The Idea:
Some advice from Derrick Jensen on writing (fiction and other things)
and teaching (writing and other things), and a brief discussion about
the colonization of language.
Author Derrick Jensen teaches writing, and his new book Walking on Water has some useful lessons for both writers and teachers.
Some of his advice for writers (especially writers of fiction):
- Don't be boring -- all good writing has passion; make your writing as intense as if it were your last utterance
- Show, don't tell -- use the words and actions of the characters in the story to convey how they feel and what they're thinking
- Provide specific details, in easy-to-follow order, to transport the reader so they're there
- Do your research
- Be courageous -- challenge established 'rules' and prejudices
- Make sure your writing answers an important question
- If it hurts, you're doing it wrong
- Spend more time thinking than writing
- Flush out your prejudices and get them out of your writing
-- you'll never convince anyone else if you let them out onto your page
- Read and study great writing
- Make sure your stories include choices and transformation, and that these are credible
- Make every word count
- Mean something -- give your reader a reason to care about your characters
- And show you care about them yourself
- Be clear -- words are easy to misunderstand
- Writing dialogue is like "putting just enough stones in a
stream to cross it without getting your feet wet" (authentic, but much
sparer and less redundant than 'real' conversation)
- What you write about, and how well, is a function of
knowing and conveying who you are, what you love and what you want; if
you don't know these things, find out
Some of his advice for teachers (especially teachers of writing):
- Your most valuable teaching will be one-on-one, e.g.
working with a student to make one piece sparkle ("show, don't tell"
applies to teachers, too)
- Tell your students the six things you wish you'd been told
when you were a student: that it's OK to daydream; that their personal,
tumultuous life will get better; that they should be bold and always
follow their heart; that the older generation is sorry for ruining the
Earth we are leaving for them; that our culture is crazy; and that it's
OK not to get a job, and to spend your life just finding out who you are
- "Love your students into being what they are"
- As an editor, help the writer find where their heart is, and then help them get there
- To teach dialogue, provide an exercise where the story, the setting, the situation etc. must be brought out using only natural dialogue (no descriptions or 'thought ballooons' allowed)
- Have at least ten times as many writing exercises as you
would have time for, because many of the exercises you plan won't work
with every class
- To help students come to grips with who they are, provide a
perspective exercise where someone fond of each student is asked to
write the student's obituary -- how, and for what, they would be
remembered if they died tomorrow (I think this is an awesome idea)
- Teaching anything, even writing, is fundamentally about
teaching people to be free, and then teaching them to be responsible --
both lessons are revolutionary and counter to everything the education
system stands for, so if you dare do this, be prepared for push-back
from The Man
The
job of words is to direct us toward experience, to round out
experience, to facilitate experience, and to give us ways to share at
least pale shadows of that experience with those we love. And the job
of words is to help us learn to be -- and act -- human.
This advice is quite consistent with the advice of other writers (Barthelme, Leonard, Orwell, Lamott) I've discussed
on these pages. I find it interesting that, at least in fiction, male
and female writers offer very similar advice (compare Anne Lamott's advice
to Jensen's). If we acknowledge (and I do) that human languages
(vocabulary, structure, syntax and semantics) have been primarily
colonized by males, I would have expected women to offer workarounds
that would help other woman writers repatriate (rematriate?) language
to a more poetic, grounded landscape that women could use more
effectively and relate to better. Any speculation on why that has not
(at least not obviously) happened? Is this too Sisyphan a task to
accomplish in a mere few centuries?
As with all Jensen's books, there are some amazing quotes in this one. Here are my five favourites:
The only learning which
significantly influences behaviour is self-discovered,
self-appropriated learning. As soon as an individual tries to
communicate such experience directly, often with a quite natural
enthusiasm, it becomes teaching, and its results are either unimportant
or damaging. (Carl Rogers)
Modern schools and universities push students into habits of
depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality,
obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, and
chilling competitiveness -- precisely the character traits needed to
maintain an industrial social system that is utterly out of touch with
nature, sexuality and real human needs. (Arthur Evans)
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. (Helen Keller)
School is like the army or jail. Once you're in, you may have all kinds
of problems, but freedom isn't one of them. (Jerry Farber)
Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. (Goethe)
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