In a recent piece
for The Author (the Society of Author's quarterly magazine) Terence Blacker
asked 'what makes an author?' and then listed what he sees as the criteria for
'authorliness'. While I agree with a
great deal of what he said (it's a great
piece - read it here: Terenceblacker.com ) I wasn't sure how I felt about this item in the list:
-
You never, if you write fiction, talk about your work in progress. You learn
quite early that, once the steam is let out of a story through talk, it can
never be recovered. When a would-be writer tells you every turn of the novel
they are planning, you know they will never write it.
Is this absolutely
true, I wonder? Over the years, I have found talking about my work to be quite
useful. In fact, I encourage my students to talk about their work, too, and one
of the most popular sessions, both with undergrads and with community evening
class students, is the one where everyone outlines their plot (it may be a short story or a novel) to
the group and we brainstorm the possibilities for development. This works particularly well with short
stories where the student may have come up with a striking image or an interesting character but is unsure where to go next. The very act of talking through the ideas with
other writers often sparks possibilities that person may not have thought of if s/he had been all alone with a blank screen or notebook.
I have one friend in
particular who I thrash out ideas with. She and I use each other as sounding
boards and we both find it helps enormously to discuss any problems we encounter in our novels. It's not necessarily
that either of us will come up with a solution - although that does sometimes
happen - it's more that by discussing the work in detail, we're often able
to help each other to pin down and develop the ghost of an idea that's been swirling
around in our heads along with hundreds of others.
We authors are often so close to our own work that we may not see a solution that's staring us
in the face, whereas another writer can spot it instantly. Also, someone who is used to the exploring the world of fiction themselves may be able to help us
to see aspects of our own stories that we're too close to notice, and this can help us to see the whole thing in a different light.
My friend
and I recently said that instead of just phoning each other to talk through
difficulties with our work as they arise, perhaps we should plan a regular
fortnightly session where we can chat about our novels on a regular basis, a
sort of therapy session in which we can pour out our frustrations as well as
possibly finding new directions for our work.
What I'm not sure about, is whether it's a good idea to discuss your work-in-progress with
non-writing friends. This is not because I'm worried that by outlining the story I'm
going to somehow 'let the steam out', but because non-writers are less likely
to understand what you're trying to do with a particular piece and may
come up with suggestions that are so far removed from what you had in
mind that you end up saying, 'no, I don't think that'll work' so many times
that your friend gets upset and stalks off in a huff.
On further reflection, I suppose Terence
Blacker's comment: 'When a would-be writer tells you every turn of the novel
they are planning, you know they will never write it.' May carry some weight.
First, he's talking about a 'would-be writer' rather than a writer, and as we all
know, there are many would-be writers who never get around to actually writing anything at all. Also, maybe talking about 'every turn' of a novel is not such a good idea - maybe that would
make it lose its steam. Although I'm not sure it's even possible to discuss 'every
turn' of a novel.
So for me,
discussing my work-in-progress is not a problem - I've never had that
experience of losing steam, of having 'talked it out'. Showing it to anyone else when it's still at
an early stage can be a problem, but that's a whole different blog post!
So I'm really
interested to know what you think. Has it ever happened to you that you've
talked about your story in such depth that you no longer felt able to write it?
Or do you find discussing your work in progress a useful part of your writing
life?
For more about me and my work, visit
www.susanelliotwright.co.uk
