Guest Blogger: Stuart Horwitz<\/p>\n
As a writer who writes about writing, I can get just as fancy as the next guy when it comes to discussing techniques, and shades of techniques, with clients and students. But sometimes I think it\u2019s worthwhile to go back to basics and ask ourselves: what do we really need to get started writing and to do a good job? What are the essentials?<\/p>\n
Since I am not very handy, I think of the five basics in the writer\u2019s toolkit as the only tools I wish we ever needed to fix things in real life:<\/p>\n
THE HAMMER: Action. People love to see things happen. The action doesn\u2019t have to be as extreme as in a movie, but it has to be just as intense. When something happens then the state of events changes, and it is these changes that drive the narrative forward to the end. If nothing happens, in that quiet you can hear your book being closed up gently in the night all over town.<\/p>\n
THE DRILL: Dialogue. Human beings do a lot of speaking, so it would be odd to read a book without dialogue. Along a continuum from method acting \u201cgive it to \u2018em straight\u201d dialogue to the more formal \u201cwe all speak in complete sentences like it\u2019s an Aaron Sorkin show,\u201d you will have to find your way. Just make it like something someone would say.<\/p>\n
THE SCREWDRIVER: Point-of-View. point-of-view always stems from two overlapping sources, a narrator and a character. We want to see whatever the narrator wants us to see, but we want to think about it like the character. However many of those you can pull off is how many points-of-view you can have. If you can pull off one, that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n
THE NAIL: Description. And by this I don\u2019t just mean description of physical objects, but also description of everything from emotional states to patterns of people and society — choosing the right words for both the way things look and what they mean. This basic tool places an importance on word choice, but that doesn\u2019t mean have to create an artificial vocabulary. Like a good tool, the right word is usually within reach. <\/p>\n
THE TAPE MEASURE: Narrative Arc. This is by far the least taught\u2014and least understood\u2014of the five tools presented here. It seems like 100 years since people have discussed repetition and variation or improvement and deterioration, the formal properties of structure. Yet we need to be able to construct a narrative arc to give the reader something to follow and, better yet, to care about.<\/p>\n
What about you? Does one of these come more easily than some others? Is there one that you really struggle with? There are a variety of resources available once you know what the problem is. That\u2019s always the problem isn\u2019t it? Finding out what the problem is?<\/p>\n