Glue, staple, or otherwise attach this to the inside of your eyelids:
Writing Is Just Writing.
A writer and subscriber and friend I respect and admire (Thanks, Harold G.) emailed me: “I sure wish someone would write [an article] on writing non-fiction using this approach [WITD].”
As I responded to my friend,
“You are correct. WITD is valid for writing nonfiction as well as fiction. All of my TNDJ entries (and emails) and nonfiction books on writing are written into the dark. I also cycle over them to determine whether I want to add something I might have left out. So really it’s all the same thing.
“The only difference, really, is the character or characters. In fiction I’m viewing and hearing and conveying the characters’ story, and in TNDJ I’m conveying my own story. So I am the character.”
I’ve always kept the focus of TNDJ mostly on writing fiction. But to respond in greater depth to that comment, I’ll make an exception. Sort of.
The truth is, writing is just writing. And writing into the dark is actually the natural, default process for everyone, and for all good, authentic writing. That’s why I keep track of my “consumable words” (fiction and nonfiction) in The Numbers below.
Another way to say “write into the dark” is “Just Write.”
Just Write is what most of us do when we express our thoughts in emails or letters or when we’re a friend what happened to us during our vacation or during a trip to the store.
As I mentioned in my response to Harold, Just Write is what I do every day in writing not only fiction, but also emails and TNDJ and even my nonfiction books on writing.
It’s only when we attach a certain (and unnecessary) “importance” to a fictional story (or to anything else) that we begin to doubt ourselves and allow the critical mind in to intervene to “correct” anything.
How many of you would write down what happened to you during your vacation (a memoir), and then run it past a critique group? Wouldn’t that feel just a tad unnatural?
Yet what happened to you during your vacation is a story told from a character’s (your) point of view. So it’s exactly like fiction, although It’s presumably nonfiction.
Likewise a memoir or an email or a chat with friends is nonfiction. Isn’t it?
I write everything into the dark. I also do my best to teach others that is the natural, default process.
But I’m teaching people who don’t really need to be taught.
They (you) already know. You only need to realize and trust that you already know. You only need to get out of your own way.
Even Dean Wesley Smith has said numerous times (I’m paraphrasing here), “Writing good fiction is no different than writing a spontaneous email.” He’s right. It’s no different.
You only need to trust in your own abilities, that you can actually write something as earthshakingly important (yes, I’m being facetious) as (gasp!) a whole Sentence (and a paragraph and a story) without THINKING it to death.
Without outlining, without conscious-mind revision and rewriting, and without anyone else’s intrusive input. How can anyone else POSSIBLY know more about what’s in YOUR mind than you do?
So just as you can write an email or a letter or convey a memoir without anyone else’s input, you can also write YOUR Characters’ story without anyone else’s input.
The only input that is valid is the input of the character(s) who actually experienced the story.
- In an email or letter or memoir or nonfiction book, the character is you.
- In fiction, the characters are… well, the characters. YOUR characters.
So good writing is Just Writing, whether fiction or nonfiction. The only real difference is which character(s) lived what you’re writing: you or the fictional characters in your mind.
- If your characters allow you in to witness their story and you convey it accurately, that’s authentic fiction.
- If you convey your own story accurately—the one you’re living, and the one in which you are the character—that’s authentic nonfiction.
The UNNATURAL process, the one you must force yourself to do—because someone else, usually in an effort to separate you from your money, told you it’s the “right” way to do things—is outlining, revising, seeking critical input, rewriting, blah blah blah.
I literally don’t understand why so many writers don’t ‘get’ this.
If you’re a writer,
- THAT you write is important, but
- WHAT you write is not important in the slightest.
If you think any story, fictional or otherwise, is important enough that you have to fret over it, outline it, get critical input from others, rewrite it, and all that nonsense, I’m sorry, but you need to get over yourself.
That’s the truth.