A struggling writer recently wrote to me: “As most rejection letters for other manuscripts tell me, ‘[My] story was not strong enough.’ Neither was this one. I don’t think the readers will care.”
What would I advise?
A rather daunting question.
Years ago, I was teaching a children’s literature writing course for adults, an evening noncredit course. The writing, across the board was poor. It lacked skill, insight, or strength. People were quite willing to work, and to revise, but it didn’t seem to matter. The writing remained lifeless. I began to have this thought: Don’t revise your writing. Revise your life.
The presumption, indeed, the arrogance of such thoughts, kept me from saying them. Mercifully, I kept it to myself. And yet … and yet.
In my experience people often wish to be authors, as if being an author was only a set of technical skills which needed to be mastered to be successful.
Yes, writing, does have technical skills, craft if you will, (they can be learned) but they are used—at their best—in the service of ideas, emotions, and aspects of human experience and condition. That is to say, writing brings forward your life’s experiences, thoughts and perceptions. Writing is molded by the depth of your understanding about that life. Your understanding of life is what illuminates and gives life to your writing. Writing does not create the good life. Life creates good writing.
So to the struggling writer cited above I would say to put aside the writing for a while. Spend your time in deep reading, looking, listening, and asking hard questions (really hard questions) about the things you believe. Not necessarily to change those beliefs but learn where those beliefs come from—rote learning or your own experience. Live by questions, not answers.
In short: Enrich yourself, enrich your writing. But start by enriching yourself.
Old cliché, but perhaps true: “A life unlived is like a book without words.”
3 thoughts on ““My story was not strong enough …””
Yes. Yes. Yes. And I think the best first step for many is, “Step away from the screen.” Passive device use is supplanting much richer life experiences.
I had a similar thought this week. After traveling to the Midwest and spending a few hours with a group of strangers with a common love (for a concert), I realized I need to break out of my regular group of book nerds and church friends more often. It was refreshing to hear stories from people who live hundreds of miles away from me, work in factories, yet we still have things in common while we waited in line.
We’re all different, but we’re all the same.
The best and most enduring books in my life all tell me something about life that I didn’t know before, or they solidify a thought that I had only vaguely been aware of before. It’s the ability to put words to something that is new or was background noise that I admire. I want a book to change me. Plot, characters, setting, theme, all working together to move my mind forward. A book can actually not be that well written and still be treasured if it has new ideas.