Words Fail Me Part 14

When you're driving in the country and come to a washed-out bridge, you don't park by the side of the road until it's repaired. You go around.

Writers. .h.i.t washed-out bridges, too. They know where they're going, but they can't see how to get there from here. Maybe a pa.s.sage seems impossible to write, a crucial piece of information is somewhere out in the ozone, or the perfect word is just out of reach. Some writers doggedly keep at it until they solve the problem. Some freeze up, chewing their nails and accomplis.h.i.+ng nothing as they stare into the abyss. And some sensible souls detour around the obstacle, then come back to it later with a fresh perspective.

Guess which course I recommend.

Imagine you're humming merrily along on a writing project, perhaps an article for a dog magazine on house-training in the city, when you come to what seems an insurmountable problem: How do you rush a puppy to the street when you live on the forty-ninth floor of a high-rise building? You stop to think. You think some more. The longer you stare at the problem, the larger it looms. Sweat appears on your upper lip. How much time is this going to cost? Hours, days, weeks? Panic sets in. Before you know it, you're blocked but good.

My advice is to skirt the problem before you become catatonic. I know of a novelist who was on the brink of a full-blown case of writer's block. His publisher was breathing down his neck, and he couldn't figure out how to get his villain from chapter 11 to chapter 13, the pivotal point in the story. No, he didn't sit there like a zombie while the clock slowly ticked. Instead, he pretended he'd solved the problem. He typed "Chapter 12" at the top of a page, followed by a long chunk of gibberish, then went on with chapter 13 and "finished" the book. When he went back to the problem with a fresh eye, the solution seemed obvious.

So when an intimidating obstacle threatens to derail your history paper or sales pitch, take a detour, especially if you're on a tight deadline and can't afford the delay. But don't cook up excuses to leave behind a lot of unfinished business. Skip over a problem only if it is stopping you dead. It's not a good idea to bypa.s.s something that's not a real threat, something you can handle without breaking stride.

A note of caution: This trick works only if you know where you're going. If you don't, jumping ahead can backfire. What if you return to the article on house-training and decide that the only solution is to get a cat?Now you're really in a pickle.

Mission Impossible.

When I bog down, it's often because I'm trying to solve the wrong problem. After wasting days at a time on a single paragraph, I discover that it doesn't work because (surprise!) it's unworkable. I may be trying to prove a controversial point, make a difficult case, or justify a startling conclusion. In the end, it turns out that the point can't be proved, or the case can't be made, or the conclusion isn't justified.

Perhaps you're writing a paper on the history of photography. You have a hunch that peeping-Tom arrests rose sharply after the development of the telephoto lens, and you'd like to toss that in as a sidelight. But you can't prove it. Each avenue of research is a dead end. Your progress comes to a halt. You begin to doubt yourself, and writer's block sets in.

Hold on there. Maybe the problem isn't you but the point you're trying to make. Your hunch may not be right, after all. Drop it and get on with your paper.

Then again, your hunch may be correct. But if the paper is due tomorrow and you don't have time to do the necessary research, drop that point anyway. Don't blow your project by going off on an impossible mission.

Fuel Crisis.

Once in a while you'll p.o.o.p out simply because you've run out of material to work with. If you're lucky, what you need is there in your notes and you've just forgotten about it. Return to your notes. A fresh look at them might give you some ideas and get you going again.

Or perhaps you started writing too soon, and you didn't gather enough material in the first place. You'll need to gather more, to learn more about your subject. Don't stop writing completely while you visit the library or navigate cybers.p.a.ce, though. Go back and forth between writing and researching so you don't stall. Once your engine cools off, it's hard to get it started again.

The Wrong Track.

Have you ever had driving directions that you dutifully followed-to the middle of nowhere? When you stubbornly follow a writing idea that's going nowhere, that's exactly where you'll end up. If you're stalled and nothing else works, consider the possibility that you need a new approach. Look at the subject from a different angle.

Say you're writing a sales brochure for a new retirement community. You start by emphasizing the wonderful on-site medical care, including a twelve-bed clinic with three nurses and a full-time doctor. The more you discuss how ideal the place is for geezers on their last legs, the grimmer it sounds. You wanted to make it appear lively and fun, not like the last stop before the cemetery. Now you're stuck because there's no graceful way to get to the goodies. So scratch the medical approach. Think healthy and active instead of sick. Build your brochure around entertainment and recreation. Emphasize the golf course, the pool, the tennis courts, and the busy social calendar. Yes, mention the terrific medical care, but only in pa.s.sing.

Fear Itself.

In high school, at the excruciatingly self-conscious age of fifteen, I had to give a speech before the Lions Club. My hands shook at the typewriter as I wrote it. I'd never met a Lion, let alone a den full of them. How that speech was written I'll never know.

When I stood up to deliver it, though, I was fine. The Lions, it turned out, were p.u.s.s.ycats. As soon as I saw them, so friendly and encouraging, I relaxed.

Sometimes writer's block is simply fear of the unknown: the audience. When you can't picture your readers, it's hard to write with confidence. And if you imagine the worst-a pack of snarling critics, just waiting to tear you to pieces-you'll be paralyzed. You'll be your own worst critic, picking apart every word and phrase. And fearful or self-conscious writing is stilted writing.

I've noticed that little children write as they speak-naturally. They haven't yet learned the fear of writing. Try to remember how you felt before the self-consciousness set in. Picture a friendly audience, one that's interested in what you have to say and that wants to believe you. Even when that's not the case, and the readers hate your guts, pretend they're on your side. The writing will be easier and-who knows?-you may win them over.

Playing with Blocks.

You can have writer's block and never know it. You may think you're working on a project when in fact you're putting off the writing.

Some people spend years researching histories or memoirs or Ph.D. theses that are never written. They have more than enough material early on, but somehow can't make themselves sit down and write. They seem busy and create the illusion that they're making progress, but the endless research eventually becomes an excuse not to write.

You can avoid this trap. Set aside a specific amount of time for writing-and only writing. Don't use that time for research. If you find you need to do additional research, do it during some other part of the day.

Imagine you're writing an essay on gun control. Along the way, you get an idea. Maybe crime in the Old West shot up when the revolver was introduced. But this is your writing time, pal. You don't want to get mired in research just now. Instead of stopping work to go to the library and hit the books (or maybe the CD-ROM's), skip over the missing part and move on. Put in a few dummy sentences to hold the fort: In 18XX, as law enforcement in the West was blah blah blah quack quack quack yadda yadda yadda, Samuel Colt invented the revolver. In the next XX decades, crime in frontier towns yackety-yack yackety-yack, with the result that blah blah blah blah blah.

Research isn't the only thing that can keep you from writing. Any distraction will do in a squeeze. If you've set aside two hours each morning for a week to work on a project, keep to your schedule. Get your teeth cleaned or your hair cut or your car lubed in the afternoon. There's always something. The habitual excuse is only writer's block in disguise.

Now get back to work.

29. Debt before Dishonor.

HOW AND WHAT TO BORROW.

I've long envied a friend of mine for the way she dresses. She's always beautifully put together, even in jeans. Give her a black T-s.h.i.+rt and a scarf and she can go anywhere. I remember studying her once at a party, wondering how she did it. She was elegance itself, wearing-of all things-a gray silk kimono and black high-top sneakers.

I felt like a schlub. "How can I not have a gray silk kimono and black high-tops?" I thought.

I'm a slow learner, you see. It took me a while to realize that the things she wore didn't matter. What mattered was why she chose them. I didn't need her kimono. I needed to learn what she knew about style.

I envy a lot of writers, too, but I don't steal what they've written. (There are laws about that sort of thing.) Instead I try to steal some of the tricks that make their writing so good. How? I thought you'd never ask.

Showstoppers.

Suppose you have to cover a football game for your college newspaper and the outcome is a foregone conclusion. The game is a numbing bore, and there's not much to report other than the score. What to do? Why not look at what writers you admire have done in similar jams?

Red Smith, my favorite sportswriter, once went to a dog show where the defending champion-or "ch."-was considered a shoo-in. Rather than write a ho-hum column about the dog's inevitable victory, Smith sized up some of the handlers and judges: "It is a scientific fact that the ladies tethered to the tiny toys are invariably the most magnificent members of the species. No exception was taken in this case; the smallest pooch noted was towing the largest handler, a celestial creature measuring seventeen and a half hands at the withers, deep of chest, with fine, st.u.r.dy pasterns....

"The judge of the nonsporting group, a Dr. M. Ross Taylor, proved himself a ch. among chs. He was imperious; he was painstakingly studious; he was profoundly authoritative of mien. He had splendid conformation-broad shoulders, white hair, and an erect carriage-and was beautifully turned out in an ensemble of rich brown."

Now, try to apply Red Smith's example to your boring football game. Instead of writing a predictable account of a predictable game, you could turn the story on its head. Look at the scene from a different perspective. A dull game may be good news for the hot dog and soda vendors. Ask a few busy concessionaires what they think makes a memorable day at the stadium. (Don't forget to include the score and a few details for the record. This is a sports story, after all.) Borrowing from writers you like doesn't mean aping their work or their style. If you were writing about a dog show instead of a football game, you wouldn't want to size up the humans as Red Smith did. That's not plagiarism, but it smells a lot like it. If you were covering a beauty pageant, however, you might adapt his idea by describing the physical charms of the emcee and the judges. And you'd sleep with a clear conscience.

Crabby Ways.

Barbara Kingsolver is another writer worth borrowing from. She has a knack for getting into a subject in an interesting way. Her essay "High Tide in Tucson" begins with a story about a hermit crab she accidentally brought home to Arizona. It was sleeping in a sh.e.l.l she found in the Bahamas, and awoke to find itself on her coffee table. Buster, as she called the crab, adapted to life in the desert but held on to the old, familiar rhythms. And so, it turns out, did she.

"When I was twenty-two, I donned the sh.e.l.l of a tiny yellow Renault and drove with all I owned from Kentucky to Tucson.... I 'm here for good, it seems. And yet I never cease to long in my bones for what I left behind."

That longing is what Kingsolver's essay is all about. She uses the uprooted crab and its crabby ways to sum up her own experience with uprootedness. "Yeah," you're thinking, "that's a neat trick, but what's in it for me?"

Perhaps you've been chosen to make a speech at the retirement dinner for the local head librarian. He's famous for antic.i.p.ating readers tastes, for knowing what they like before they do. In fact, he turned you on to your favorite author, P. G. Wodehouse. You could begin your tribute with an anecdote about Jeeves, the omniscient butler who antic.i.p.ates Bertie Wooster's every whim. Then compare the Wodehouse character to the prescient librarian who led you to him. There's your crab!

Whine Not.

I don't know about you, but I tend to tire of whiny writing. Not that writers don't have a right to feel sorry for themselves on occasion. I just don't want to read about it.

One reason I like Cynthia Heimel is that she manages to whimper and whine without actually whimpering and whining. She does it by laughing at herself. That's my kind of woman. Take her column about how hard it is to lose weight. Here, she's just met with the dietician and agreed to a regimen of salad and crackers: "'You'll lose twenty pounds in a month,' she says.

"'I'm your girl,' I say.

"I go home and start the famous prediet ritual: Eating everything I can. Cheeseburgers. Fries. Mallomars. Quite a few Mallomars. I want to throw up."

The next morning, the diet begins: "Please, somebody feed me. I'm going to faint. I'm starving to death."

Again, what's to learn? A downer goes down easier with a little humor. If you're writing about a bad experience-something depressing or discouraging-lighten up. There's probably an element of humor in there somewhere.

Say you're the marketing manager for a toy manufacturer and you're writing a training booklet for new sales reps. You want to warn them about how demoralizing it is to walk into a toy store and try to wheedle shelf s.p.a.ce for another board game. Rather than scare them with horror stories and failure rates, why not laugh at some of the mistakes you made the first time you wooed FAO Schwarz and Toys "" Us? The message may be the same, but it will be a lot more effective.

Sticky Fingers.

When you like a piece of writing, ask yourself why. What's the author doing that works so well? Maybe it's something you can use in your own writing. But don't swipe another writer's words or style. The real you is always better than an imitation somebody else.

That doesn't mean we can't be influenced by writers we like. I've had crushes on more of them than I can remember, and I'm sure you've had your favorites, too. Our reading shapes our writing and our thinking, and it's supposed to. To love a piece of writing is to be influenced by it. Where did I get this brilliant insight? I stole it from Elizabeth Bishop.

In her Collected Prose, Bishop writes about her debt to the poet Marianne Moore: "I am sometimes appalled to think how much I may have unconsciously stolen from her. Perhaps we are all magpies."

30. Revise and Consent.

GETTING TO THE FINISH LINE.

A former colleague of mine used to edit steamy romance novels and was ever on the alert for unintentional howlers: a sudden change in a lover's eye color, maybe, or an ancestral manse made of brick in one chapter and stone in the next. Then there was the pregnancy that didn't add up: the heroine was expecting for fifteen months. That was a nice catch.

Unfortunately, most of us don't have editors to save our b.u.t.ts. Our writing goes straight to our readers. If any b.u.t.ts are to be saved, we have to save them ourselves. That's why the wise revise.

Revising is more than fixing what's wrong; it's making what's pa.s.sable better. The Latin word revisere means "visit again." Revisiting your work isn't just an afterthought, something to do if you have the time. If you haven't revised, you're not finished.

There's no right or wrong way to revise. Some writers begin at the beginning and work their way through to the end. Others take care of obvious trouble spots first, then work their way through the whole piece. I'm in the second group. I make notes to myself as I write my first draft: "Insert formula for root beer"; "Check spelling of'Bon Jovi'"; "Find cost of a dozen cantaloupes." In my first go-around, I take care of the notes, a.s.suming I can find them. But it doesn't matter how you go about revising, as long as you do it.