On Length
I’ve been surprised by how many beginning writers have a strange notion that whatever they’re writing—say, a chapter or short memoir or essay—must be certain length—say, twenty pages—and get tied in knots when their writing doesn’t conform. Ironically, everyone’s assumptions about the proper length for a piece are different. Where do these ideas come from? And why? I suspect these assumptions have their origins in twelve-plus years of schooling, during which every bit of writing comes with page expectations. Our five-paragraph themes had to be three pages long. Our college essays had to present our response to certain texts within twelve pages. When I taught creative writing at a seminary a few years ago, I was amazed at how many times my students asked me how long their assignments had to be. “As long as they need to be,” I answered repeatedly. In the freewheeling world of creative adulthood, guidelines…
Authorship
Here’s an observation to chew on: A few times in my career as a writing instructor, I’ve coached retired therapists in writing their memoirs. These are people who have worked with their personal stories over decades; they’ve had extensive experience in therapy and have continued to explore their stories through supervision groups and continuing education. And yet, when they sit down to pen their life experiences, they’re shocked. They remember details that have never before emerged. They pair memories in surprising ways, revealing new perspectives on events. They discover recurring themes that bring unity to their story they never knew existed. This phenomenon is not unique to therapists. Many authors who have done extensive therapy or told their stories multiple times in twelve-step groups make the same observation: writing an experience down changes us in different ways than telling it aloud. Why? Here’s my theory. When keep our stories to…
Removing What’s Not Story
I’ve just cut fifty pages from a polished, 400-page draft—that’s one-eighth of what I’d considered a completed book. What was in those pages? A few scenes that slowed down the plot, a lot of unnecessary dialogue, whole paragraphs of exposition, and hundreds of extraneous words extracted from too-long sentences. Everything I cut was not my story. As it’s very possible there are remnants of not-story remaining, I still have some final combing to do. And I’ve no doubt my agent and eventual editor will cut even more. I began working on this novel in 2005, and I am humbled by how much of the volume of what I’ve written has not been my story. Perhaps other writers are more efficient and economical; perhaps others have the capacity to anticipate the essence of an emergent story, or focus their work during the initial drafting, or otherwise find shortcuts that don’t shortchange…