Well-Crafted

Contrasting artistry and writing, and the metaphor of building a boat.

  A brief note: I do not have access this week to my usual setup for making post-headers, so today’s and maybe next week’s will be a tad simpler in design. Thank you for reading! 

  It’s becoming clear to me that writing takes a more complex blueprint than I would’ve assumed. 

  When I was shorter, my first encounters with writing were related to spelling words and messy, barely-readable handwriting. Then, a bit later — after I’d fallen in love with simple fiction — it was book report assignments and journal pages that I didn’t really want to write. 

  Somehow though, by way of the love of stories, I eventually got used to the idea that I could write my own. 

  How exciting! How grand!

  However, knowing that I wanted to write stories and writing actual books were and have been two very separate things. 

  Because, while the types of published books in the world are about as varied as the types of paintings, there are certain skills to be developed in each of those arts which helps determine quality and texture of the end product. Skills which I have needed to grow in, bit by bit. 

  One can become quite famous for seemingly simple watercolor scenes after all (provided one masters that medium and style), or somehow, someone’s paint splatters on canvas can become worth several year’s worth of wages on the auction block  (though most artists probably shouldn’t expect that when they’re just starting out). 

  Dark, light, layered, faint, focused, impressions, still life, open air, everyday, imagined…

  People who wield paintbrushes have labored over, produced, and sold them all. 

  Gothic, heavenly, multi-faceted, shallow, morally pointed, fluff, historical, romantic, real life, made-up…

  People who scribble and type have worked on, manufactured, and made money on each. 

  With all of this variety, and with the inventions and creativities that are touted and rewarded in writing it can seem to a beginner author that there are no rules. That anything goes, that stories can look like whatever you want them too, and that no-one can gainsay it. 

  Which is true… in a sense (at least, until you get to publishing). But honestly, it’s much less helpful than it sounds. 

  It makes it seem as though I’m lost at sea with my ideas. Make a boat that holds out the water! Sure. But, how?

  How am I supposed to do that if no-one clarifies which building materials I should use, points out to me the tools at my disposal that I’ve overlooked, or teaches me how to assemble it using them?

  With that said, I’ll take a step back from that metaphor for a moment, and line out today’s dilemma in different terms. 

  I have long been a bit resistant to other people’s input in how I should write. That’s not to say I haven’t taken advice — I have — but the idea that a book is best when it’s freely brainstormed by one person alone has stuck in my brain, despite the many author-prologues that I’ve read saying otherwise. So I take input on tone, or spelling, or how a character would react — but the story itself is mine, right? Why should anyone else have the right to tell me the method I should use, the organization and character charts I should keep, or the specific format for how the story plays out to make it a good read?

  There is some merit to my stance. After all, those particular methods don’t work for every writer (not even close!). But I also find it leaves me resistant to learning about some of those tools that might help me build my ‘boat.’ 

  Or, to switch back to the other comparison (just to confuse everyone): A junior painter is often trained in someone else’s methods, and the disciplines that person has learned before they can fully develop or master their own style. 

  Maybe, just maybe, us writer’s could learn something from that.

     Thank you for enjoying this post from Mountain Chickadee! If this made you smile and you’d like to see more in the coming weeks, please consider subscribing to my Substack!