A writer's Peptalk I wrote for NANOWRIMO
Craft first, not art: Learn to spanner the words together, and good prose will follow
This is the peptalk I wrote for NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) about ten years back. It's the advice I kind of wished I'd given myself, although given my character, I probably would have poo-pooed it and gone my own way irrespective. I think it works because it's about craft and not art. Learn how to build a book, and the magic will follow; painters have to learn to draw first.
What are you waiting for? Go write a book.
I once wrote a novel in 22 days. 31 chapters, 62,000 words. I didn't do much else - bit of sleeping, eating, bath or two - I just had three weeks to myself and a lot of ideas, an urge to write, a 486 DOS laptop and a quiet room. The book was terrible. 62,000 words and only twenty-seven in the right order. It was ultimately junked but here's the important thing: It was one of the best 22 days I ever spent. A colossal waste of ink it was, a waste of time it was not.
Because here's the thing: Writing is not something you can do or you can't. It's not something that 'other people do' or 'for smart people only' or even 'for people who finished school and went to University'. Nonsense. Anyone can do it. But no-one can do it straight off the bat. Like plastering, brain surgery or assembling truck engines, you have to do a bit of training - get your hands dirty - and make some mistakes. Those 22 days of mine were the start, and only the start, of my training. Your First book will be the start of your training, too.
There's a lot to learn, and you won't have figured it all once that book is finished, but it'll be enough for you to know that you don't know it all, and that it will come, given time. You'll have written enough to see an improvement, and to start to have an idea over what works and what doesn't. Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation. A manual on knitting can tell you what to do, but you won't be able to make anything until you get your hands on some wool and some needles and put in some finger time. Writing needs to be practiced; there is a limit to how much can be gleaned from a teacher or a manual. The true essence of writing is out there, in the world, and inside, within yourself. To write, you have to give.
What do you give? Everything. Your reader is human, like you, and human experience in all its richness is something that we all share. Readers are interested in the way a writer see things; the unique world-view that makes you the person you are, and makes your novel interesting. Ever met an odd person? Sure? Ever had a weird job? Of course. Ever been to a strange place? Definitely. Ever been frightened, sad, happy, or frustrated? You betcha. These are your nuts and bolts, the constructor set of your novel. All you need to learn is how to put it all together. How to wield the spanners.
And this is why sitting down and writing a book - any book, even a bad one - is so important. Don't look at this early stage for every sentence to be perfect - that will come. Don't expect every description to be spot-on. That will come too. This is an opportunity to experiment. It's your giant blotter, your sandbox, an empty slate, ready to be filled. It's an opportunity to try out dialogue, to create situations, to describe a Summer's evening. You'll read it back to yourself and you'll see what works, you'll see what doesn't. But this is a building site, and it's not meant to be pretty, tidy, or even safe. Building sites rarely are. But every great building began as one.
So where do you start? Again, it doesn't matter. You might like to sketch a few ideas down on the back of an envelope, spend a week organizing a master-plan or even dive in head first and see where it takes you. All can work, and none is better than any other. The trick about writing is that you do it the way that's best for you. And during the next 50,000 words or so, you may start to discover that, too.
But the overriding importance is that your first book doesn't have to be good. It doesn't even have to be spelled properly, punctuated or even tabulated neatly on the page. It's not important. Practice is what's important here, because, like your granny once told you, practice does indeed make perfect. Concert violinists aren't born that way, and the Beatles didn't get to be good by a quirk of fate. They all put in their time. And so will you. And a concerted effort to get words on paper is one of the best ways to do it. The lessons learned over the few months will be lessons that you can't get from a teacher, or a manual, or attending lectures. The only way to write is to write. Writer's write. And when they've written, they write some more. And the words get better, and sentences form easier, and dialogue starts to snap. It's a great feeling when it happens. And it will. Go to it. Write a book. Do it. Do it now.
Jasper Fforde
All my books can be found in bookshops, online retailers and my own eBay outlet in the UK, where all books are signed and with a freebie postcard https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/ffotographica
I very much needed to hear all this today. The fact that it came from you, Mr Fforde, is magic.
Does that work for nonfiction, too, in your opinion?