Sometimes the principles behind good writing seem so simple to me, but they’re simple like riding a bike is simple: before you can ride a bike, it seems impossible, but once you start riding you can’t remember why you couldn’t do it.
I was thinking about this while reading Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. How does he create such amazing effects? How did he write such a great book? I think the answers are simple, like riding a bike: he lives in his head and he lets his language go. Here’s an example from early in the book. It’s the description of what a train whistle sounds like at night:
“The wails of a lifetime were gathered in it from other nights in other slumbering years; the howl of moon-dreamed dogs, the seep of river-cold winds through January porch screens, which stopped the blood, a thousand fire sirens weeping, or worse! The outgone shreds of breath, the protests of a billion people dead or dying, not wanting to be dead, their groans, their sighs, burst over the Earth.”
First, I think, Bradbury really gets into his own head to write this. He either remembers or vividly imagines what it is like to be in bed in the middle of a summer night when you are fourteen years old and nothing sounds lonelier than a distant train whistle. I think of Bradbury closing his eyes to do this, taking a few deep breaths while he really, really tries to hear that train, because writing isn’t at first about forming the words on the page–it’s about getting to the moment he’s trying to write about–it’s about trying to relive it in all of its particulars. Then, when he’s as present as he can make himself in that moment of memory or imagination, he lets his language go.
Look at the passage again. What marks it is exuberance, not restraint. He’s thrown himself into the language or at the language (I’m not sure which preposition to go with here). The first clause, “The wails of a lifetime were gathered in it from other nights in other slumbering years,” is figurative three times in sixteen words: two personifications and a hyperbole. And he’s hardly started! The metaphors take off after that. The whistle isn’t just a “howl” (which is a great word choice at this point), it is “the howl of moon-dreamed dogs.” The whistle becomes not just a cold wind, but a “seep of river-cold winds through January porch screens.” After that, the whistle becomes the groans of the dead in an extended metaphor of 27 words. Whew! That’s quite a train whistle.
I often argue you need three qualities to write well: One: the ability to observe; Two: a facility with language; and Three: having something to say. Sometimes I add a fourth: A willingness to notice connections.
A solid piece of advice is to go back to primary sources. An obvious primary source is the world we live in. Sadly, most people don’t pay much attention to the world they live in, but good writers live there all the time. They notice cool air from an airconditioned building blowing across their face when they step in from a hot, summer day. They notice tree bark’s rough and textured skin when they run their fingers over it. They close their eyes in a restaurant—just for an instant—so they can smell spices and hear the clink of silverware against plates. Oh, and taste is a thousand sensations: a crisp apple in the fall, a hot tea in the morning, the cornucopia of sweets from a trick-or-treat bag.
A second piece of advice is to explore our second primary source: the writing and speech of others. I like poetry, but political speech is fascinating, as are nature essays (I like Edward Abbey and Henry David Thoreau), and well-done satire, and screen plays. Of course, noticing language as it surrounds you is vital too. There’s rhythm and beauty in a child’s speech, just as our elders at the end of their days put sentences together in the most interesting manner.
And the third primary source? Your imagination, naturally.
I believe our best writers don’t set out to sound like writers when they approach the page. They’re trying to capture their remembered, imagined and outer reality with words.
Bradbury said, “There’s only one type of story in the world: your story.” I don’t want to write like Bradbury–I want to write like myself–but I’ve learned from Bradbury to get into my head, pay attention to the world, and I’ve learned I have to grit my teeth and be brave with language.
James Van Pelt has been selling short fiction to many of the major venues since 1989. Recently he retired from teaching high school English after thirty-seven years in the classroom. He has been a finalist for the Nebula, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, Locus Awards, and Analog and Asimov’s reader’s choice awards. Years and years ago he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He still feels “new.” Fairwood Press recently released a huge, limited-edition, signed, and numbered collection of his work, THE BEST OF JAMES VAN PELT. He can be found online at his website or on Facebook.
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