Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Is Learning Possible?

This is topic Is Learning Possible? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Rick Norwood (Member # 5604) on :

I notice that Heinlein always writes like Heinlein, LeGuin like LeGuin. I suspect that I will always write the way I write, that the basic style cannot change.

On the other hand, there are tricks of the trade, like putting "Joe said," "Bob said," on dialog, even when to me, as a writer, it looks funny. The reader won't notice it consciously, but will be saved from confusion about who is saying what to whom.

At some point about a year ago, I looked at writers I like a lot and noticed that they use a lot of dialog. Erle Stanley Gardner, the (or, now maybe one of the) best selling writers of all time is mostly dialog. Heinlein is very heavy on the dialog. So, I started using a lot of dialog.

I've now gotten several rejection slips saying, too much dialog. So, in the story I'm working on now, I plan to consciously use more description. That's the kind of thing it is possible to learn.

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Maybe the learning is in figuring out how best to use your style, and how to make it effective for the kinds of stories you want to tell.

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

If by learning you mean adjusting your style, I certainly think it's possible. I am by nature a "lean" writer and do very, very heavy dialogue. My first novel had almost NO description. The poor reader (had very many people read it but they were saved from that fate) would have had no clue what anything in the entire novel looked like.

I deliberately learned to put in description. I have been told (I'm not sure if it's true or not) that my description now isn't bad. I still depend more on dialogue, and I'm sure I always will. But I have learned to use description.

I think Heinlein would sound like himself whether he had used more description or not.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 08, 2007).]

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

Description tends to be found intermingled with the best dialog. Take a conversation between two lovers, there will be lots of movements, feelings, and little hints at what is going on that the words don't have to relay.

Dialog is one of the areas I am overly critical of. I've read so much bad dialog it is nauseating. Dialog is as much about sound as it is content. Some dialog sounds wrong because the way it is used doesn't match the character. To use common dialog with someone raised as a noble would make the ready wonder how someone raised to speak properly could talk so normal.

I do believe it all comes back to telling a story in a way that the words fade and the story comes to life. I've read books that had so little description it would be hard for two people reading the same book to see the same settings, but both would be able to guess what any of the characters would do in most situations. Others have had enough detail to make entire scenes vivid. Lots of description is harder to do well without boring the reader. No matter how much description you add in, it needs to flow with the overall story as well.

So, no matter your style, write so the reader doesn't notice your writing and you will have more readers.

Posted by JFLewis (Member # 6957) on :

One of the comments my editor had ont he revisions letter for my first novel was basically to avoid talking head syndrom, to have better blocking, let the reader know where the charcater are, what they are doing.

I'm not very good at it, but I'm getting better. At DragonCon this year, I attended a writing panel with Claire Eddy, Toni Weisskopf, David Weber, and several others. They seemed to agree that the part of writing you can't learn is the storytelling. If you can tell good stories, then you can learn the technique.

It took me three unpublished novels and over a decade of trying to begin to get it remotely right.

Right ow, I have seven green post-it notes stuck to the wall around my monitor. Some of them won't make any sense to you, but:

1) Let us see Eric "feel" more
2) More Roger
3) Better blocking
4) Make the plot work!!!
5) Meander less
6) How does it look? How does it feel?
7) Better feel for Marilyn, please.

That's my long winded way of saying that I think your doing the right thing. You're looking for weaknesses in your style and you're trying to address them as best you can.

I also agree that yes, great writers have a style that is nearly always present, but they also tend to get better the more they write. Terry Pratchett is great and his prose is very recognizable, but compare GUARDS! GUARDS! to THUD! and you'll see a clear evolution.

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

It appears we have two J's now.

I wonder if it's like riding a bicycle. It takes you time to really get the hang of it, and all the while you're learning, but after that you always do it your way, which is always at least slightly different than everybody else's.

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

Once you have done "it" right (it being getting some facet of writing so it sounds professional in other people's minds), you have a feel for what you did and can try, try, try to do it again.

Like riding a bike or playing the high notes on a flute or finding your chi in martial arts.

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

I think our personal writing styles change through a gradual evolution rather than through abrupt shifts, but I'm sure they change. Have you gone back and reread stuff you wrote a long time ago...I mean like ten or fifteen years? I went back and did that about a year ago, just out of curiosity, and it was amazing how much had changed. Among other things, I used to always begin stories with a huge narrative info dump that told you exactly what was going on and who the character was. This was hugely clunky when I was a teenager and barely better in my early twenties, though by then I had at least smoothed out the paragraphs so they flowed better.

Not only that, but I've added huge amounts of description to my writing. Aside from the opening info dump, most of my stories used to be dialog, dialog, and more dialog, with barely anything to break it up. (I guess the opposite of your angle, Rick.) I've found a happy medium, I think, though my stories will probably always be dialog heavy. It's my favorite part.

Even the word choices I make are becoming more sophisticated as I get older and more experienced.

I think it's a mistake to try to make huge style shifts in one fell swoop. When I've tried to do this, the result is so far out of my comfort zone that it sounds stilted and unnatural. But I constantly look for ways to improve my words, my mechanics, and even my voice...one step at a time

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

quote:
They seemed to agree that the part of writing you can't learn is the storytelling.

I'm not sure I buy this. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think you _can_ learn how to be a better story teller. Sure, maybe some people have a natural knack, but some people don't, but by reading and trying things out, I think you can improve.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited November 09, 2007).]

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

I always thought Heinlein tended to "shake it up" a good deal, and that the early 1940s Heinlein in Astounding wasn't much like the 1950s Heinlein in the juveniles, and neither much resembled the post-Stranger-in-a-Strange Land Heinlein. (Unlike, say, Asimov, who came up with a fiction writing style by the mid-forties and a non-fiction writing style by the mid-fifties, and stayed with it till the end.)

Yet all of them somehow retained a kind of "indivisible Heinlein," that an insightful reader would always know it was Heinlein he was reading.

I'm inclined to think that there's no one way to write a successful story---there are too many successful writers who don't write like each other. Asimov didn't write like Heinlein, Lovecraft didn't write like either of them, Dickens didn't write like Hemingway, and so on and so forth.

I'm going with finding a style that satisfies (a) me, and then worry about satisfying (b) the editors who have to buy it, and (c) the readers who will ultimately read it. So far, I've managed Step A, but Step B still eludes me. (For awhile, I short-circuited Step B and went directly to Step C by putting out Internet Fan Fiction. Apparently I pleased some people beyond the editors, if the reaction I got was a reliable guide.)

Posted by lehollis (Member # 2883) on :

quote:
They seemed to agree that the part of writing you can't learn is the storytelling.

quote:
I'm not sure I buy this. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think you _can_ learn how to be a better story teller. Sure, maybe some people have a natural knack, but some people don't, but by reading and trying things out, I think you can improve.

I feel storytelling can be improved. I'm not sure if that is what JF meant or not, but I do know I learned quite a bit from Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. I don't think I could have finished my book without it.

Posted by RMatthewWare (Member # 4831) on :

I think by the time you get published you've found a style that works for you and works for your publisher. Style should be a subconscious thing. Sure, you can work on style, but as OSC says, you improve your style by trying to write a clear book, not by trying to create it.

Sure, you can learn and improve your craft, but your overall style will probably stay the same. So your favorite author will probably always write the way they do. Its their style. Its worked for them, so why change?

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

yeah, i think the biggest lesson i've learned is that there's no one formula for success (except maybe persistence!), and there's no formula for being a good writer, either. it's all about mitigating your flaws and highlighting your strengths.

Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :

For me it's axiomatic that learning is always possible.

I spent some time a while ago on dialogue and description balance, because my early stories contained too little dialogue. I learned much by analyzing my favourite writers, not just to see how much they did of each, but in terms of content and structure.

They often use dialogue to introduce information, but in an interesting way that continues to engage the reader, perhaps through the interest in the characters themselves in the information that's being exchanged. Fleming does it well in Goldfinger when Bond learns about the gold trade from an eccentric banker (our interest is held because of Bond's in both the information and the eccentricities of the banker).

I think descriptions often work best when they are multi-layered. For example in 'Live and Let Die' Fleming devotes the opening paragraph of a chapter to Bond driving through London to visit with M. It sounds fairly mundane. But not only does the paragraph tell you where they are (the expensive part of London where the power-brokers reside), but it tells much about Bond's taste (a 1933 grey Bentley convertible), his attention to detail (it has an Amherst Villiers supercharger), his care for it (it starts first time), the weather (he switches on the fog lamps), and the fact that he survives in his dangerous world by being careful (he drives 'gingerly' through London in the fog). The car and the drive become a character sketch of Bond himself, as well as establishing the scene in London.

The 'gingerly' thing by itself is such a small detail one hardly notices it. But taken with descriptions elsewhere about Bond's meticulous attention to detail and his knowledge that this helps him survive it contributes to a picture in our minds of his character, one that Fleming builds in small easily-digestible doses.

Another thing I've noticed about Fleming's style is that description tends to be heavier at the start of a chapter and there's less of it near the end, so that we know exactly where everyone and everything is and the pace can accelerate with action and dialogue to a climax.

Cheers,
Pat