ESSAY - On Writing [I]: The Modern Library Writer's Workshop

Can anyone tell you how to write? No. At least, they shouldn’t; then you're not writing so much as dictating or channeling the voice of another author. The minute someone prescribes advice for you, be it in showy cliché—“show don’t tell”—or precise instruction—“In media res is the best way to start your story”—you’re in trouble. What then, is the point slash role slash need of the literary lessons of books like Stephen Koch’s The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop?

Sparks, my friend. Not the overburdened and one-dimensional sparks of Spark Notes (as if there could be a crib sheet for writing), but for insightful quotes from successful authors on how they’ve managed to write. When Koch leaves it to them (and his own experience), clarifying thoughts without proselytizing the necessity of them, his book is a charming and edifying read. When he plays the role of the headmaster, explaining such niceties (I refuse the word “necessities”) as the ten-percent rule—“Second draft equals first draft minus ten percent”—he grows insultingly dull.

Or maybe it’s just me, holding on to the vain notion that writing is grown and cultivated—a gut instinct—rather than a planned, sculpted, and constantly revised process. (For what it’s worth, Koch does mention authors like Sommerset Maugham who wrote single-draft stories.) But for the most part, it shouldn’t be necessary to read (or write) a chapter on revision: to say that there is a formula or process for correctly explaining the story is just fallacious, and unfortunately misleading. The one anecdote Koch uses that sticks with me is of one of his students putting together a final project. She keeps coming up with crap, and at last Koch advises her to forget her last revision, and to simply tell the story. She does, working through a painful deadline to produce a slim but brilliant story. What inevitably worked for her? The deadline? The advice? The time she’d spent writing and learning to identify her worthless sections? Perhaps none of these, perhaps some weird amalgam of them all. The point is, something different works for all of us and only experimentation can unlock your potential.

That said, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop rocks when Koch debunks popular schoolhouse mythos, like “write what you know” or the need for research. To the former, he retorts that we know a lot more than we think¬—including of course, the things we have read about, which creates a secondhand narrative that is the very essence of fiction. As for the latter, Koch dismisses it: why bog ourselves down in fact when we can invent first, and check the substance later? (Or as I see it, why limit ourselves to specifics if the story itself is good? Koch would agree, to some extent, with this: he is a climber of Mount Probability; he acknowledges that some things require the improbable to occur.)

Of course, Koch also has rules—many of are irreconcilable with his own text. For instance, his first line—“The only way to begin is to begin, and begin right now”—forces you to stop reading. In fact, if this guideline were followed to the bitter end, one would never read, though Koch later confesses that we become better writers by first becoming better readers. (In some cases, Koch even uses the familiar anecdote of authors beginning their daily writing by transcribing their favorite authors to get the juices and rhythms flowing, so to speak.) This is also where we run into the steadfast scholar, a man who dictates that there are rules for the first draft, among which are the rather obvious “Do it” (right up there with “only you can prevent forest fires”) and “Do it quickly” (which he then contradicts by explaining that some authors are more prone to writing slow first drafts). His heart is in the “write” place, but why not think about perfection the first time through? Yes, it’s good to get it all out on paper, but must that be a sedentary way of doing things?

Then again, it’s probably good for some people to hear what I consider obvious staples of the writer’s craft: keeping a notebook of thoughts and ideas, for instance, or arming oneself with a pen (the idea can strike at any time). And you can’t go wrong with Koch’s use of quotes. Take, for instance, James Baldwin’s assurance that “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.” These are things that perhaps we need to hear on a regular basis, basic truths that we need to be reminded of—that genius means nothing if it is devoted to sloth. I’d say that justifies a book like this—that a phrase may uproot your laziness and make you write again—but if you’re reading, you aren’t lazy.

Mock as I do the idea of reading your way through a writing workshop, Koch’s “class” is very organized, and has enough italicized or fully capped sentences to make skimming for inspiration a breeze. I also gloss over a lot of the interesting points that Koch makes, such as the difference between plot and story, or—so long as you take his words as suggestions and not commandments—how to go about cultivating a voice. I also make it seem, at times, as if Koch is not aware of his own contradictions—he is. He’s simply ignoring them to better facilitate you, the reader, who will inevitably vulturize (as I have) the parts that you find tastiest. That said, pick away.

Those paying attention may have realized that there is no actual review of The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop; how can I possibly stand on a pedestal and write whether or not a book on writing is good? It has encouraged me to write some vaguely expressed opinions on the craft of writing itself, so I cannot call it uninspiring, and I must acknowledge that writing is a realization of the phrase “to each his own.” You sir, must decide what best serves your craft, so now you, sir, must do just that.

Go.