Becoming a Great Writer

I went to grad school to be a journalist. Turns out that writing on deadline makes me itchy. I switched to editing, which suits my anal retentive tendencies and rule-following predilections. Like so many that work in the background, I secretly lust after the spotlight.

Clearly, that’s not a big surprise to you. I did START A BLOG. There are few so obvious “Look at me! Look at me!” moves that one can make with regard to writing. This blog gives me a tiny, supportive audience made up almost exclusively of family and friends. If I top 100 readers on a post, I get pretty excited.

Recently I’ve come across some amazing blogs/memiors. Writing that just blows me away in the grace of their prose and their beautiful honesty. I read these posts and memoirs, and I get sad. I get sad because when I look at these writers they all have some EVENT in their past. They’ve survived something that transformed their view of life.

One night, I found myself wondering if I can ever become a great writer without going through that emotional hurdle. I have never been and hope to never be a drug addict or alcoholic. I’ve only ever had two boyfriends (I’m married to number two). My parents are happily married. I was a good student. I have good friends. I have a wonderful husband.

I’m brushing my teeth, thinking about how my life is too good to be worth reading about. You know, Tolstoy, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Just think about how messed up the lives are on every top-rated drama on TV. No one wants to hear about how you don’t fight with your husband. Halfway through scolding myself for bemoaning my happiness, I suddenly think, “Well, three of my children did die last year. That sucks pretty bad.” And I can’t tell if it’s a testament to how far I’ve come or how far I have to go that I felt like somehow that wasn’t good enough to count for literary brilliance. Is my experience of loss so commonplace that it doesn’t differentiate me? I’m not sure how I could compare the number of women who have had miscarriages with the number who are alcoholics. I am certain that doing so will answer none of my questions or doubts.

The circumstances of your life or your loss or your tragedy are actually not so important. Truthfully, we only want to hear about the bad if there is a promise of good afterward. That’s why people hate Romeo and Juliet. They die. That’s not supposed to happen. They’re supposed to overcome the odds and be happy. Maybe that’s why I find myself admiring these women who have survived. Not because of what they overcame but because they overcame at all.

Losing my children won’t magically make me a better writer. No tragedy could do that for anyone. Perhaps it simply provides a different view of life. One reason people quote, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all” is that you can’t understand love until you’ve felt it. You also can’t really describe love until you’ve felt it. If writing is about “Show; don’t tell,” then you have to experience life—all of life—to write well.

Before I lost those babies, I was sad when I heard that someone had a miscarriage. I was sad in the way I am sad when I hear about a tragedy half a world away that happened to people I don’t know. It’s sad in the abstract. I understood a little better when I had H. But it wasn’t until my own heart broke that I truly knew what it meant. It changed me. My world has levels of sorrow and empathy that never existed before.

Here I find myself written into a corner. I would dearly like to take you on a nice path back to the beginning. I’d like to claim that I can be a great writer, that I’ll keep plugging away if you’ll keep reading, or that it’s all a bunch of rubbish and greatness has nothing to do with your life history. Or maybe I could put a happy spin on it and say that the spirits of my children will gift me with more emphatic prose and everything happens for a reason bullshit. I’m not sure any of that is true.

I do know that we are wise not to wish for other’s lives. They often contain dark hidden corners we wish had stayed hidden. I know I’ll try to remain thankful for the relative tranquility of my life. I know that I’ll keep writing to my tiny, but kind and loyal, audience. I know that I’ll try to remain honest. I hope that you won’t get sick of hearing about my kids—all my kids. Your children are as inseparable from you as your own hands.

It’s not much of a pledge in terms of grand writing. I can’t guarantee a happy ending, and I hope to Hell and back that I’ll not have to share too much more bad news. But there it is: a new credo for a new year. Tell the truth. Feel the pain. Live life.

Audiences

In borrowed scraps of time, I’m a freelance editor. Consequently, I know a thing or two about writing. More importantly, I know a thing or two about how not to write. Some of this is really directed to all those scientists out there that I sometimes edit for, but hopefully this can help anyone who needs to write something that needs to be convincing.

I was recently treated to some really terrible writing destined for a congressman’s desk. As is so often the case, the writer completely ignored his audience. Writers who do so risk losing that audience. If no one reads what you write, you’re kind of screwed. In this particular case, no congressman would ever sift through that garbage to get the actual good point trying to be made. This is bad for the program that needs funding.

So, rule 1 of Jamie’s guide to being a better writer: Before you ever touch a keyboard or pick up a pen, think about who you’re writing for.

It’s all well and good to say write for your audience. But what does it really matter? It may be a matter of who ends up liking what you wrote. Or, if you’re writing a proposal to get a project funded, it could be a matter of considerable importance. Think about it: If the person who’s giving you the money can’t understand a thing you’ve said, are you going to get the money? Probably not. And the decision will have nothing to do with how good your idea is. The reader didn’t even know the idea was good!

I’ve noticed this phenomenon most when scientists are writing for non-scientists, but you could substitute in any expert writing for non-experts. Readers dislike two things very greatly: writers who talk over their heads and writers who treat them like dumb kids. Your job is to try for something in between. Respect readers’ intelligence, but also remember their limitations.

Let’s try a fun example: sex. Sex is something that adults will talk about quite a bit. But you will inherently apply my principle of considering your audience when you do so. If you’re talking to your best friend about sex, you’re going to use very different language from if you were explaining sex to your three-year-old who wants to know how the baby got in Mommy’s tummy. If you’re talking about sex with your doctor, you’d use a whole different set of vocabulary.

And it’s not just the words you use; it’s how you relate ideas and use examples. Going back to the whole sex thing: when you talk to the three-year-old, you’re going to scale down the complexity of the idea. Maybe you’ll skip the whole pre-marital option and just tell your kiddo, “Sex is when mommies and daddies love each other very much.” It’s completely irrelevant to this particular situation that sex is a possibility outside of marriage. Keep this in mind to avoid the excruciating background and detail of your expert topic that, really, no one cares about. If you don’t absolutely need to introduce a concept, don’t. Likewise, if you must have some background to understand something, include it! Don’t assume that your audience (your three-year-old) will have all the knowledge and references that you have.

When you’re done writing whatever it is you’re writing, read it. Read it while pretending to be your audience. If you’re trying to convince, make sure you’re actually making a compelling argument. Make sure that your examples are clear and that they’re relatable to normal experience. (How big is the oil spill? It could fill XX football stadiums.) And most importantly, make sure that it’s clear what’s in it for the reader if he or she agrees with your point. Are you saving money or time? Make sure you say that.

To sum up: Writing to sound important: bad. Writing to share knowledge like an equal: good.