Writing through process, not product
A thing that I don't trust yet, but still feel pushed to commit to
Reading time: approximately 4 minutes
May is disappearing fast, and I am still struggling through Jack Grapes’ Method Writing. Hello my darlings, and welcome to the spring of my elated confusion.
This is really just a quick I-haven’t-gone-anywhere update. I’ve been so wrapped up in my head the last couple weeks, loving and hating this craft book. The concepts in it are so good. The clarity of the practice describing how to use the concepts, however…. it’s been a trial. Possibly even a tribulation.
This book……Grapes describes a process meant to be used as a daily writing practice that helps writers find and experiment with their voice and tone. He layers on that another practice to learn how to write from a deeply-felt emotion place. And then he layers onto that a construct he calls an Image-Moment that is a way to create cinematic dramatic pauses for tension in writing. And to really explain each step of this process, he re-defines narrative structure and throws in a lot of other craft theory concepts. Then for good measure he talks about the creative process, method acting, athletic training, talent vs genius, and process vs product. Then he puts in lots of examples and anecdotes. It’s all wrapped around and around itself like a double-helix strand of DNA, with ideas repeated over and over, but with a little bit of new information each time, across multiple pages and multiple chapters. And because my head wasn’t spinning from all that, he throws in a couple of poems, too.
😵💫
I feel like River in Firefly, trying to fix the Bible.
Here is what I have figured out: this is a first draft process. As someone who will usually get stuck in the first draft, this makes me very, very excited. Method Writing is a repeatable way to create unique, highly emotionally charged moments. After writing pages and pages of them by adhering to this practice every day, one should have a collection of moments. Then the task is to start fitting together ones that look like they go together and building a story idea out of that. You work through a first draft of a story bottom up, essentially, starting with moments, building scenes around them, then fitting scenes together as story.
And then when you are ready to revise, that’s when you work top down. Then you figure out what it’s all really about, recognize and reinforce your theme, nail down your structure and plot, figure out what scenes you need, and polish those moments.
To work like this, it requires a lot of faith. Faith in the process yielding results on a useful human timeframe. Faith that you can find your voice, create these moments. Faith that you can bring the moments together in a story-shaped way. Faith that you can decipher your unconscious well enough to see what you are trying to say and then say it in a way that people outside your brain will not just understand, but fall in love with.
I’m not so good at faith.
That’s untrue, actually. I’m excellent at having faith in the universe, in others, even in myself. Having faith in a writing process after 30 years of a writing processes having no faith in me—that’s a big ask. Part of me understands that this process is radically different than anything I’ve tried before. But there’s another part of me that is sitting on a porch in a rocking chair, with a gun on my lap and a snake at my feet, that won’t be fooled into thinking this time it’s magically going to work out.
I’ve created a whole new outline for the book and have started shoving pieces of information into it, and slowly each piece is becoming clear enough to be actionable. Last Thursday I started my first journal writing sessions in a shiny new notebook. Having eight journal pages all covered with scratchy handwriting is a very satisfying feeling, like work has truly been done. I’ve started, but I won’t know for weeks, if not months, if this process is my process (or something that can be warped into my process). I’m in the thick of it now, and I’ll keep you posted as I work my way through.
As always, thank you for joining me on this adventure!
💖,
Elnora
Writing through process, not product
Love these metaphors ! So - snake as symbol. Do you want that snake to get up and dance on its tail ? Do you want it to hold its tale in its mouth and roll around the yard declaiming with the voice of Shohreh Aghdashloo ?
"Why do we always get the blame - and the bad raps ? We're so cool ! Okay fine, you need someone to take on the mantle of the adversary. I would gladly bear that burden on my broad shoulders - if I had them. Darling, I guess you'll just have to slither along on your own winding way to find out if you've gone down another alluring rabbit hole, or to discover that you've been toiling in your Alchemist's laboratory - separating this, and decanting that, to transmute your very own Philosopher's Stone."
Cheers !
Hope this all goes great Elnora. It sounds like a fascinating process, albeit perhaps a tricky one. (almost makes me wonder/worry that I have no process other than sitting at my keyboard haha)
Please do keep us up to date, I'd love to hear how this all goes and I'm sure it's going to be great, fullfilling and worthwhile 🤗