About Going Both Ways

Post 1068:

There’s a lot of ways to tell a story, but I usually divide it into two camps. There’s standard and non-standard. Traditional and non-traditional. Normal and different.

I could be mercilessly mocked by nerds and scholars for this gross oversimplification of narrative theory. I’ll take my chances. There’s nothing less threatening than literary nerds and scholars. Maybe puppies. Nah. Even puppies have those little teeth.

There’s the books that introduce you to the main characters and the main problem right from the beginning. They aren’t trying to be clever. Just telling a story, giving you the meat and the potatoes on one nice plate. I find this lack of pretense to be very refreshing.

Then there’s the novel that you read and don’t quite know why. There are things sort of happening and descriptions of things that sort of matter and it all feels like it means something and it’s interesting for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on. These are sneaky stories and have a higher pretense potential—they also can be really great and give you an experience you’ve never quite had before.

I think it’s a good idea to try writing both ways. If you want to make something more traditional, plan it out, plot it as much as you can beforehand. If you want to go the other way, my advice is just start writing. Get a vague notion in your head and see where it takes you. It’s fun and freeing and it may deliver something special or something pathetic and psuedo-artistic. It’s a chance worth taking. Either way you’re practicing, writing, and getting better. It’s hard to get worse at writing, because no matter how good you are, you still probably stink. That’s why we edit our garbage until it resembles something human and non-threatening to society.

Go both ways. Cheers and see you after.