Now, we’ve gotten ourselves into the dark side of fiction—in which we’ve learned who will fail as writers (not us!), how we screw up our manuscripts, and the things we writers always overlook—so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. I mean, the real dirt on writing.
I remember the day I received my first spam about my blog. I felt as though I had finally arrived.
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Wow. Nathalie. I just don’t know what to say.
Because the truth is teaching the craft of fiction is exactly like teaching people to use washing machines.
But how did you know?
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Fiction starts life dirty
This is the honest, unvarnished truth, people: modern published fiction is, from many angles, as Dirty as Hell. And it’s in desperate need of a really good Cosmic Fictional Washing Machine.
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Your job as a writer is to get your fiction all dirty
Go ahead—write it, thrash around in it, have a fabulous time, make a big old fun muddy mess. Get it all over yourself. You don’t need me for that part. Anyone can do it, and hundreds of thousands of people do.
It’s a blast!
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Really dirty
Then go back and write your story again more honestly.
Go down through the layers of superficial uniform dirt that get all over everybody when they truly relish a big, hefty, messy, magnificent first few drafts.
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Cosmically dirty
Find underneath those top layers the story that’s really there.
Find the real people living inside the characters, of whom you have barely scratched the surface. Find the details of their lives that make them three-dimensional in exactly the way your reader’s life is three-dimensional. Find the universal themes of comedy and tragedy out of which they’re been created and the complex interweaving of those elements that your characters must navigate on their way to enlightenment.
Uncover the fabric of your characters’ unique lives that your reader needs to touch in order to reach the heart of what you’re doing.
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Beyond cosmically dirty
Then write it again even more honestly. And write it again. And again. And again. . .
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My job is the washing machine
Then I’ll teach you how to clean up your fiction.
Every time you let your manuscript go cold and take it out later for another revision, you’re sending it through the Cosmic Fictional Washing Machine.
Every time you come here seeking help with your writing, you’re bringing it to the Cosmic Fictional Laundromat.
Every time, the structure of your story gets a little clearer, the humanity of your characters gets a little truer, your reason for writing this novel gets a little more significant, to you, and to your readers too. Eventually—if you work hard enough, with enough dedication and soul-searing honesty, for long enough—it will be beautiful, vivid, shining.
Clean.
A new definition of meaning.
And you will be proud to wear it around in public for the rest of your life.
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Cleanliness is clarity
However! If you rush out and insist your fiction be published while it’s still even sort of dirty (much less as dirty as it is when you first stand up out of rolling around in all that mud—and, yes, you can get stuff published in that condition, it happens all the time)—then, like the portrait of Dorian Gray, the dirt will become ever more and more obvious as the years go by and your craft improves.
Your increasing clarity as a writer will show you the dirt you left in that manuscript. . .
. . .as your understanding of the meaning of life deepens
. . .as your reasons for living make more and more sense in the overall universal scheme of things
. . .as you see more and more clearly through your own unique, vivid, unforgettable lens.
This is the process of writing, my friends: first dirt, then cleaning.
I say this with all editorial love for the writers in you and compassion for what writing your novels means to you (I know—I write novels too):
Develop a sincere, lifelong, humble respect for the Great Cosmic Fictional Washing Machine.
There’s that lighter side to writing again.