Do you Want to Start #Writing Like #Steinbeck?

 

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the the film release of Grapes of Wrath so I thought it was appropriate to re-purpose this post. If you want to start writing like Steinbeck, then take a look at some of the things he found important and include them in your writing. "Learn from the best"

John Steinbeck’s writing methodology was stringent and meticulous. When writer's you love talk about how they write, it’s hard not listen.Steinbeck really wanted Grapes of Wrath to be good  - exposing the exploitation of people in 1930’s Southern California, was a story he thought needed telling. I re-read the novel a while ago, and the style blew me away.

[tweetthis] "Nothing about The Grapes of Wrath is dated."[/tweetthis]

It's incredibly refreshing to read a book with such valuable social commentary that's also just a damn good story. Part of its success lies in the fact that we live, eat and sleep with the Joad family. Everything is personal, so we care about what happens to the characters, and it allows us to see the injustice very clearly, without the point being hammered home. Steinbeck simply tells a story.Below is part of John Steinbeck’s interview in the Paris Review*(Please note: Steinbeck died in 1968. A lot of the quotes were compiled in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters and published in October 1975 by Viking. Hence the Paris Review article was not until 1975.)The comments in italics are mine.

 ON GETTING STARTED

Now let me give you the benefit of my experience in facing 400 pages of blank stock—the appalling stuff that must be filled. I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone's experience which is probably why it is so freely offered. But the following are some of the things I have had to do to keep from going nuts.

 1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.

Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.This is the most important one & can’t be said too often. One page at a time.

 2. Write freely

...and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material. Don’t worry about anyone looking over your shoulder. Just get the work written. Good tip for all of us procrastinators.

 3. Forget your generalized audience.

In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.I’ve heard this before, and I think it's an excellent way to keep yourself on track. You can't write for everyone. So write for one.

4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you

...and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.Rewriting – its all there is. But don't be afraid to write non-sequentially. Sometimes one just isn't in the mood to write about a dramatic moment, so switch gears and go to a section you do want to write today.

 5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you,

...dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.Tough to give them up isn’t it?

 6. If you are using dialogue

...say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.Excellent tip. If you read it out loud it will sound strained immediately if it’s not working.On my writers resources page I refer to his book Working Days, which is the diary he kept while he was writing Grapes of Wrath. (He wrote his first draft in 6 months BTW!). It’s a great book for writers if only to show how persistent one has to be to make the end product worthwhile.Are these methods  you can work with? Do you have different ways of attacking the same problems? 

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Many Thanks!

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*Paris Review has rich resource material in their decades of interviews of famous people, writers included.I first saw part of this particular interview in one of my favorite blogs www.brainpickings.org

What is Your #Point of View?

I went onto the Sussex Downs at the weekend and was in awe of the beautiful rolling hills punctuated by the brilliant yellow of the rape fields in bloom. I mentioned to a friend how beautiful they were and his response was tempered by the fact he was allergic to them. We had a different point of view on how great they were. Different opinions.In writing, Point of View or POV, refers to who is ‘speaking’, or from who’s ‘vantage point’ the narrative is written. Before I became a writer, I hadn’t paid much attention to this. Waiting for me was the mine field of 'Point of View', with all it pratfalls.Prior to the 20^th century, the ‘omniscient ‘ POV was the norm. The omniscient author, who knew everything about the plot, the characters, and was often free with their opinion, told the story. Think of this wonderful opening line:  

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

‘Tale of Two Cities'  by Charles Dickens

-Yeah it was, but says who? The author of course.

Because omniscient authors are god-like, they know what’s in everyones mind at all times, which they may or may not share with the reader. The author can choose to have a ‘limited omniscient’ POV, and in that situation the author focuses on only certain characters, and their inner thoughts.The other end of the spectrum is first person - the story is told, not by the author, but by a character in the novel. While they can act as a narrator, more often than not they are the main protagonist.In first person, the reader is in the mind of the person telling the story at all times. It's sometimes considered an ‘easy’ way to go for a debut novel, as you only have one POV to put forward. But the main drawback to first person POV, is that the reader is limited to the  experience of the character telling the story. We can only know what they know.There are ways around this e.g. someone else recalling an experience to the character. Murakami usually writes in first person, and uses this technique of a separate individual telling a tale in the ‘Wind-up Bird Chronicles’. We’re taken from the world of Murakami’s quirky narrator who enjoys cooking and music, to a Japanese soldier’s recollection of wartime Manchuria. For me, the latter was in some ways the most memorable part of the novel, in part because of an exceptional, albeit graphic, portrayal of a brutal scene. First person POV is often used when the protagonist has a very strongly defined character. Catcher in the Rye is a perfect example of first person, prominent protagonist. We immediately catch a glimpse of the kind of strong character Holden Caulfield will be. Not all first person novels have protagonists with such a striking personality, but the POV certainly lends itself to doing so.

 ‘If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

'Catcher in the Rye' by J.D.Salinger

  In second person POV, the author tells the story. It’s a very underused POV, but it too can have an intimacy to it – as if we’re being told secrets by the author that only we the individual reader will know. It’s more often used in an instructional way, like in a ‘How To Book’.                                                                                 

 “Rub a little on the back of your neck, your forehead and your wrists before you start fishing, and the blacks and skeeters will shun you. The odor of citronella is not offensive to people. It smells like gun oil. But the bugs do hate it.”

 Camping Out.’ by Ernest Hemingway

 The most commonly used POV is third person. The narrative is told by the author, but from a particular person(s) point of view. Third person has the most variety of possibilities of all POVs and though the term suggests objectivity and distance, it doesn’t necessarily mean the reader is remote. We create distance or closeness in the way we write. Closeness can come in third person by the description of concrete things and letting us hear a character’s thoughts.

“His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack –the intensely familiar odour of cigarettes, musky sweat and a faint sweetness like grass, and with it the rushing cold of the mountain.”

 'Broke Back Mountain'  by Annie Proulx,

 Using more than one POV, once considered radical, has become more commonplace. Innovative novels such as 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell and Margaret Atwood’s 'Oryx & Crake' used this technique. It lends itself to interesting work, if it's well written.Generally speaking, switching POV’s is most successful if the entire chapter is in one POV, or at the most, only changed paragraph by paragraph. A classic novice mistake is to change the POV in the same sentence without even noticing e.g. ‘I was two hours late, and ran upstairs to avoid my mother, who was more relieved than angry.’ – In this first person excerpt, how could the narrator know what the mother was thinking?Though it's more usual to have a novel written in one or two POVs, modern fiction constantly challenges the so-called rules. However, if there are too many POVs for the content to support, then it becomes an unconvincing piece of writing. In 'The Sacred Art of Stealing', a satirical thriller  by Christopher Brookmyre, there are five POVs. It was a humorous read until the author turned to lazy writing, adding in POVs merely as a convenient way to move the plot along, without any of the initial punch of the novel.Literary agents typically want to know ‘whose story is it’? So then it’s a tough call for an inexperienced author to give multiple POVs without making sure there is one clearly rising above the rest. I sometimes question if visual entertainment can successfully have an ensemble cast, then why can’t novels do the same?Trying to convey a theme, or premise can be done using any Point of View. But deciding which POV is best to use to present your premise, is one of the biggest challenges a writer faces, and will most likely determine the success of the novel.What POV do you prefer either as a reader or writer? What problems or frustrations have you had with this issue?   Footnote: This post is dedicated to the writer Ged Duncan. He and I have  spent countless hours over the past few years discussing POV. He's also allergic to rapeseed flowers. To follow this blog, click on "FOLLOW" at the bottom  of the page, or SUBSCRIBE at the top of the page!