Sentences: The Intersection Between Reading and Writing

This summer, I read a handful of books I enjoyed, books that landed in various ways for me. When I read, I’m highly aware of authors’ prose choices and styles. Maybe that’s because I’m a writer; maybe it’s because I’m an English nerd. (I’m sure there’s an intersection there somewhere.) Regardless, my summer reading has me thinking about sentence-level writing.

I began The Radetzky March a month ago. The book has been a slow crawl for me, not because author Joseph Roth isn’t holding my attention. On the contrary. I find myself entranced by his language choices, reading and rereading sentences. Pitching the 1932 book to a friend the other day, I explained that one chapter “begins with a long description of a steak dinner.” My friend rolled his eyes. I know, I know. “But the language will keep you turning pages,” I said. This brings me back to Raymond Chandler’s wonderful statement: “There are no dull books, only dull minds.” In other words: What constitutes compelling fiction? Anything, if the writer can convey the message in an engaging manner.

So how does that happen? As writers, we need to carefully consider the question: How do we engage readers? Because if you’re publishing your work, you’re no longer writing only for yourself. Beyond creating characters readers relate to and want to spend time with, beyond a storyline readers find suspenseful enough to keep turning pages, how can we engage them?

As a reader, I love books that offer language that woos me. However, when I write, I write not as a reader, but as a writer. Again, there’s an intersection there, I’m sure, but I know my strengths lie in character and dialogue. I’m not a prose stylist of Michael Chabon’s ilk. I read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union four times the past two years and continue to laugh aloud at his dark humor and marvel at Chabon’s string of clauses and compound sentences.

When writing, I’m attempting to get what it is in my mind onto the page as clearly and cleanly as possible. (Stephen King, in On Writing, says writing fiction is archeology –– the goal is to get the story out of the ground intact.) When do the language and style choices occur? I’m certainly influenced by what I read, but I’m not thinking of “style” or “compound sentences” or “description.” I’m thinking of story, of character, of helping readers to visualize the scene in a way that is vivid.

I’d be interested to hear from others: How does your reading impact your writing? How aware of style and language choices are you when you write?

From Chabon to editing

I’m reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union again this month, teaching the book, in preparation for the author, Michael Chabon, to visit. This is maybe the third time I’ve read the book, and I continue to be more in awe of the novel that won both the Edgar Award and the Hugo Award with each turning page.

My takeaways from the book are many. Among them is the absolute fearlessness with which Chabon writes. The prose is breathtaking, but risk-taking as well. Reading the book leaves me feeling like I’m listening to a jazz musician riffing. Character and prose trump plot in this work, and the Edgar committee rewarded that.

That’s the magic formula, though, isn’t it? Character and prose?

It’s certainly what I strive to focus on. I’m about 30,000 words in (a hundred or so pages) into the project at hand, the place where Elmore Leonard said he usually stopped and figured out where he needed to go. And that’s what I’m doing –– printing the manuscript out, tearing into it with my pencil, cutting lines, adding lines, jotting a rough outline in my notebook, all in an effort to push the story ahead.

My agent and I spoke this past week about my need to print and work on hardcopy, about my belief that the work suffers if I don’t. Not superstition. There is something about seeing the pages on paper that changes (and improves) how I edit and work through a draft.

I’d love to hear others on this topic: Do you edit on the screen or on the copy?

Outline or handcuffs?

I’m about 50,000 words into my work-at-hand, I’ve edited what I have, and feel good about it. To date, I have followed my outline, which, truth be told, only lists scenes in two or three sentences. It is admittedly far less detailed than other writers who outline that I know, but I’ve honored the outline so far.

Yet now as I reach chapter 50 and look over the outline, I’m seeing plot threads that can be tightened and others that can be expanded.

I spent a couple of months creating the outline –– again, nothing compared to writers like Jeffrey Deaver, who says he spends 8 months on an outline and 3 months writing the book. Nevertheless, I’m leery to let go of it because it seemed so rock solid when I finished it.

But the book comes alive on the page, not on the storyboard. So my instinct is to let go of the wall and skate to the middle of the ice. (This is the first real outline I’ve ever used, after all.) Michael Chabon says he outlined The Yiddish Policemen’s Union thoroughly and then deviated (obviously successfully) about halfway through.

So how married to one’s outline should one be? Is there a point where the novel should simply take off? Os is the trick in knowing when to skate on one’s own?

My plan is to spend a few days on the outline, looking specifically at the second half of the book. Sort of a “measure twice, cut once,” as my father used to say, approach.

I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this topic.

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Some photos from my road trip to Ohio, where daughter Delaney, 21, a senior and lacrosse captain at Kenyon College had her last Parents Weekend. Keeley, 10, and I loved seeing Audrey, 18, our freshman XC and Track runner at Kenyon's rival, Denison University.

Passion and Widgets

Life has a habit of getting the best of me, and I often find myself falling behind in one aspect of life or another. There are days, admittedly, when I do not make it over to Type M for Murder to read the daily post. So I find myself sitting down later and reading posts in bunches. Today was one of those days.

As we know, writers inspire other writers. And after my binge-reading, I’m thinking a lot about my Type M colleagues Frankie Baily’s recent post and Tom Kies’ column, which preceded hers. Frankie wrote about the summer coming to an end and our respective academic lives beginning once again. Tom wrote about the different “personalities” writers have –– the artist at home, the widget-maker when we close the front door behind us each morning. Both of my colleagues seem to be speaking about the parallel lives writers lead.

I'm at a place, personally and professionally, sitting here in western Massachusetts in late August, that falls somewhere between the situations both Frankie and Tom wrote about. I am preparing for the school year at Northfield Mount Hermon school and, like Frankie, will spend the fall trying to carve out time to write among many other commitments. Similarly, as Tom mentioned in his post, I don't believe there is ever a time when I’m not a writer –– even when I'm making widgets.

As the father of a college senior, I find myself giving career advice. (My three daughters would probably tell you I have a habit of giving a lot of advice.) Part of the advice I give to my oldest is certainly nothing groundbreaking: find a job you enjoy leaving the house to go to every morning. Most writers I know would give their left arm to write full-time. For most of us, that's not an option. I feel like I have found the best combination there is: I get paid to talk about great books with insightful and motivated kids and with the adults who inspire them. I get to choose the curriculum and, as well as other classes, get to teach a course I've designed, Crime Literature. So when I close the front door behind me and go off to make widgets, often, these widgets are useful to my creative pursuits as well. Case in point: I’m making my way through Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union in order to teach it this fall, and I am more awed and inspired by Chabon’s prose with every passing page.

I'm currently working on a novel that is written in multiple points of view. Chabon’s control certainly won’t be lost on me when I leave the classroom. I think writers read as writers. Yes, we love reading books. We are fans of books. And when I'm reading in an airport, I'm not highlighting. But I also believe writers read books differently than people who don’t write. There’s the oft-quoted T.S. Eliot line, “Good poets borrow, great poets steal” that speaks to the writer’s desire to find inspiration and ideas from –– and have genuine admiration for –– those who came before them. I, for one, admit to learning much of what I know about punctuation through straight osmosis. Strunk and White‘s “Rules” got me through my journalism career. I couldn't diagram a sentence until I started teaching how to do so.

So as summer fades into fall, I am grateful that my passion is connected to my widgets.