The Craft

While attending my second writers' conference, plenary speaker James Schepp graciously read and critiqued the opening chapter of my first novel. He had many helpful comments but what I really needed to know was, "Am I wasting my time? Can I become a writer?" His said, "Definitely, but you need to learn the craft."

The craft?

I thought you just started writing and kept going until you ran out of things to say. Sure, an editor would eventually correct the spelling, grammar and punctuation but what was this craft business?

I wasn't in a position to sign up for college courses, so I began at the library, devouring their slim collection of books on writing. Then I joined Writers' Digest and began purchasing books for myself. As I read, studied and reread these books I discovered their is no end to what I can learn about the craft. No end to what I can do to improve my writing.

For example, my erroneous idea that I start and the beginning and write until the end might be good for a first draft, but to turn my story into a novel I need to manipulate the story events into an arc.

Bill Johnson's A Story Is A Promise, explained arc in terms I could understand. To paraphrase: In the opening scene the writer must inform her reader what the story is about. ie In Rocky scene 1 the main character is called "a bum", alerting us that this movie is going to be about a man reclaiming his self-respect. The story then shows how Rocky accomplishes that goal. Which fulfills the promise made in the opening scene. If you watch the movie again you will see that anything that does not pertain to Rocky's search for self-respect is excluded from the story.

There were a lot of scenes in my first novel which, though interesting, did not support or illustrate the change my main character was experiencing through the course of the novel. Which brought me to craft issue number 2.

My character had to change?

Jayne E. Self