JCB's Ruminations on the Craft of Fiction #39
February 11, 2021
You can’t be a good writer if you don’t read a lot. Maybe it happens once in a while, but I can't fathom why anyone who isn’t a reader would ever want to be a writer. There’s something missing in that equation. But, assuming that we writers are, first, readers, we should try to keep in mind that there is something in the reading experience, in our own experience of reading, that made us want to try our hand at the craft of creating such experiences for other people. Whatever it was that compelled any of us to start writing should ever be at hand when we have questions of craft or whenever we’re struggling, whenever we need to recall what in the world it is we’re trying to accomplish.
Questions of fictive craft are sometimes merely questions about convention, about what it is readers expect out of the stories we create for them. The best way to learn the conventions of fiction is usually to read as much as possible and take note of how other authors approach the presentation of their own stories. This is especially true if what we want to write belongs within a specific genre.
More important than craft, perhaps, is that continuing to read as much fiction as we can, even as we try to craft our own stories, will remind us of the magic that drew us to writing in the first place. The fiction-writing industry is terrible, glutted with too many aspirants and overloaded with non-recompensing markets, and it’s just about impossible to ever really "make it" as a fiction writer--in any case, the odds are vanishingly small. So the only real reason to pursue fiction-writing is because we are compelled, because there’s something about the crafting of engaging stories that fulfills something personal to us. And when we are mired in the eleventh revision and can’t quite get a scene right, it’s a good idea to remind ourselves why we do the work, to pick up a story and read.
Next: On Whether Jack and Rose Could Both Have Fit on the Door