How Some Of Us Write
By Mary D'Arcy
`I’ve never sat down and said to myself – “Now I’m going to write a poem!” wrote James Stephens, the Irish poet. `It really happened the other way about, and I had very little to say in the matter.`
The paragraph above is taken from The Dream Mind by author of Alfie, the late Bill Naughton who goes on to say `What is spoken of as the `imagination` or `creativity` affirms the flair of certain persons to receive intimations from the Superconscious – the artist having the aptitude, skills, and volition to express them.
Naughton’s practice of starting writing almost on waking up made him more aware than most people of this `imaginational agency` that operates in dreaming. `Vestiges of it` he says, `can often be felt during the immediate post-sleep period, when problems that baffled one are unexpectedly solved, and the writing flows without hesitancy or much thought, asking for no more than a certain form of concentration.`
I quote Bill Naughton, not least because I was winner in 08 of the Naughton Short Story Competition but because this section of The Dream Mind has to do with the one thing every writer starting out – and even established writers – are most likely to fret over: being blocked.
Being blocked is the reason we call on others for help, the reason we scour the libraries and shops for Craft of Writing books, the reason we attend workshops, and talk to other writers. I found much to recommend Dream Mind, especially Chapter 19 Writing and Dreaming for I have long since suspected that to grab a pen immediately upon waking and jot down errant thought gleaned during sleep was the way to unleash creativity.
To quote Naughton: `Once those billions of cells become excited that is the time to be writing: never say, `I’ll remember that and write it down later`, the active synapse must be caught on the move or the freshness is lost.`
Naughton has put on paper something many writers instinctively know but never thought to express. Writing upon waking is something I now practise. `Because of my age I allow myself to be didactic,` I muttered to myself some time in 06 upon waking towards dawn. `And few contradict me,` I added, as I left the bed and padded across to the bathroom. Before I’d pushed open the bathroom door I came back for a pen, and with appalling disrespect scribbled that sentence on the back blank page of a Dick Francis novel, my jotter being nowhere in evidence (it was undoubtedly on the floor between bed and wall but I didn’t want to waste precious moments getting down on all fours and scrabbling about – the sentence was in danger of being lost).
And so Because of my age I allow myself to be didactic, and few contradict me became the opening to a 4,500 word story which would later take me on a journey.
Among other things, it was shortlisted for the Stella Artois Pitching Awards. I was invited to make my pitch at the Galway Film Fleadh in summer 07 and it was here I met the much respected Jimmy Murakami, veteran of animation, Director of The Snowman, When the Wind Blows to name but a few.
Although I didn’t win the Pitching Award, Mr Murakami read my story, suggested changes, found a production company to develop it. In the meantime he and I became friends and worked together on a number of projects. His advice for script/novel/short story writers: `Don’t set out to write a masterpiece, or even something `good`. Just get the story out. The story is what counts. Later you edit.`
It is the advice of tutors, literary agents, editors, filmmakers, established writers everywhere: let the writing flow, get to the end of the story. Somehow. Anyhow. Bash it all out no matter what the style. Story. Just story.
If you stop to fret over technique, voice, and style and so on, then that monkey on every writer’s shoulder – Self Doubt – is sure to set in. So don’t for heaven’s sake go over and over a certain piece (opening, climax, a sentence, a paragraph), looking for perfection. If you’re thinking Booker Prize, masterpiece, impressing the eds, you will never get to the end of your story. Scribble it, wallop it out, bash it down. There’s your first draft.
By the time you get to draft number three your `piece` should be reasonably presentable.
Edit and re-edit, and you will know when you start to tingle you’ve got it exactly right.
Writing an outline – even for a short story – is important. To engage a reader start, if possible, in the middle of conflict or at the point where the protagonist’s frame of reference is about to change forever. Move on for as long as possible in linear fashion so we can get to know your protagonist/narrator. Later you can allow him/her to look back and reflect. Flashbacks, in the view of Mr Murakami, take you out of the reading experience by slowing the story down, and are best avoided although not every editor would agree with that. Keep them as lean and spare as possible, let them segue into the story and out again. Seamless is the key word.
Your characters can and must be larger than life. They must compel but at the same time must be believable. If their voice is natural/real they come to life. Without strong characters your story is just a string of events, empty, vapid. So let your characters off the leash, allow them to do the unexpected, let them surprise and shock you, have them look at the world in different ways. We want to know them, fall in love with them, care about and root for them.
Finally, wage war against adverbs and even adjectives. Use them sparingly. Turn your back on clichés and never indulge in sentimentality.
Which do you think has more impact? `Dead? Terence?` Angela screamed on hearing the news, bawled her eyes out, tears came tumbling down her cheeks`. Or: `Dead? Terence?` Angela turned her face away. She was dry-eyed, disbelieving.
More effective, isn’t it, understating? Best never to raise your voice when trying to make a point. Think Alan Bennett, the emotion in his work which at the same time is entirely devoid of sentimentality. In the words of Michael Palin `As (Bennett) scrutinises the small print of everyday life…he does what only the best writers can do – makes us look at ourselves in a way we’ve never done before.`
I could expand on all this, talk for an hour about opening hooks, cliff hangers at the end of every chapter, tension and how to built it, sentimentality and how to avoid it, but it’s 7:10 am, snatches of my dreams continue to drift in and out of my consciousness. And I want to grab them, for I’m half way through a novel myself, wondering will I ever write those two words beloved of all writers The End, and at the same time thinking that nobody is going to mind if I snuggle down beneath the duvet and snatch another forty winks.
Keep writing, that’s my advice. Never let rejection get you down.
Do a Stephen King and get up after every knockout blow. If you have courage, doggedness, and just a little talent, then next time you will make it.
If it happened to me, it can happen to you.
About the author:
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Mary D’Arcy is a native of Athlone, living in Belfast. She is a short fiction writer, who began writing comic poems in the 1980s. Her short story, Knuckling Under, won the Molly Keane Memorial Creative Writing Award 2009. Her novel, Tale of Hoffman, was shortlisted for the Sitric `Win a Book Deal` 2004; she was also shortlisted for the Brian Moore Awards 2006, the Fish Prize 2009 & the Stella Artois Pitching Awards 2007. She came second in the Mace & Jones Awards (Liverpool) 2008, third in the Maria Edgeworth Festival 2008, and won the Bill Naughton Short Story Competition 2008. Her work has appeared in several newspapers and magazines and has been broadcast on RTÉ and BBC NI. Her screenplay, Way To Go, has been shortlisted for Waterford Film Festival 2009. She is currently collaborating with Jimmy T. Murakami, the filmmaker and veteran of animation, on a work to be animated for the children’s market. Mary has been commissioned by the BBC with a story In What I Failed To Do for Radio 7. |
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