In many ways, writing fiction is easier than academic writing or even the kind of fragmentary autobiography I keep here: few references to chase, once research is done, and the pleasure of making things up, as opposed to introspectively examining one’s mind. These points of difference, however, belie what is the greatest risk for me in generating fictive prose, which is that I may write over the top of my plot and characters rather than revealing them from within their own mise-en-scène. This is sometimes described as telling, not showing, but a more reliable indicator for me is how easy it feels: if I’m thinking “I can do this! Yeah!” instead of something closer to “urrrggghh”, then I’m likely doing it wrong.
This novel is in part an homage to my former life as an orchestral musician, not to mention a tribute to my friends and fellow-travellers therein. The story itself is ending with three recitals. For two of these, I already have a good working knowledge of the repertoire I am writing about, enabling me to write about the music from memory, but if I’m to do a proper job I need to spend some more time listening to the repertoire of the third recital (second in the narrative sequence), or I’ll commit the sin of riding/writing over it again.
So it is that I’ll be listening to Handel Op. 6 and at least two of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti for a few more days yet. I want to write about music in a way that isn’t sentimental but which also moves beyond the kind of utility that’s used for talking about music in rehearsals. In order to do that I need to get further inside the music in question so that it sounds like something the narrator intimately knows, rather than the product of research (which of course, it will also be).
This last phase of composition, combined with a big writing project which I took on at work that has recently come to an end, has reminded me of both the pleasure and something like the humility of steady, regular, low-key writing work. No longer writing to find myself a job or generate a critical reputation, I can set aside the “I” that carps, wants but is basically happy as long as it gets a nice lunch, for an “I” that’s closer to a mole working in the dark, burrowing forward, confident of the destination but needing to take the time it takes in order to get there.
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work,
writing
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Posterous
darkness, burrowing like a mole
16 March, 2008
in at home,commentatrix,writing & research
In many ways, writing fiction is easier than academic writing or even the kind of fragmentary autobiography I keep here: few references to chase, once research is done, and the pleasure of making things up, as opposed to introspectively examining one’s mind. These points of difference, however, belie what is the greatest risk for me in generating fictive prose, which is that I may write over the top of my plot and characters rather than revealing them from within their own mise-en-scène. This is sometimes described as telling, not showing, but a more reliable indicator for me is how easy it feels: if I’m thinking “I can do this! Yeah!” instead of something closer to “urrrggghh”, then I’m likely doing it wrong.
This novel is in part an homage to my former life as an orchestral musician, not to mention a tribute to my friends and fellow-travellers therein. The story itself is ending with three recitals. For two of these, I already have a good working knowledge of the repertoire I am writing about, enabling me to write about the music from memory, but if I’m to do a proper job I need to spend some more time listening to the repertoire of the third recital (second in the narrative sequence), or I’ll commit the sin of riding/writing over it again.
So it is that I’ll be listening to Handel Op. 6 and at least two of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti for a few more days yet. I want to write about music in a way that isn’t sentimental but which also moves beyond the kind of utility that’s used for talking about music in rehearsals. In order to do that I need to get further inside the music in question so that it sounds like something the narrator intimately knows, rather than the product of research (which of course, it will also be).
This last phase of composition, combined with a big writing project which I took on at work that has recently come to an end, has reminded me of both the pleasure and something like the humility of steady, regular, low-key writing work. No longer writing to find myself a job or generate a critical reputation, I can set aside the “I” that carps, wants but is basically happy as long as it gets a nice lunch, for an “I” that’s closer to a mole working in the dark, burrowing forward, confident of the destination but needing to take the time it takes in order to get there.
Tagged as: fiction, mole, work, writing