Writing Technique Example

Excuse my taking liberally education as my remit. And all the posts about writing probably should be apologized for, too, but all you get is an explanation. Sorry. See, I am supposed to working on this story that is in my head and getting my ID updated at the BMV. The last bit won't make any sense to you if you are reading me only by topics,

The explanation: once upon a time I wanted to be a writer, instead I became a lawyer and then I became a felon and while in prison two different friends suggested I take up writing again and I did and I continue to do so; I think it an improvement over the last 40 years of my life but I have a lot to learn and so I keep poking around; I publish so that you who want to write and think it beyond them might take the chance I did not until much too late in my life.

So I see a blurb about a speculate fiction novella and I do like reading science fiction and I am curious about the novella found much more than I expected in reading MAKING SURE IT FITS: A CONVERSATION WITH JON CHAIIM MCCONNELL:

Rumpus: What are these writing tics, exactly? Why would you want to round them out in the first place? Why would you need a permission slip?

McConnell: I would say that the hyper-focus and repetition of a single word is a tic—whenever I do things for rhythmic or sound purposes that don’t necessarily make direct narrative sense.

As for rounding the tics out, I think I used to assume that indulging them would be a distraction for a reader. Almost as if no matter what strengths a writer had and what direction they were approaching fiction from—like, imagine all fiction writers on a spectrum around a center—I thought that the ideal was to always write towards that center, no matter what point you began from.

It took the challenge of writing my first book-length work to dispel that notion, because the sections that I didn’t feel wholeheartedly enthusiastic about were the sections that always felt half-finished, no matter how many drafts I went through. Writing against my instincts had deflated my excitement for the work, so I stopped doing that.

So, I guess the permission slip was kind of retroactive, identifying that the little lesson I had come to for myself seemed to also be present in this other work. I had found or manufactured evidence that I made the right decision.

Rumpus: Were there some portions of thrum that required more deliberation? In writing thrum, what specific techniques, if any, did you find yourself using that’s been a constant in your prior works?

McConnell: I’m definitely very careful about this exact thing in all of my writing, varying sentence length in order to guide the rhythm and the breath of a reader. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the first things I consciously took from another writer (Alice Munro, in this case), and I do my best to apply it at every level. I want my sentences to vary from each other, then the paragraphs, and then the chapters and sections, too.

Specifically with thrum, I thought it was important to keep this in mind in order to counterbalance the different sections against each other. I wanted a reader to have a chance to reset: first, in case they didn’t like one of the three types of styles, they could know that style wouldn’t overstay its welcome; second, to maintain separate sets of stylistic signposts for a reader to recognize. That way, no matter where or when I took a reader, they hopefully wouldn’t get lost. I knew if I wrote the sections all the same way that there would be a danger of that.

As far as prior works, I think the most important technique I’ve ever developed for myself is compressing my drafts, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my writing has only been reliably published after recognizing the need to do this. And what I mean by compressing my drafts is literally taking a paragraph and rewriting it as a sentence. Taking three pages down to half a page. It probably seems fairly obvious to a lot of people, but it took me years to realize that I needed to plan to do this instead of just serendipitously arriving at identical realizations each time I sat down to a next draft. I had taken the “make your first draft bad on purpose” advice to heart, but the idea that compressing, say, fifty pages into ten would result in all of the good bits being literally five times closer together had eluded me. And then suddenly it seemed like nearly every sentence in a row was working the next time I read it (surprise!). Not to say it’s as simple as a math equation, but it kinda is. Knowing that I want to write this way ahead of time has saved me a lot of unnecessary words.

 This point I never thought of explicitly but it has to be the core of a willing suspension of disbelief:

McConnell: I have a tic of writing mostly in sequences of imagery and not being very interested in the transitions between them. Instead of fixing that, I put together this working theory that readers will let you ignore things as long as you ignore them with confidence.

 I would emphasize "with confidence" as that works in other areas with which I have had experience.

And I will close with this, which I do think answers the initial question sufficiently, but for KH to read as well as the rest of you:

Rumpus: Has your academic experience influenced thrum? Was there a departure of sorts from what you’ve been taught and accustomed to as both a reader and writer? All in all, what’s the most important takeaway from writing thrum?

McConnell: I did both a BFA and an MFA so it’s all in there, impossible to excise. If I really wanted to, I could argue that the three threads are somewhat representative of how my reading habits have changed: Gwendy’s section is from the domestic realism of the MFA, the unnamed family comes from reading almost exclusively narrative fabulism after graduation, and then the italicized sections come from the more language-y work that I’ve most recently gotten into. But I try to make it a habit to continue reading a variety of things, because I do genuinely like it all. So maybe the literal subject matter is a departure from what we were encouraged to write in class, but the care with which I approach writing is all from being in that environment and being encouraged to analyze my words for nearly a decade of my life.

As for takeaways, I hadn’t really thought of it until you asked the initial question and I had to put it into words, but leaning into writing tics instead of trying to smooth them out seems pretty solid. When I started writing thrum I don’t think I would have trusted that opening paragraph, my favorite paragraph, to carry a book, but now I know it’s the opposite: the book came out of making sure it fits.

sch