"How to Write" For Dummies

Άτιτλο κεφάλαιο 11

Article from The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/13/so-you-want-to-be-a-writer-colum-mccanns-tips-for-young-novelists by Colum McCann

"Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody," said Rainer Maria Rilke in more than a century ago. "There is only one way. Go into yourself." Rilke, of course, was right – nobody but yourself can help. In the end it all comes down to the strike of the word on the page, not to mention the strike thereafter, and the strike after that. But Rilke was taken by the request from a young writer, and he corresponded with Franz Xaver Kappus in 10 letters over the course of six years. Rilke's was advice on matters of religion, love, feminism, sex, art, solitude and patience, but it was also keyed into the life of the poet and how these things might shape the words upon the page.

Read more

"This most of all," he says. "Ask yourself in the most silent hour of night: must I write?"

Everybody who has ever felt the need to write knows the silent hour. I have come across many such people – and indeed many such hours – during my writing and teaching life. I've been teaching now for the best part of 20 years. That's a lot of chalk and a lot of red pencil. I haven't loved every minute of it, but I've loved most. There's been a for one student. A for another. Guggenheims. . Mentorships. Friendships. But let's be honest, there has been burnout too. There's been weeping and gnashing of teeth. There have been walkouts. Collapses. Regret.

All of these students, bar none, are looking, in Rilke's words, "to say ecstasies that are unsayable". The unsayable indeed. The job is theirs. The ability to trust in the difficult. The tenacity to understand that it takes time and patience to succeed.

There are no rules

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
W Somerset Maugham

There are no rules. Or if there are any rules, they are only there to be broken. Embrace these contradictions. You must be prepared to hold two or more opposing ideas in the palms of your hands at the same time.

To hell with grammar, but only if you know the grammar first. To hell with formality, but only if you have learned what it means to be formal. To hell with plot, but you had better at some stage make something happen. To hell with structure, but only if you have thought it through so thoroughly that you can safely walk through your work with your eyes closed.

The great ones break the rules on purpose. They do it in order to remake the language. They say it like nobody has ever said it before. And then they unsay it, and they keep unsaying it, breaking their own rules over and over again. So be adventurous in breaking – or maybe even making – the rules.

Your first line

"The first sentence of every novel should be: 'Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.'"
Michael Ondaatje

'The first line, like the first step, is only the first of many.' Illustration: Janne Iivonen

A first line should open up your rib cage. It should reach in and twist your heart backward. It should suggest that the world will never be the same again.