We want our readers to get emotional. As writers of fiction, our greatest desire is for our readers to care, to feel devastated when our protagonist is shipwrecked, then when rescued, elated.
Far be it from me to criticise Charles Bukowski, (I would never!) but I do have thoughts on one of his (admittedly posthumously published) most famous poems.
In ‘so you want to be a writer?’ Bukowski commands, ‘if it doesn’t come bursting out of you… don’t do it.’
I hate seeing my students fall victim to this myth of inspiration, and many of them do, the idea that real writing is always on fire, that it must erupt, in an uncontainable geyser of emotion, in order to make a reader feel.
What is Inspiration, Anyway?
Of course, writing is inspired. Obviously, inspiration is a part of the writing process. Of course… Of course… But, sometimes, being gripped by the muse, feeling that uncontrollable passion, having our writing spew forth unbidden, produces overwrought, melodramatic cliche. When you’re in the flow, you can’t always tell.
In his (brilliant) memoir, A Moveable Feast, Hemingway relays an experience of writing that feels good, but then qualifies that he’ll only be able to tell if what he’s written is actually any good when he comes to read it over, the following day.
Bukowski was a fan of Hemingway’s.
It is in Arnold Samuelson’s memoir that Hemingway is quoted as saying, ‘Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing… You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit.’ Then also: ‘…the reader gets the kick and you don’t get any. You just get hard work…’
Because, you see, writing is a craft as well as an art, inspiration is not the only indicator of integrity, and the rigour of technique is how we show respect both to our readers and to our own passion.
Writing Prompt
To test my assertion that technique in writing is vital to the art of making a reader feel, try the following exercise: (Yesterday being Halloween,) your protagonist is a confident teen who, (unlike many,) feels no need to prove themself, and when they are challenged to spend the night in an abandoned and dangerously dilapidated ‘haunted’ house, they are comfortable refusing. They keep being dared. They consistently dismiss. Your protagonist should refuse in multiple ways, then later, resist again, and later again. That repetition is important. Think about dialogue, the way teenagers actually talk. At some point in amongst these scenes, have your protagonist warn their younger sibling, under no circumstances, to visit the ‘haunted’ house, so when the sibling disobeys, what does your protagonist do? Do they go to the condemned building? What do they find there?
OR
Your protagonist recently lost their mother, whom they hated, and has no intention of attending the funeral. Have them express this decision several times, to numerous people. Again, that repetition is key. But then your protagonist discovers their estranged half-sibling will be at the service. How does this change things?
Once you’ve completed the exercise of your choice, when reading it back, ask yourself whether tension is building, and if that reader experience would be the same had you started the premise already at the funeral, or already in the condemned house. The choices you make as a writer matter, as much as any lightning strike.
Please don’t misinterpret this post for a lack of appreciation of Bukowski. He’s a wonderful writer; I just don’t think his talent stems from some intangible, external muse. Like Hemingway, he was brutally honest in his depictions of human nature. He did not shy away from his own misanthropy in Post Office, or his childhood trauma in Ham on Rye. So, think about that when you’re next feeling stymied as a writer, feeling uninspired. You are unique, because all people are, making your observations and experiences singular also. Are you, like Hemingway, like Bukowski, brave enough to shape the things that make you, you, unfiltered, into stories?
Does scraping this post in at five to midnight count as posting it on the 1st? I hope so! And I will post another writing prompt on 1st December.
