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Craft of Writing

Magdalena Ball

Agenbite of Inwit: The pleasure and pain of being a writer

It's the most insidious myth. As a publisher, I get lots of emails from novice writers who are looking for tips on producing a best-selling novel and making an (easy) fortune. My answer is always the same: forget about it. Writing fiction is a mug's game. If it's riches you're after, you'd be far better off working as a checkout clerk at your local supermarket. If it's ease, being a member of a road gang is probably less emotionally stressful. No one believes me, not even my mother or husband, both of whom expect the royalties from my first novel to enable them to retire. So let's set the record straight. Dan Brown, John Grisham and JK Rowling are all major exceptions (like the winners of lotteries), and Grisham and Rowling in particular struggled for many years, through tedious day jobs, and many rejections before their work was even accepted by a publisher. Writing fiction is a creative art, and like any art, the odds of being financially successful at it are small, and the apprenticeship, long and hard. The only way to become a good, respected fiction writer is to work at it, often without any remuneration at all (check out clerk or road gang worker by day if you need to eat). A good novel may take many years to write. The financial rewards of a first novel, even when published by a big house, are almost always small. Ludicrously small. So why do it? Here are three reasons.

Because you can't help yourself

Being a writer is one of those 'careers' or perhaps vocations which comes along unbidden and grabs you by the scruff of the neck, biting deeply like Dracula. It's an affliction. The desire to write is generally not diminished by Machiavellian realities like the size of the paycheck, or the certainty of publication. While the rewards aren't usually financial ones, there are other reasons for writing fiction. The first and foremost is that you simply love words and can't help yourself. There is deep emotional satisfaction when you are able to craft a sentence that says exactly what you want to say in a unique, original way. There is an addictive quality, not that different from love, about taking bits and pieces of those things that interest or torture you and crafting them into a complete story. Everything that happens to you—good or bad—is material. A fiction writer doesn't quite have the same vulnerabilities as other people. Even as you suffer, you're always twisting, crafting, inventing and coordinating the pain and confusion into something universal. Your pain is always a stepping stone to something bigger.

To convey a message

Good fiction is generally not driven by a message, but rather by characters immersed in their situations. That said, fiction can be a powerful medium for conveying theme. Forget about didacticism, but you can show, rather than tell, how love is more powerful than hatred. You can prove, in a way that only story can, that freedom matters, or that death may not be the very end. You can make the reader believe, even if only for a moment, that every life is worth living, or that the wonder in a child's eyes is greater than any ideology. Good writing opens a door, for the writer and the reader, and can change the way the world looks. The ability to do that is a gift, no matter how hard it is or how low the pay rates. It really isn't something you can compare to a day job like clerking or roadwork. It's more akin to parenthood. Writing fiction is intrinsically and deeply satisfying to the soul, even as it wrenches you apart. If you're doing it right, you'll be dredging through your deepest fears and most intense desires to craft your story, and the process is therapeutic and powerful, both for you as writer, and for your reader. It matters in the broadest context.

To amuse yourself

If you aren't a reader you shouldn't be a writer. Writing and reading are two sides of a single coin, which isn't to say that all good readers are good writers, but unless you love words, it's not going to be possible to craft them. It isn't always possible to find books which suit your taste, but if you're a writer, you are no longer limited to what is available on the market. You can write exactly what you want to read, and have fun with it. If there's a topic that irritates or interests you, you can research it, play with it, and follow it to some kind of conclusion. It's outrageous hubris, which is probably the mark of a writer, but on your own page, you're the god. You can create your own worlds, developing a rich setting in whatever place, real or imagined, that you want to be in. Anachronistic? No problem. You can revisit an era that you wished you lived in. Become a Knight Templar. Take the first flight in a Wright plane. Time travel is no problem for a writer. Nor are the limitations of physics-metaphysics or nanotechnology- whatever you want goes. You can move through the universe, or go deep into someone's psyche. If you're a people person, you can delve into character. Take a stranger whose facial expression intrigues you and create a whole life for him. Although you may not earn much, it doesn't cost much either. A pen and paper. A computer you already have. An internet connection for the research, and there are no limits to your powers. If you are an obsessive, compulsive observer, and you love to play with language, time and space, then there are no greater rewards than synthesizing these observations into a complete work which someone else can lose themselves in. Never mind the tangibles, and forget funding your family's retirement. If you're a writer, you instinctively understand the rewards.


About the Author
Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader and Preschool Entertainment. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won many awards. Her non-fiction book, The Art of Assessment, was published by Mountain Mist Productions in 2002, and her poetry chapbook, Quark Soup, is due for publication by Picaro Press late in 2006. For details and samples, visit: http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/quarkindex.htm.