Process Relevance

Are all topics of writing process relevant to writing?

"This concept so complicated that you or I could never fully understand it, and even if someone did understand it, others would not be able to grasp the language required for him to explain it."
— Sir John Charlatan, of the Scammish Peninsula

My mind is a mess about this. All of the terms have been fighting each other, changing factions, and starting families such that I can hardly hold onto my point for extended periods. After partaking in protracted discussions about process, I'm still left with the sobering fact that it's hardly necessary in the slightest and may even indicate an avoidance or dislike of doing the work itself.

Imagine two artists.

First, there is the passive artist whose stories come to him like ghosts wafting into his bedchamber. His characters allegedly have minds of their own. It's implied he's channeling something subsconsious and greater than himself.

Second, there is the opposite sort of artist, who was apparently born in a German factory. Her stories are a series of parts that make a whole, like components in a machine. She never claims a lack of control, or subservience to the muse in her process. And speaking of her process, she can describe every one of its parts: the intent, the method, and the qualifications for reaching a desired outcome.

We'll assume, so far, these are productive artists. The difference is just in language. For example, I think using colours to model an understanding of personality types is just as silly as Meyers-Briggs. Imagine someone you've known for sixteen years telling you she's learned she's an ENTJ—or yellow personality type for that matter. The best I can do in that situation is politely nod. There's nothing malicious about the interaction, but the self reduction is intense enough to make the interaction awkward. If I were an ass, I could only reply "No, you're Sandra, and that person OHS/HR hired for that course was overpaid."

When, if ever, people are discriminated against for say, being a purple type or a ESFP or whatever, no one says "Oh yeah, that makes sense. I wouldn't want to work with a purple either." What's more meaningful? "He's a complete asshole. I have heard three separate anecdotes of him being belligerent simply out of boredom." That's information I can work with.

"Wow, Territory, way to be a real Aries about common models of understanding people."

I swear those last three paragraphs weren't a pointless digression. My point is that while I'm inclined to hold the latter artist in higher regard, as she's not mystically subservient, I'm not sure there's much value in her process as-is either, without it pertaining to an actual work, in just the same way I typically disregard the intuitive word-yogi.

The scholarly inclination is to discuss persistent threads of a process, metatextual shit, rather than the mundane actual cases of causes effects decisions and outcomes. However, I can't help but notice metatextual discussion trends inversely with an interest in the mundane itself. It also seems that a preoccupation or preference away from the mundane indicates a disinterest in performing work itself, the doing, in favour of an active interest in merely codifying the terms associated with the work either intuitively/mystically or with full use of the writing terms glossary.

That could have some utility, especially if you need to explain your process to someone who will never write, but I don't think it will have any value for someone who does. The mundane actually holds all the meaning for another writer, and probably won't seem mundane to him.

In other words, I think accounts of "X character just felt wrong in context A so I changed these details" or "X character's properties of X and Y did not pertain to the themes of A and B because of C and D, so I changed these details" are ultimately equally meaningful, and infinitely more meaningful than anything such as "I let my characters speak to me and tell me what they want" or "It's important to show, don't tell."

I'm inclined to go as far to say that a discussion about the concepts of writing can be irrelevant to writing itself, which sounds like a failure of logic on my part, but it's the best I got. As I said above, I'm a mess about this.

What are your thoughts on writing work and the relevance of process, or even any thoughts on process or communication of process in general?

 

Discussion of process is mostly relevant to people who are not satisfied with their writing output from their own current processes. If some things aren't working, it makes sense to seek out what might work for other writers and give those ideas a go. And of course it's all so very personal and idiosyncratic. I can't imagine ever writing up character profiles or plotting out a story scene by scene, chapter by chapter. And I'm sure what works for me could be seen as utterly baffling by those who do find success with such methods.

It's that simple for me; if your process is working for you, great. If it's not, discuss the topic with others and try out some recommendations. Importantly, writers should not argue about what processes are objectively best, because it's such a subjective thing. Those are the kinds of conversations I'd consider irrelevant.

 

Funny, I gave the exact same answer to a similar post about scenes elsewhere on the interweb yesterday.

 

I think the key bit is this, at the top:

I don't want to put words in @Not the Territory's mouth but I assume the condensed version of the OP would be, "Does talking about the process of writing inversely correlate with actually writing stuff?"