I totally agree with all that's just been said - you guys took the thoughts from my mind and put them into words. @Tesero: I think the bottom line would be that you should write for yourself, and edit with the market and readers in mind. Get the story out that you love, but make sure that it's executed in a way that works for a third party - that can allow them to be swallowed by it.
Why not? Now, I'm not saying that you have to read these books. I'm not saying that by refusing to read them you're dooming your writing career. But all the same, why not read them? Why wouldn't you want to know everything there is to know about writing, so that you have the biggest possible buffet of ideas to choose from? I *want* to know, "Writer Blah says that Structure A is problematic because of X and Y and because it fails to fulfill goal Z." I may respond, "X and Y are just stupid, and while I also support goal Z, I do Q for that. So bleah on you." But even as I reject the advice, I may well have learned something. Maybe I hadn't explicitly stated goal Z before. Maybe I hadn't realized why people strive for X and Y, and now that I know why, I know what *other* advice to choose to ignore. When I engage in a pursuit, I like to know everything there is to know about that pursuit. There's direct experiential learning--eating the food, smelling the perfume, reading the novel. And there's meta-learning--reading about the reasoning behind that combination of flavors, that combination of notes, that story structure. They're both valuable, and they feed each other. I'll happily take in all the advice and ideas and recommendations and techniques that anyone will give me. Then I'll decide which bits to reject.
And some people do read them and do entirely what you suggest - take the bits they like and reject the rest. But for me? I've realized I don't learn that way. My time is better spent reading and analyzing what I've read - and then trying to apply it. How-to books are too theoretical for me. I have to learn by doing it myself. And why is that so bad? That's what I don't understand. If I learn that way, why is that such a point of contention? My mind works differently than yours. What's wrong with that? I don't think anyone is saying don't read how-to books. What people are saying is that that's not the only way to learn, and in fact for some people, other methods work better.
I have a hard enough time getting my story out on paper, clogged down with what sounds good and whether or not this or that sentence is written properly, and just generally trying to ignore my inner editor. I don't need to add specific structures and goals into the mixture. If I find a problem to which I have no solution, I assure you all, I will seek out the answer. Maybe it won't be in a how-to-write book, maybe it will. (I'd probably Google it first; that's just how my brain works.) But I think that having all of that extra information in your mind before you've finished that first manuscript can seriously bog down the writing process. Most writers that I've met, personally (as in, know to a significant degree, not just in passing) already have difficulty getting through the basic problems of, "Did I add enough description? Is there too much dialogue? Was that word spelled wrong? Should there be a comma here?" before they've even written the whole thing out. And I count myself amongst that group.
It's not so bad. Like I said, I'm not saying that you have to read these books. However, a sort of tangent: I would never refer to the ones I've read as "how-to" books. It sounds like you're anticipating that they'll have a start-to-finish recipe, while to me it's about a lot of little ideas and about standing a little away from the process and observing it. I garden, and I read about gardening. I sew, and I read about sewing. I collect perfume, and I read about perfume, and if I made perfume I'd read even more. I write, and I read about writing. I'm sure that you can learn to garden without reading about it at all, just by observing finished gardens. But that is indeed how writing without reading about writing strikes me--like learning to garden not from watching a gardener, but instead from walking through a finished garden, one with very little visible trace left of how the ground was prepared, whether the plants were planted from seed or tuber or plant, how they somehow got all those little bay trees just the same size. I know from reading that they get all those little bay trees the same size by growing extras out back somewhere, and plugging a new one in when an old one dies or grows funny. If that had never occurred to me, and if my goal was to have a marching row of identical trees, I might chase that goal for decades without realizing that my method of chasing it simply won't work. I guess that's what I'm saying: In every pursuit, there has to be knowledge that cost someone years or decades of work, knowledge that may not be obvious from the finished work. I'd like to get that knowledge basically for free--that is, for the minimal cost of reading a book. Now, I may not care about a specific idea--as, in fact, I don't care about the bay trees; I don't grow that kind of formal garden. But I still like to know it. Someday I might very well want, oh, a whimsically silly little identical row of lettuces for an effect in the front of the vegetable garden, and now I know how to get it. However, I think that we all have plenty of learning to do about writing, and focusing for months or years on self-learning without reading a book seems just fine. (Not that you need my approval.) I think all I'm arguing is that if you reach a point where you feel that you'd like some fresh and different input into the writing process, those books might be worth reading then.
I like this a lot. You've made the distinction between creating to formula, and re-inventing the wheel.
What I don't like about these "discussions" (and I use the term loosely) is the insistence that one way is the only way. In other threads, I have not said "Don't read these books" - I have said they are better read after one has already done some writing, reading, and critting. Then you know what areas you are confused about - and what areas you feel comfortable with. Thus, when reading how some other writer does things, or what their opinions are, you have a better idea of whether or not that is useful to you. But, to use the analogy from above, if one has ever talked to a group of gardeners, you know they each have different methods of doing things and each will swear that's the best way to do it. But if you've already tried some gardening, you have a better idea of which advice might work better, and which will not help you at all.
What you say has a lot of validity. But it's impossibe to know or understand the best time to introduce information to gain maximum understanding of a subject. Speaking just for myself, the process of learning is cyclic. Learn some of A, get confised because I need to know B, go back to A only to find I forgot C... What's bad is if you need to know B but never realize it. If you had at least an inkling that it would come up you would be better off for it. Using the garderner analogy, I would trade all my how to books to be able to meet with accomplished writers who would spend as much time as I needed to learn the various aspects of the writers craft. This is of course, not possible.
@shadowwalker - Absolutely. What bothers me about @JayG's posts - and his constant attempts to turn every discussion back to this one - is his insistence that there is only one way to learn to write, and the not-so-subtle inference (regardless of how often he denies it) that there is only one method to learn. @Fitzroy Zeph - I don't think you are unique in this regard. In the US, I think it is quite common because of the way our school year cycle functions. We give kids the summers off (a throwback to the rural economy of the 1850s), and so the first two months of the school year that begins in September are essentially a recap of what they learned the year before. Except that they remember at least some of what they learned the year before, and so they tune out and their learning is incomplete. The learning styles you develop as a young child tend to stay with you. But that is far afield of @TDFuhringer's OP, and for that I apologize.
No need to apologize Happy @EdFromNY , I am thoroughly enjoying this thread. And I just finished chapter twenty-three.
I'm forging ahead, not giving up. Telling stories seems to be the only thing that keeps me sane and happy, so it's not like I can quit. But good grief some of this work is just crap. It always sounds better in my head. Can you believe I have 72,279 words, of which fully 2/3rds is people talking, while eating or walking? I've become one of those writers I used to mock and sneer at, back when I was talking about writing instead of actually writing.
Dialogue is always the driving force of my stories in the first draft. It's something that...I honestly just don't bother trying to fix, anymore, until I get to editing. Otherwise, I sit there, struggling, trying to figure out how to explain something properly without Character A telling it to Character B.
Yes! This! How else would a person unfamiliar with the world learn about it other than by people telling him about it? Hah.
I'm pretty heavy on dialogues too. Both because I like them, they are among the easier things for me to write, and I find it easier to show character in dialogue. That is where they become individuals for me. Plus you can do so much with tone and humor in dialogue. So I would like your book!
Hmm. You've got me thinking now Tesoro. This is a character-driven story, not an event-driven one. I don't describe my characters beyond the basics, I let their actions and dialogue define their character. So ending up with a first draft that is mostly dialogue makes complete sense, doesn't it?
I think so. if that's where things happen, I don't see a problem. Plus if you need to add something to make it more complete you can do that during revision. right now the only thing is getting the story written. I would totally read a dialog-based novel.
Tesoro, I might have to bribe you into reading my novel sometime. >.> -checks the bank account- ... I'll come up with something. My novel is...I say it's more character-driven. (I'm one of those people that likes to argue that a story can be 20% character driven, 80% plot driven, and vice versa.) There is an event that happens that would demand a plot, regardless of the character(s) in the story. However, what that event becomes is shaped by the characters. Did that make sense? >.>
