Thursday, February 9, 2012

Our Inner Apples and Oranges

In a way, I always knew this, but the idea became clearer to me Monday evening as I was walking home from the bus stop and just thinking.

Our stories come from some source of inspiration, and if you're like me, those sources vary depending on the story. I'd like to be able to say that everything I write comes from my heart. And, thankfully, many of my stories do.

But not all of them.

Glancing through the my list of short stories, I see some that were inspired by classroom assignments, some that were inspired by technical ideas like an unusual point of view, even a couple that were built around a title that I came up with.

In many of them, I was able to infuse personal experiences throughout. For others, they feel personally cold to me. (Incidentally, I don't believe that the stories that feel cold to me will feel cold to others. And I know that the stories that are deeply personal to me don't necessarily evoke any sort of emotional attachment from others.)

What I realized Monday night, as I was walking, was that these stories--in my opinion--each require a different skill set. For me, a personal story requires a lot of reflection, courage, and the ability to let words flow without my inner editor getting in the way. A story built around a title is more intellectually demanding for me. I tend to focus more on plot points and relevance. It is a more controlled effort and almost like a puzzle.

So, given that different stories come from different sources, I guess what I want to say is that we can't expect each one to be equally successful. I may have developed my skills in reflection, but I'm less good at solving puzzles. Or vice versa. Each type of story has its own learning curve associated with it.

I guess I feel like this is relevant because of the stories I've been reading for the anthology. Truly, I'm greatly impressed by so many of them, and it only reminds me of how bad I personally am at working from a prompt.

Last weekend, during my writer's group, a woman read a new short story that was very fast paced and distant, while still packing an emotional punch. She got a lot of compliments, and soon she asked if this approach was better than the approach she uses in her current novel in progress. What we ended up telling her was that it was like comparing apples and oranges. Both her short story and her novel were good, but they were different. To use similar approaches for them would mess up at least one if not both.

It wasn't a satisfying answer.

But what I hope came across was that writing an unusually strong story or an unusually weak story shouldn't be taken as a general assessment of one's skill as a writer. Each story has its own internal workings and requires its own set of skills.

14 comments:

  1. I agree with you. Even in a series, each work must be able to stand on its own. Granted in a series there does have to be a greater cohesiveness to style and canon, but there can also be significant variations as a series progresses.

    It is worthy to note that I am currently 250 pages into Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) and loving every word of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rick,
    I haven't read much of the HP series, but from what I've seen I think Rowling's writing changed a lot. I always like her dark side in all the books, but it seems like her writing gets more powerful later on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everything I write is pretty much separate from everything else I write. I don't have "a style" or "a voice." I try to find the rules for whatever I'm working on at the time. That's one of the big reasons I don't save deleted scenes and passages from novels to use later in different projects; they're completely useless for any book other than the one they were written for.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Scott, I have been doing the same thing with the rules. Did I steal that from you? Or from Bjork?

      Delete
  4. The more I write, the more I see how true it is that it really is like apples and oranges. I go to a completely different place when I write short stories vs. novels. Similarly, for a lot of short stories, I like to use prompts. I had no idea I worked so well with them until a few years ago. Now I like them a lot, but I don't rely on them. Whatever works!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really don't enjoy writing from prompts. They sort of irritate me. My initial response is always, "No, I'm not going to do that." Because I'm basically a jerk.

      Delete
    2. I used to feel the exact same way. Then I started writing from prompts and I really liked what happened. Go figure.

      Delete
    3. Michelle, you do seem to really shine with prompts! :)

      Delete
  5. I like writing short works from a prompt because it works like a seed crystal that all my ideas floating around can adhere to and grow. But maybe that's because most of my best ideas are for novels.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jabez, I always need that "seed crystal" to get started. Otherwise, I end up writing myself in circles.

      Delete
  6. I run into that CONSTANTLY, especially for novels. When I write a short, it's punchy and, well, short. But when I write the novel, I have to tone down the pace, flesh out the characters more, and tell the story from a little different angle. I might write the same scene two or three times, from different angles, in order to see if I prefer telling or showing, moving fast or slow, being precise or vague, and so forth.

    But once I have that approach, it's sort of like finally seeing the landing beam on a moving aircraft carrier. I can see the ending, the beginning, the middle and everything else, and at that point, it's just a matter of writing it out.

    - Eric

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eric, Seeing the landing beam is a great feeling. My WIP is at about 60K words, and I don't yet see that darn landing beam!

      Delete
  7. Thanks for tackling this subject Domey. Even when I write really diverse stories or essays, I can hear my voice somewhere in there. It works for everything except technical writing. My inspiration come from all over the place, but the fact that it channels through me is what I think of as my familiar voice.

    Stories (as you say), and people (like I say) are similar--they all have their own internal workings and skill sets, and are remarkably unique at the same time.

    ReplyDelete
  8. No, it wasn't the most satisfying answer but it was the correct one!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.