~ ~ scribbling inside the lines
[Lesson from a writer's conference for everyone--read on.]
Attending a writers conference in Black Mountain, North Carolina, this week, a woman stopped by my famous authors table outside the Clouds coffee corner to ask a question. Her face announced the anguish she'd been suffering leading her to seek me out for my opinion. (I prefer "opinion" over "advice" as it levies less responsibility on my response--even if the inquirer acts in accordance with my "opinion.")
On Monday morning I had delivered a fully-caffeinated, double shot, one-hour dose of my Recapturing Your Creative Spirit presentation to the entire conference. She wanted to ricochet off of the now famous "nine dot" children's puzzle that gave the world "thinking outside the box."
"How,' she asked, "do you think outside the box and still write within the guidelines a particular literary genre?"
"Which genre?" says I.
"Hmm" her anguish dissolving to curious contemplation. "Good question."
She had attended a workshop early that day that dealt with the genre of one of her current writing projects. I sensed that some of the prescriptive she heard from the workshop leader were potentially restrictive to her writing style.
"What you will get, in any workshop will be the industry rules or correct usage -- SO FAR!
THey are not evil or saintly, they are what has been assessed as the normative guidelines for this style or category of literary art, to date. IT'S ALL MADE UP. Some of it, particularly with books sold in Christian book barns, are guidelines design to not p---off any customers so they (publishers) can sell as many books as possible. This is not just to appeal to lowest common denominator, but the most sensitive, conservative reader. Sure they may be watching the steamiest of soap opera by day, but in the evening they sit next to a 40 watt, pink light bulb, in a comfy chair, sipping warm (skim) milk and read romance novels from which the steam has been drained."
That's all fine. That's a genre and in recent years it has become an ever-widening section in most church-related retail outlets and ever Target and Wally-World.
"You found the guidelines restrictive?"
"Yeah."
"Ignore them. Completely. Write the book you want to write. Re-write it, edit it, add, subtract, copy, paste, drag, unt drrrrop. Write the absolure best book you can. Then improve it with a jar of book polish. When you get it full buffed and shined. LEt some friends, and even strangers, read your manuscript. Listen to all their reactions. If it works for readers, dig out you workshop notes. Set those genre guidelines next to you book. Compare and contrast. If you can make adjustments to your manuscript that compromises neither you story nor you artistic sensibility, adjust away.
"Consider, too, ignoring a guideline or three. All them rules was invented along the way. Genre and their rules and guidelines evolve over time. Maybe you book has found the "tenth dot", so to speak, that will change those guidelines. Maybe not.
"For now, you have to write your book, your way."
As guest lecturer at various grad schools from Pasadena to Virginia Beach, I tell students, "Don't order off the menu." It's your forty thousand dollars a year they're taking, you tell them what courses you want to take that will add up to the Masters degree you want. The current catalogue gives the schools best description so far of a MA/MFA in your field. Grad students are inventing new degrees all the time by crafting a course of study and practical experience that suit their goals.
Writing a book, putting paint on canvas, remodeling a house, selecting "formal wear" for the prom should be, must be as individual asking for no onions in my Alaskan Scrambler at my favorite breakfast spot, Rockridge Cafe, in Oakland, California.
If the cook were to tell me, "Alaskan Scrambler comes with onions." I'd have to say, "Not mine."
Guideline breaking, genre busting--rule breaking--may be a risky enterprise if your goal is to get published. But you most assuredly need to start by writing your book, your way. The value of creating great literary works is in the creating. Publishing is another step, and may include a smart editor collaborating to make you book better.
Sitting in the offices of Harper & Row, San Francisco--in 1982--i watched as my soon-to-be-editor read, and chuckled, and laughed aloud all the way through my manuscript. An hour later he said. "I want to do this book. I love your illustrations, too. Do you have any ideas for the look of the book, the design?"
"Just like that."
"Well," he said in a voice I call substitute-teacher-Hillary (as he was about to explain life to my ignorant mind), "We don't do hand printed text."
"Maybe not so far you haven't." I said.
"No. No one publishes books with the text hand printed - - - except comic books."
"Well, why don't you be the first."
I didn't drop the issue easily or soon. Even after signing that first book contract I continued to turn in new pages that were hand printed, every one.
When they raised the issue again, as we neared completion of the not-very-fun editing process, I dug in further.
"This is a very different sort of book. Everyone hear has said that." I reminded them. "It needs an new and different look to visually announce to anyone you have pick up something new."
I lost that genre challenge.
Fast forward several years, enter, a new author with a new, one word, all caps name - - "SARK." (www.planetsark.com) For nearly a dozen years she created a book-a-year on discovering and living your most vibrant and creative life. From her first colorful and magical A Creative Companion through the rollicking and epic Make Your Creative Dreams Real, SARK's hand-written words have changed lives and challenged literary certainties. Add to SARK's vast oeuvre, the devastatingly brilliant Griffin and Sabin books by Nick Bantock (www.nickbantock.com) and you can hear the cracks in the literary world crumbling down around us.
Rule breaking is also good for the soul. Along the road to developing the guidelines for any literary genre, artistic medium, architecture, cooking, fashion, teaching, or any area of life to which we have affixed rules, and standards, these have been challenged, changed, disputed, and dropped.
Maybe it's your turn to turn the genre around. (Or in a slightly different direction.)
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