That Despicable Feeling

I've noticed a tendency over the years for writers to talk about writing as if their way of approaching the craft is the only way. Recently, I heard a writer I really rate and respect say words to the effect that if you didn't have a head full of stories clamouring to be told then you might think you want to be a writer but, in reality you don't: you're just in love with the idea of being a writer. The best thing you could do would be to acknowledge this and find something else to do.

I'm a great fan of their work, but I think they're seriously wrong about this. I'm sure what they say reflects their own reasons for writing and it does explain aspects of their work: their narratives so often have the quality of a myth or a fable about them. I've often wondered how they pulled that trick. The idea that they have a story in their head that they're just itching to get down – that their narratives are more story-driven than character-driven – would go part way to explaining it.

It might work for them, but it's not the only way. I wouldn't dream of considering myself in their league, but, like a lot of people reading this, I suspect, I do write, and I know that my motivation is very different from what I've just described. To me, the fictional world I want to write about is an elusive thing.

It's as if it's concealed in a circular tower, with no visible doors or windows. I can wander round it for hours, running my fingers over the surface, looking for the slightest crack that might indicate the presence of a secret door. Once I've found it, I have to find the magic, secret words that'll unlock it. (By the way, in case I'm making it sound like I'm into Swords and Sorcery stuff, I should point out I'm not). Once in, usually, I'm away. Sometimes it turns out to be no good, or a dead end, but at least I get going. With luck, once you're in and you get to know the characters you meet there, a story begins to take shape.

Not being able to find a way in can be stressful. You can work off your excess energy writing reviews, blog-posts and the like, but it's not the same. I'm guessing Raymond Carver was a very different writer to the one I mentioned at the beginning. In his story, Put Yourself In My Shoes, he creates a fictional alter-ego, Myers, and puts him through a hell not unlike my wanderings around the circular tower:

As he drove, he looked at the people who hurried along the sidewalks with shopping bags. He glanced at the gray sky, filled with flakes, and at the tall buildings with snow in the crevices and on the window ledges. He tried to see everything, save it for later. He was between stories and he felt despicable.

Later in the story, some people, knowing that he's a writer, insist on telling him a long, rambling anecdote about a stranger who died in a hotel room they were staying in. They think he might be able to use it, but of course (and this is the point of the story) anecdotes and short stories are two very different things.

Dominic Rivron