...it's about using knowledge that you've gained to make the end product better.

Correct. But that doesn't necessarily mean I could explain the rules I apply, or even formulate it into rules. Not having done any real creative writing courses, as such, I've never had anyone tell me "how to write", so I don't tend to think of it in terms of what you are supposed to do or not do. I think I may once have come across that dictum about "show not tell", but but that's all (and yet we talk about "telling a story", not "showing a story").

I see what I like and don't like in other people's writing, find things that work and don't work in my own, and somehow put that all together into both the sketching-out and the polishing of my stories. But I couldn't say "how I do it" in any more succinct way than that. Even if I could, I would tend to regard it as a set of guidelines, rather than anything as hard-and-fast as rules.


Alex

I've been to three short writing courses in the past, not counting courses I had to write essays and reveiews for, and I learned something useful from each one, although it may not have seemed directly useful at the time. They usually have one or more disciplines to pick up on, and insights into what sells or what other people can do. Learning what sells can be a bit depressing at first, but its also good info about markets. Yesterday at my Saturday monring Journalism class this young man sitting next to me showed me a kind of monthly or quarterly writing collection I've never seen before, called 'The Idler'. People talk about their experience of writing press releases or TV links and how difficult it is to adapt from one way of writing to another. It's all interesting, although I'm chafing to get past Profiling and go on to Reviewing.

Sheila

I'm useless at reviewing books. I tend to take a story at face value, and I always have difficulty answering questions like, "What was the author really trying to say?", or "Does the story have a moral, and, if so, what is it?" Whenever I see a review which purports to understand the author's agenda, I always find myself wondering how much of this understanding is real, and how much is down to the reviewer's personal prejudices. I've yet to see an in-depth review of my own work, though, so maybe I'll discover the answer to that question in due course.


Alex

I thnk it's a knack that you can acquire, maintaining some kind of critical distance at the same time as enjoying the story. Or you can just go with the flow and go back over it, of course. I was thinking of films, really, because that's what I'm currently interested in - I'm thinking of doing a specialist course in film reviewing - but I do find myself starting to read novels with the idea of reviewing them when I've finished, whether I actually do it or not. I find it makes me more aware of techniques, such as writer switching points of view or the story taking an unexpected turn. It's a bit of a contradiction, suspending disbelief to enjoy the writing and yet being critical at the same time.

Sheila

Blimey, do they really do specialist courses in reviewing now?

I remember doing one review of an orchestral concert which received praise from readers of the newspaper it was printed in. I was lucid, witty and erudite about certain passages and certain sections of the orchestra, especially during the grand finale of the main piece.

What I didn't mention was that I had nipped to the pub with some friends during the interval and decided to stay there for the whole of the second half of the concert....

Yes, there's a knack in reviewing something you haven't actually seen, or read for that matter. Obviously, you don't need a course for that. Saves a lot of bother, I suppose.

Sheila

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I think it's a bit different with music reviewing, as there is a good chance you have a (superior )recording on CD at home.As I recall from before I stopped attending concerts the only thing to comment on would be the quality of the seat-creaking or the timing of coughing fits.

True perhaps for Beethoven, but a composer cousin of mine once had a brand-new piece reviewed, not very favourably, by a critic who had left before it started.

Emma

Someone ought to start a trend for reviewing critics.

"Generally observant and insightful, but sometimes inclined to pay greater attention to local hostelries than the performance."


Alex

I don't really see much point in music being reviewed at all. It's not as if anyone is likely to say the third arpeggio in the second movement of some Beethoven piano sonata was a little slow or that the penultimate cannon in the 1812 Overture could have been louder. Thye could just say 'It's a cross between Greig and Boccherini', give it a star rating and leave people to judge for themselves.

I did once hear of a critic who reveiwed a play when the theatre had been closed before curtain-up because of a bomb-scare.

Some theatre/film critics are better than others - they generally work for the more prestigious newspapers.

Sheila

It was Brahms, I was a student...

However, I agree that reviewing live music performances, unless they happen to be of new works, is fairly redundant. A bit like reading extended reports of Saturday's football matches in Monday's daily papers.

...or discussing what happened in your favourite soap last week.

Never happens in real life, of course (and readers can decide for themselves whether I'm referring to the contents of the soaps or to redundant reviews).


Alex

I've come to this thread late - sorry. I've been away from writewords, busy with work and family, for what seems like weeks. But I found all this fascinating. I think I've read virtually every post here.

I find the idea of writing orthodoxy terrifying and I'm very nervous of threads like this in case I find out I've been doing it wrong all these years! I had to pluck up courage to look at it.

I have always written pretty much by instinct, but I think my instinct must have been formed by my reading, rather than being something that came from nowhere. In general, I always try to keep my writing moving along. Try to make every sentence, paragraph, page, chapter a vehicle for the story's progression.

Also, I once read something the Romanian writer Ionesco said about his own writing, something to do with lightness and weight. That struck a chord, somehow. Thinking of writing in those terms, sometimes trying to keep it buoyant and as near weightless as possible, other times putting substance and mass into the writing has helped me. I suppose something like that is just a technique I have to try and help me achieve what I feel I want to achieve.

My wife sings in a very good choir and has singing lessons. Some of the visualisation techniques she uses to help her create her sound are very interesting. I think that may be something like the way I think of lightness and weight.

Other than that, I am a great believer in precision. I always try to make something mean exactly what I want it to mean.

<Added>

This is going to sound mad, but what I really strive for is prose that is both weightless and has substance, at the same time! I can't really explain it any better than that.

...both weightless and has substance, at the same time...

I'm tempted to make a crack about "ghost writing" at this point, but I'd better not.

Levity aside, I think I understand what you're driving at. You want it to be easy to read, yet still have profundity. A light touch, to paint a delicate yet precise picture.


Alex

Alex, yes, it's something like that. Hard to put these things into words, I find, as I think Emma said in one of her posts. I realise that my post sounds really pretentious. If you could delete posts, I might have been tempted to do so. However, it does represent a little of how I feel about writing - so let it stand. I find it easier to write fiction than write about writing fiction.

Roger.

It didn't sound at all pretentious to me, Roger. Sometimes, when you try to express complex, semi-emotive concepts like this, it can end up looking a little... well, let's use the term "Radio 4", rather than "pretentious". It can sound overly pedantic or precise. But that's just the nature of a discussion about abstract concepts, especially in relation to any form of art.


Alex