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Genius
and the Craftsman
Many
people admire writers for their exquisite stories, but few
of them know with what painstaking efforts writers work to
bring a story into the world. The following essay discusses
the process of conceiving a story and developing it into a
perfect work of art.
Once on the edge of a woods at twilight I came
upon a small peach tree in flower. I stayed there watching
until the light was gone. I saw nothing of the tree's origin,
nothing of the might which had forced open a pit you could
break your teeth on, and nothing of the principle which held
it separate from the oaks and the grasses. All that appeared
to me was a profound and eerie grace.
So
it is with the reader
who comes upon an outstanding story: spellbound, he takes
it to his heart, no question asked.
But even the beginning writer
knows there
is more to a story's life than the body of words which carries
it into the world, and that it
does not begin with writing, but with conception in the dark
of the mind.
It is not necessary to understand the creative
function in order to produce original work. Centuries of art,
philosophy and science have emerged from the minds of people
who may not even have suspected the inner process. It seems
to me, however, that at least a degree of understanding of
the creative event increases our wisdom in dealing with the
emerging story by making us aware of two things.
First, genius
is not the exclusive property
of the master craftsman; it is the creative function of
the human mind. There is no mastery without it, and there
is no person without it, however undeveloped
it may be.Mastery
is genius afoot. It is genius cultivated, developed,
and exercised. Your genius works at the level of origins;
its business is to create; it is the creator of your story.
Second, the body of words
that carries your story into the world is the work of the
craftsman's labor, which is as conscious, as canny, and as
practical as that of the bricklayer. While
genius is a natural part of our mental
equipment, like perception, memory, and imagination,
craftsmanship is not. It must be learned. It is learned
by practice, and by practice it is mastered.
If the stories that rise within
us are to emerge and flourish, each must be provided with
a strong, handsome body of words, and only sound
craftsmanship can provide this.
How is a story conceived? It is said that
we write from the first twenty years of our lives, perhaps
from the first five; it
may depend on the individual, as so much does in writing.
In any case, the lucid impressions of childhood and early
youth, more or less unconditioned, unexplained, unchecked,
lie in the memory, live and timeless. Enigma, wonder, fear,
rapture, grandeur, and trivia in every degree and combination,
these early impressions throb and wait for what? Completion
of some kind? For recognition of their own peculiar truth?
It would seem their wounds want lancing; their secret knowledge
wants telling; the discoveries would be shared, and woes admitted,
and the airy
tracery of beauty given form.
Thus
variously laden we move through life, and
now and then an experience, often
slight, prizes the memory
and seizes upon one of those live, expectant impressions of
long age, and a
takes place.
This happens to everyone and more often than
is known. But there are times when it happens to the creative
writer and causes him to catch his breath because he knows
that the seed of a story has quickened and has begun a life
of its own.
Like any seed, the seed of a story has its
own principle of growth which employs a process of intelligent
selection, drawing from the unconscious mind's vast treasury
of experience that it needs to fulfill its inherent form:
there come together people and their ways, with weather and
times and places, and the souls of things. In short, there
is produced a world, complete with stars and stumbling blocks.
Thus "made in secret and curiously wrought
in the lowest parts of the earth," the story expands and rises,
unhurried, until at last it presents itself to the conscious
mind. Here at the threshold, vibrant with expectation, it
awaits its body of words.
Genius, the creative function, has done its
work. And only now does the craftsman, the deliverer, begin
his.
A story rarely, if ever, presents itself as
a whole. Robert Frost said that he never knew where a poem
was going when he began it. Until I am almost upon it in a
first draft, I do not know a story's end, or even its point;
and there are times when only after two, three or more drafts
will the story come clearly into focus.
Years ago in the early dawn of an October
morning, I watched the tiny
cut its brief arc across the sky. Sometime later, a story
I knew to be gathering and rising presented itself: An old
man who had spent a lonely life in the depth of the city retired
to a house on a cove near the sea. Overwhelmed by the beauty
of the cove and the kindness of his neighbors, he began to
know the desperation of those whose lives are almost over,
and who, for one reason or another, have never given, or even
shared, anything.
Knowing only this, I moved swiftly into the
first draft and wrote: "The people of Pomeroy's Cove gave
Mr. Paradee the sky. They gave it all to him, from dawn to
dawn with thunderheads and flights of geese and the red moon
rising."
What was I doing? I wrote of a curious gift:
there were more curious gifts to come. I moved into the sky;
later I would head toward celestial traffic. I marveled, when
I reached the end, that I had not known the whole story from
the first paragraph: every word pointed the way. But not knowing,
why did I begin to write? What was I doing?
I was fulfilling two of the craftsman's three
functions: trust, and the second: write. I was trusting in
the inevitability of the story's intelligence, its truth,
whatever it might be; I was trusting in its completeness,
its form, whenever it might emerge. By writing, I was allowing
it, inviting it to emerge: I was providing its vehicle. For
how else could it emerge?
Trust your genius. It is your creative function
and its business is to create. Because it works at the level
of origins, the story it creates is original; it is yours
alone. No one else can know it or write it. That is a story's
value, and its only value. Respect your creative function;
rely on it to be intelligent: it is not a thing of random
impulse, but a working principle. Trust it, be glad about
it, and use it. That is the secret of cultivating it, and
the beginning of true ability.
Trust and write. Write your story when you
begin to feel its insistent pulse. If you don't know it all,
write as much as you know; work respectively and patiently,
and it will all come to you presently. If you can't write
well, write the best you can, always the best, with all the
intelligence and clarity you can command at the moment. If
you do that, and persist in it, you will improve steadily.
The reason for this is that earnest work literally generates
intelligence. Consistent practice generates skill. And to
generate skill is the craftsman's third function.
Give every story, every letter, every entry
in your daily journal, if you keep one, the best writing of
which you are capable. Write well. Write skillfully. Write
beautifully, or write superbly, if you can. Be watchful and
objective about what goes down on paper. Anything less than
the degree of excellence of which you are capable at any given
time is not craftsmanship. It is dabbling.
The beginning writer saves time and effort
by being prompt and businesslike about finding a method of
work which suits him. Look into methods. We know that writing
cannot be taught, that it can only be learned. But common
sense, the canny handmaid of genius, tells us that practicing
writers, like practicing plumbers, politicians and goldsmiths,
who get the job done day in and day out, know what they are
talking about when they talk about work. Read them and listen
to them, and you will recognize in their working habits many
tendencies and impulses of your own. You will see that they
are not your private vagaries, but in many cases unique and
vital aspects of the writing temperament, things in your favor
that can work for you.
I wrote four hours a day for ten years before
I was published. Working without teachers and books on writing,
I was a long time discovering a method of work. Years later
when a very fine teacher remarked: "You know, a good story
is not written, but rewritten," I replied somewhat wistfully:
" Yes, I know. I wish someone had told me that long ago."
My way of dealing with a story
is simple and it works. When a story presents itself and I
catch a glimpse of what I have, I capture it in a swift, skeletal
draft. Presently perhaps the next day, I rewrite from the
very beginning, inevitably adding more, filling out, and always
treating the story as a whole. I continue to rewrite at intervals,
letting
it cool in between times, and
rewrite as many times as needed until the words seem to fit
the story smoothly and comfortably, always trying for a wording
that clings as wet silk clings, and always reaching for that
mastery which can fashion a body of words that is no more
than a .
There is magic in intention.
When you work with the intention of excellence, no matter
how hard you work, it is never drudgery. No
matter how far short of the mark
you fall, it is never failure—unless, of course, you
are willing to stop there. Rewriting it this way is not a
chore, but an adventure in skill.
When you treat the story as a live, intelligent
whole, rewriting is dynamic because three things happen:
First, you gain a complete
knowledge of the story. You can scarcely believe how little
you know of your story in a first or second draft until you
reach the fourth or fifth. Layer upon layer reveals itself;
small things, at first unnoticed, expand in importance; areas
of vagueness or confusion become sharp and clear. Things
which slip past the eye in rereading leap at you and demand
attention. Such
expert knowledge of this
one story gives you control; and control allows you to
do your best writing on that story because you know what you
are doing. To know one story thoroughly prepares you for your
knowledge of the next: you won't puzzle and perhaps despair
over a first draft, assuming that, with all its imperfections,
its haziness and poor writing, it is the best you can do.
You will rewrite with confidence, knowing the story will certainly
improve.
Second, you gain a facility which no other
exercise, no book, no teacher, however knowledgeable, can
possibly give you. In dealing again and again with the same
story problems and the same writing problems, you learn to
do things efficiently; you learn new ways and, most important,
you learn your way. Rereading tends to condone errors in writing;
rewriting tends to reveal them. Self-conscious flamboyance
shows up for what it is; what you considered a clever understatement
is often revealed as an evasion of something difficult to
state, but which is vital to the story and worthy of clarity.
Your judgment and sensitivity sharpen as you are forced to
face, word by deadly word, the ill-written ungainly passages.
You cannot improve one sentence, one paragraph without improving
your skill. You begin to see that mastery is no , but a possibility.
Third, rewriting is rewriting, and writing
is a writer's work. Reading, attending classes, talking to
working writers are all helpful activities, but only if you
work at writing. Rewriting provides steady work with a distinct
purpose, and that purpose provides an ever-present reward:
continually improving skill. Work of this kind is habit-forming,
and there is nothing known to man that stimulates genius like
the habit of work.
Never impose a limit on your ability, and
never allow anyone else to. When working with the intention
of excellence becomes a habit with you, you will understand
that the masterpiece is not a mystery and not an accident,
but that it is the by-product of a way of life.
(2102 words)
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