by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
I read Of Mice and Men in high school and was wiped out for a week. I’ve seen the 1939 movie adaptation only once, in college, and I can’t watch it again.
That’s storytelling power. John Steinbeck had it.
So I thought it might be of interest here to share some of his writing advice via an interview in The Paris Review. I’ve added some comments, which is rather cheeky considering Mr. Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize ahead of me. But here goes anyway:
- Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
JSB: I like this. It’s similar to what Ann Lamott counsels in Bird by Bird, i.e., the “one inch frame.” Just face your daily writing, with full attention. If you do this faithfully, at some point you’ll look up and see a full novel. And that’s a very nice feeling.
- Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
JSB: I somewhat agree. I am a planner, and once I get going I want to finish that first draft as rapidly as I can. However, I do edit my previous day’s work. I sharpen it, and it gets me back in flow.
- Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
JSB: I don’t think about readers, plural or singular, when I write. I think about the characters. I think about the market when I nurture and idea. I want a concept that will appeal to sizable slice of folks who have discretionary income to spend on books. But once I’ve put that concept into motion in a novel, I’m involved only with the characters and how they get out of trouble.
- If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
JSB: This is good advice, so long as you’re not doing it a lot. If you do, there’s going to be a much bigger mess at the end than there was at the beginning. If you have too many scenes that are not “working,” the problem may be in the structural foundations or in scene writing itself.
- Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
JSB: I believe “out of drawing” is an art term which means an element that doesn’t fit. “Kill your darlings” is another way to put it. But this advice has always puzzled me. Maybe that scene that’s dear to you is the best one in the book. I think the only test is, Does it work in the story? Does it slow things down? Are you showing off?
JSB Axiom: Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to distress your characters.
- If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
JSB: I prefer to write dialogue and let it flow. When I edit the dialogue, that’s when I might say it out loud, or listen to the text.
So what do you think of this advice, TKZers?
Have you read much Steinbeck? How does he rate with you?
I am a Steinbeck fan, no doubt, beginning, like you, with Lenny and George before moving on to the Joads and their migration, and the Monterey Bay “trilogy” of Sweet Thursday, Tortilla Flat, and the better known Cannery Row (which I had in one volume at one time…).
When I stumbled across Working Days, The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath in the Tech bookstore, (at the time an aspiring architecture student not so focused on calculus), I spent all of what little spending money I had and read it through in about a week or so, and trundled it between dorm rooms and home and eventual apartments before leaving it with Pop, an aspiring novelist himself… Where it ended up in his library, and with whom after his passing is a mystery to this day…
Anyway, it covered everything from character development to self doubt, and sort of presaged the “daily pages” idea of journaling to get the words flowing, as, if I recall correctly, he wrote the journal on the left hand pages and the novel on the right in the notebook(s) he used for the first draft.
As to your first question: Steinbeck’s rules worked for him, as do yours for you… mine are a mix of both – and others – I’m still working through…
Always interesting to me about “self doubt.” I think all writers of consequence had and have it. I believe Mr. King says in his book on writing that writing each day keeps you ahead of the “waves of doubt.” Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe…they all had it, too. Kind of comforting, in a way!
I loved his first piece of advice. I get depressed at the middle of each story worrying about all the writing ahead of me and how to find entertainment for the reader. My last book took me a long time to write and the words weren’t flowing. Then as I got to the final quarter of the book, I kept asking myself, how does this story end? What do I do??? Can you tell I’m a pantser? One morning at 4am, I found the answer to that question. Whew!
I love that pantser response, Alec—”Whew!” We planners also say that when the plan works out!
#2 (Write as freely & rapidly as possible): For the most part this is my approach. I haven’t reached the point where I can edit the previous day’s work (unless it’s some specific detail I remembered afterward that I needed to add). My most fun writing experiences have been when I was in the zone and I was able to just pour out a first draft in about 3-4 months. For me stopping to revise while drafting invites the over-criticism of my own writing instead of just getting it down on paper.
#3 (Forget your generalized audience): I’m too busy thinking about the story idea that intrigued me to worry about the audience.
#4 (if a scene gets the better of you, bypass and go on): This one’s tricky. Sometimes you can’t bypass it because it affects everything you write after that.
#5 (Scenes too dear): My experience has been about 50/50. Sometimes dear scenes are of the ‘kill your darlings’ type, but sometimes you just nail it and these scenes are keepers.
That’s a good point about #4, BK. I’ve found it to be true more often than not because, as you say, what you write in a scene has ripple effects, and a scene that you’ve jumped to may have different ripples!
As an organic writer, I need to see each chapter, printed, when it’s finished. Reading it in on paper, in a totally different environment (in bed) helps ground me in where I’ve been and where I’m going for the next day’s writing session.
Ultimately, I’m writing for myself, because if I don’t like what’s going on, the story comes to a halt, and I doubt my readers will like it, either.
I’ve heard a number of writers say they do that, print out the chapter in hard copy. It does add a whole different perspective. I think I’ll do more of that myself, now that you mention it. Thanks, Terry!
I read Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden in either my teens or my twenties, and I was like you–wiped out. At some point, I saw the Grapes of Wrath movie with Henry Fonda and still hear him in my head.
As for his advice–who am I to question a genius? It worked for him, and I agree with most of it. But I revise each day before I start a new chapter. Often, I do catch myself saying the dialogue as I write it, but since I live alone, no one can think I’m crazy. I wonder if he meant by #6, that we have fallen in love with our flowery words? You know, those that sound writerly and impress us?
The John Ford movie of The Grapes of Wrath is an all time classic. And Henry Fonda should have won the Oscar that year, hands down. I love Jimmy Stewart, but I don’t love The Philadelphia Story.
Like you, I have a much easier time getting into the flow if I edit what I wrote the day before.
I sometime leave a scene in the middle of a line…and pick up the flow the next day.
Like you, I read “Of Mice and Men” in high school. It packed a wallop but I have not wanted to reread it. I saw the movie version of “Grapes of Wrath” with Henry Fonda in the same high school literature class, but haven’t read the novel. I really should read more of his work.
I agree with his rules, except for #6. As with his rule #2 I push ahead without revising until I’m finished. However, so many writers here and elsewhere (Stephen King for instance) do a daily revision (I like your calling it “sharpening”) of at least part of the previous day’s work I’ve thought about really giving that a go with the next novel, but I worry about getting drawn into a full-blown edit. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Yes, that’s the discipline of it, Dale. You simply cannot let yourself linger too long over a previous day’s page. Try it! You’ll like it!
Writing is an education that never ends. Nobody knows everything and there’s always more to learn. That’s why it’s so challenging.
Steinbeck’s books are indeed classics but some of his advice kinda grates on me.
#1 – I agree with tackling a book one page at a time but telling new writers not to worry about finishing can give them the excuse to give up and flit to a new project. You learn a lot by finishing a book even if it never gets published.
#2 – I gotta rewrite as I go. I think Kris calls this “rolling rewrites.” Keep moving ahead but I fix what needs fixing when I think about it. Otherwise, I might forget.
#4 also seems risky and I agree with Jim that if there are a bunch of scenes not working, the whole plot probably needs a restructure.
Writing advice is like a multiple-choice test with dozens of possible right answers. Ya gotta choose answers that work for your brain and style.
Glad to find another writer who has to rewrite as she goes. I can’t move ahead unless I know a scene is closer to what I wanted it to be.
I’m not sure he meant that with #1, Debbie. Maybe he should have edited his remark and taken out “ever.” He was speaking extemporaneously, so I give him a pass.
I love reading other writers on writing. Always pick up something to try. If it doesn’t work for me, I forget about it. OTOH, I might find some gold.
Of course you’re right about Steinbeck’s meaning, Jim. It just made me flash back to early critique groups I was in where writers didn’t understand the discipline needed and lessons one learned from actually finishing a book.
It’s not called a discipline for nothing, is it Debbie!
“JSB Axiom: Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to distress your characters.” Love that.
Like others this morning, I like and agree with most of what Steinbeck said.
#1-My take on that one, with my present WIP, is “abandon the idea it will ever be PUBLISHED, and write the story for yourself.”
However, I’m kind of stuck right now with it, because I know where the MC has to end up, but don’t know how to get her there. 😵💫
Anyone else ever had that problem? And what did you do about it?
Happy Sunday!
Get her to the next signpost. After that, the next, and so on. You can tweak the destination when you get there. It may even be one you didn’t see coming, in which case the old one might be useful as a “twist in the tail.”
We’re having some fun now, eh kids?
🥳🥳🥳
I was waiting for Steinbeck’s advice on what to write with. I think he was the one who used to sharpen a big cup full of Blackwing pencils when he wrote. And when they all needed to be resharpened he stopped and sharpened them again and returned to writing, repeating the process as need be.
Pencils! I’ve read about writers using pens, fountain pens, typewriters. But not pencils. It would make immediate corrections easy, but one might be tempted to be rubbing out too much stuff.
I love reading advice from other writers — especially the very successful ones. As you mentioned, it’s comforting to know that many writers suffer the same issues. Also liked your comments on each of Steinbeck’s statements, Jim.
I especially liked #1. Reminds me of the marathon. Don’t think of running 26.2 miles. It’s too daunting. Just run the next mile. (Btw, writing is much better than marathon-running. You can always go back and fix up a bad scene. Can’t go back and re-run a bad mile.) 🙂
That marathon analogy is so apt, Kay.If I thought about all those pages ahead I’d hyperventilate right there.
I’m with Deb. My takeaway today is James’ line.
“Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to distress your characters.”
Writers who manage this create the books I remember for years.
Right on, Suzanne. 👍
Here’s another Steinbeck observation about writing that I’ve always appreciated. He said that his writing “is as unmanageable as a raw egg on the kitchen floor.”
I think Steinbeck is missing a bet, or at least isn’t being clear, with his “don’t rewrite as you write” bit. If you watch one of those videos where an artist goes from rough sketch to finished piece without a pause, as a single unbroken process, drafting prose fiction can be like that. It has nothing to do with refusing to touch the same sentence twice. It’s about staying in a creative state without plunging into negativity or creative busywork. If you think, “Oh, no! I used an adverb!” you’re way off course.