Good writing is mostly not about actually writing. It took me 26 years to figure this out.
We think of the act of writing, of actually typing the words into a computer, or writing on a page, as the most important part of the writing process. But, as I am slowly learning it may actually be the least important part.
I like to spend afternoons working at the local library here in Canmore. It is a great place to work. It’s a new building, rectangular, with a very high ceiling at one end sloping gradually down to the other. When you walk in, at the far end from where you are standing there are large glass windows. There are desks at this end. From there, you can look out and see the sharp, jagged Rocky Mountains that surround Canmore. It is a great place to be productive.
Since I’m at the library, I like to browse the bookshelves and yesterday I stumbled onto a gem. Everything You Need to Write Great Essays: You Can Learn From Watching Movies. The title is a bit long. And it is about writing essays for high school students, but browsing through it I got a lot of actionable ideas about how to improve my writing.
The book uses Movies as a metaphor for how you should think about writing. One a massive blockbuster film. It can take up to two years to make a movie. But there can be as little as 40 or 50 days of actual filming.
The act of writing, actually putting words on paper, is like the filming. It is the most visible part of the whole process, but without good work before and after, filming means nothing.
Brainstorming, research, and planning go a long way towards the success of whatever you are writing.
This pre-production for writing isn’t glamorous, and it conflicts with our romantic vision of writing. We image a great writer being struck by inspiration, and idea from above, then diving onto a typewriter, or a notepad and writing it out perfectly in one try. The reality is that for all great works, there is a lot of work beforehand.
Then there is post-production. Editing.
This is the part that is most painful for writers. Reading our work over again and again. Taking new attempts at writing and idea, and exposing it to people we trust for crucial feedback.
Massive amounts of post production work also conflicts with our romantic version of genius. We imagine writers producing something they love and then fighting to protect it from the bad judgement of other who don’t understand their creative genius. In reality, most first drafts are terrible. The great books that we love have been edited again and again by the authors and others before they resembled anything close to a finished product.
Excellent writing requires patience to sit, think out and then research a topic. Then to hack away at writing. Writing multiple takes, experimenting with angles, and finally ruthlessly chopping away unneeded words, paragraphs, or even chapters.
The book has a lot of other great insights into the things we can learn as writers from movies. It also provides a great excuse to go and watch a movie tonight 🙂
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