Flick the Lights On
On opening lines for writing and conversations
“Flick the lights on.”
This is how writer Dwight Garner explained his approach for opening his reviews for the New York Times Book Review. He happened to be saying this in a room once frequented by Mark Twain. Garner’s recent critique of a Twain biography began with: “Ron Chernow’s new biography of Mark Twain is enormous, bland and remote—it squats over Twain’s career like a McMansion.”
That line must have caused some blinking eyes as they got used to the light, not just for that room full of Twain fans.
Twain (and what you may think of him aside) Garner says he learned that tip from another writer, George Saunders, whose book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life delivers writing advice through a unique lens of short-storytelling.
The day I heard this excellent guidance, I read two lifestyle articles in mainstream online publications. One began with the word “ah” and a weather report. The other took three paragraphs before it was apparent what the article was even about. (At least neither of these was a list of words separated by commas and the word “and” followed by “oh my!”, which is a cliché that’s just begging for a house to fall on it already).
I am an introvert, which is a weird thing to be in a business where making small talk is a survival skill. I have a hard time starting conversations with people I don’t know. An old standby has been “what’s the first concert you ever went to?” It typically works for a few minutes of conversation at least. There have been times I’ve made lifelong friends this way.
This week, since I knew I would be meeting mostly writers for the first time, I decided to go with “What’s the best book on writing that you’ve read and what did you take from it?”
Very few of the younger writers I spoke to this week had read one.
(I almost said, “Amazingly very few…” but then I would be going against Stephen King’s advice from On Writing to avoid using adverbs.)
“Ok, but you took writing classes? Watched YouTube videos? At least read a lot?”
“It just kind of happened.”
“I see. Why did you want to become a writer? What got you into it?”
“Free drinks.”
Yep. That’s where we are.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I hope to get into a more juicy topic next week. But this subject was on my mind this weekend as I tackled other things.
I’ll leave you with something I read this week from Sean Dietrich’s Substack “Sean of the South” in which he describes a friend who “wanted to write content that affected readers on a deep level. He once said, ‘I want my work to cause people to experience true emotions like sorrow, anger, and even pain.’ Today he writes error messages for Microsoft.”
So what’s the best book you’ve read on writing and why do you like it? Please let me know in the comments!
I think one could argue the best book on writing was the one you most enjoyed reading. As that is what clearly engaged you, so read that again and divine what made it work so damn well.
But it terms of craft, yeah, I'd prob hail to King on On Writing. I do disagree with his aversion to adverbs though. I want to ask him, if as a small child, he was assaulted by an adverb (or shall I say, if he was slowly, intrusively, unspeakably assaulted by an adverb) but I dig his concept of writing as telepathy and moreover the metaphor of a story being bones you excavate. And the man has definitively sold more books than the King James Bible.
So I deeply trust his experience and instinct. Night Shift was my Narnia. But if he gives me shit for adverbs, I will gently remind him even an effervescent mind like his isn't always right with two words: Maximum Overdrive.
Ha! Although I agree with King on this point MOST of the time. The majority of sentences are better with one descriptive word vs. two or more weaker ones that say the same thing. But I think his campaign against them can be harsh (and not just a bit harsh).
I want to read Night Shift again. I haven't since I was a teenager! (Bummed you couldn't save my copy from the moving van along with my monkey pillow, Trojan box set, and illuminated manuscript, but unlike some of King's characters, you do only have two hands. )
I just finished Verlyn Klinkenborg's Several Short Sentences About Writing this week, and it bowled me over. I can't remember who recommended it recently, but I want to thank them. Transformative stuff, because it demolishes everything we're taught about writing and "meaning" in favor of focusing on the sentences themselves.
"Don't pause, don't judge, don't edit; don't stop — just keep writing." Not a direct quote, but that's what's stayed with me from the first "advice on how to write" book, Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" in the late '80s.
I was graduating from high school and while my writing got me through pretty much everything, I felt I probably should be "professional" about it.
So I got Writing Down the Bones, along with Strunk & White's Elements of Style and On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Both Elements and On Writing Well were good at clarifying common sense approaches, the Natalie Goldberg was actually the best about the mechanics and encouragement. I'm sure it's still worthwhile.
And yes, I have been loving "A Swim In the Pond in The Rain," in part, because it's a terrific little anthology of Russian short stories which I probably wouldn't be reading now if it hadn't been for Saunders.
Of course, the most lasting piece writing advice that came to me by surprise. It was in an ad for the International Paper Company written by Kurt Vonnegut, who was a particular favorite of mine from the mid-80s on. The ad was in Rolling Stone, I think.
"Sound like yourself" is probably the best part.
As for why I became a writer... I couldn't do — or wouldn't want to do? — anything else. (Though I did once aim for centerfield for the Yankees or being some kind of Brooklyn version of Elvis Costello, but no one wanted that and as I got on, neither did I.)
https://fs.blog/kurt-vonnegut-how-to-write-with-style/
What an insightful response, David!
I actually got to meet Vonnegut, did I ever tell you that? My maternal grandmother's first cousin was the news man Elie Abel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Abel and in 1989 I attended a gathering in his honor, with Vonnegut in attendance. Elie introduced us (here's me age 18 in a 1950s frock I found at Canal Jean Co., combat boots, and an old gas mask bag as a purse at a swanky club). There was an Earth Day button on my bag and Vonnegut pointed at it and said, "Ah yes. Earth Day, where humans do things like celebrate the existence of lint." I don't remember anything after that.
Anyway, I think that's perfect advice, and wish more people heeded it! It's what I strive for.
Elements is essential. It's amazing how many new writers don't know it. But I did not know about Goldberg! I will check it out.
Thank you.