

No. nothing could be further from the truth!

That wonderful story, delivered by the heart in all its uncontrolled glory, is only the raw product, the uncut diamond. Now the real work begins.

“That diamond in the rough has to be taken in hand and moulded into shape. This is where all the techniques of good writing we learned in school come into play.

In this phase, the emotional, inner voice we listened to in the first draft needs to be silent, and now the critical, analytical part of us sets to work. The rules of analysis are important in order to produce an excellent, rounded off piece of work, but we must never confuse the rules of analysis with the rules of creation.

“Storytelling comes from the heart, and cannot be taught. It’s a natural talent; I suspect we are all born with it, but very few of us actually foster it, and often it is actively crushed in favour of the conscious crafting of a story, which can be taught, and must be learnt by the serious writer. A good writer uses both heart and mind, each working together in harmony, each in its own time: the heart creates, and the mind rearranges and polishes until the story is perfect.

“My last novel took two months to write; to get the actual story down on paper. It took a further ten months to mould into shape. And because words and their arrangement can never ever equal the vision of the story, I am still not satisfied. The writer must ever be a learner, striving for a perfection that can never come.”