Once upon a time, when I was working on my high school’s literary magazine (shout-out for Markings!), one of the editors said something that I thought was supremely stupid. It always stuck with me, however, because it ended up really making me think about what elevates writing to the level of art. To paraphrase – as I obviously don’t remember his exact wording all these years later – he said that for a piece of writing to be good, a writer need only get his point of view across clearly. A writer need only say something to be an artist. My response (in my head, because I was not as outspoken at 17 as I am now, but I was just as sarcastic) was, well then, I guess I am a great writer if I write the word SHIT on a piece of paper, right? It says something, and says it clearly. Sure, stylistically it is nothing, completely worthless even. But according to that editor’s definition, wow, what great, successful writing!
As I have matured, I can now articulate why that statement bothered me so much, as both a writer and a reader, without resorting to swearing. It’s simply this: style is everything. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t need different versions of the same story. There would be no point in Jane Smiley writing A Thousand Acres because Shakespeare already told that tale in “King Lear.” Or, to choose a less obvious pairing, we wouldn’t need any star-crossed love stories after “Romeo and Juliet” because the star-crossed lover thing would be over and done with, finished, unnecessary after its first telling. People (well, writing teachers anyway) say that there are only a handful of plots in the world and they just keep getting retold, ad nauseum. What makes them different, and what makes us view some of these stories as better than others, is the style with which they are told.
This is why, if you are a writer or a careful reader, the placement of words and even punctuation matters so much to you. This is why you never send anything into the world without rereading and rewriting multiple times, moving sentences and paragraphs into one slot or another, testing things out to be sure they are needed, to be sure they fit. This is why you cringe in embarrassment at even a single typo (or maybe this one is just me, a copy editor at heart). This is why it’s downright insulting to hear someone claim that getting across a POV is the most important thing of all when you’ve spent hours, days, weeks, months – you get the picture – picking the best words in the best order to tell your story. This is why writers cry plagiarism not when another writer steals someone’s general plot line but when actual sentences and paragraphs are taken.
What I find interesting these days, in the age where it seems everyone publishes online, is how many people appear to agree with that high school editor. There is a lot of good writing out there, to be sure. But there is also a lot of bad writing, and a lot of writing that clearly was not carefully reviewed by anyone, even on websites that are supposedly professional. I’m not here to name names, but there are a couple of online magazines that I’ve stopped reading because the quality of the content and editing have been so slapdash that I’ve counted multiple mistakes in the same thousand-word story. I know that, as someone whose profession it is to watch for this stuff, I’m extra picky. But really, if you can’t be bothered to put out the highest quality content possible when you’re being paid to do so, why should I bother reading your site? It’s the Internet, God knows there is plenty of other stuff out there to read. (And please note, I’m not talking about personal blogs here, which even picky old me doesn’t expect to have the same level of perfection as a site that has a dedicated editor or two who, you would hope, is actually editing.)
This is also why I think that, despite all the hand-wringing in the publishing industry about things going digital and the loss of books, we are always going to have and need the printed word. There is still a cache to seeing and holding your work in print that just doesn’t exist when you publish online; it isn’t as tangible. I know that in some areas that is changing, but in general it is still assumed that things are more fully and carefully vetted before they go to press, partly because it is much, much harder to change or undo them afterwards. But online, you go in and click Edit, and you can change your article, your blog post, your Tweet, whatever, if you really need to. Yes, I know, the mistakes aren’t completely erased and could be dug up again by someone with the know-how. But still, it doesn’t compare to the cost of destroying stock after a print run.
To get back to my original point about what constitutes art, I’ll admit there has to be some leeway in there to encompass different people’s different ideas of what’s good. But there also have to be some common standards. There is definitely writing that is, empirically, better than other writing, and if we as writers aren’t reaching for that golden prize and that perfection, what’s the point? Why bother to show when you could just tell and finish your novel quickly, without agonizing over words and developing a drinking problem?
These are the eternal questions that plague me these days as I try to sneak in some writing time here and there. I have many stories that sit at varying stages of readiness. Some of them are at the good-enough stage. But I’m just not willing to send them anywhere that way. I need more than my clear POV and some decent sentences before I throw my stories into the world to sink or swim. I read some T.C. Boyle, some Alice Munro, some Lorrie Moore, and I go back to my work again. I don’t want to just write SHIT on a piece of paper and call it a day. I’m reaching for art.
LOVE this.
Hi Katie,
There is indeed a lot of good writing, an impressively large amount in my opinion. It’s a wonder to me that so many out there strive to create art of the written word; that so many sit at their desks and toil to make something that might never even see the light of day. From the point of view of an amateur writer trying to get his work published, that can be intimidating; that being said, I also find it heartening to see so many people committed to the written word.
As for online vs. print literature, I feel that the ease of getting a literary publication online makes for a wider range of quality on this media than in print. And I too have been disappointed by seeing obvious and numerous errors in a story left uncorrected by the editor whose job is, at the very least, to remove them. With such errors, the seriousness and quality of the publication is immediately put in question; and this, as you note in your post, seems to happen online more than in print.
With regards to seeking to produce art, I too desire to perform at a high level. Perhaps I don’t have the same patience as you for reaching perfection, but I do ask that question, “Is this art?” or sometimes, simply, “Is this artistic enough?” Sometimes the answer satisfies me, and sometimes it disappoints. What I hope is that writing is like other skills in life where experience counts and perseverance rewards. If it is, then one day I may find myself asking these questions less often, or, at least, in the case of a negative answer, find the remedial steps more easily than I do now.
Thanks for the post, congratulations on the new baby, and all the best with your writing.
Amar
Hi, Amar,
Thanks for your comment. I like what you say about writing being like other skills, with experience and perseverance being important factors in reaching your end goal. It’s so true, and so easy to forget when you’re talking about any artistic pursuit where there’s this belief that inspiration and innate talent will be a large part of determining your success. There’s much to be said for sitting down and getting the words out, and also for someday saying, “This is as good as it can be” and releasing it to the world. Blogging has been really good for me in this respect – I can take it too far with holding onto something, asking if it’s ready multiple times and never sending it anywhere.
All the best with your writing, too.
If all it took for writing to be good was to clearly describe a point of view, then my free verse here would be brilliant:
Puppies are sooooooo cute!
See? I have clearly stated a view point with which many people would agree and distilled it to it’s most essential form – less than seven “o”s would fail to capture the appropriate intensity and the smiley emoticon clarifies that this is a happy stating of cuteness, not a wistful, “I miss poor Spot.” Brillance.
I personally, feel that style is critical – it is essential to capture a POV, but having something important to say (i.e. substance) is also crucial. This is what you meant in your “SHIT” example (sidenote: I created my own parallel example because I think that, in the context of many high school writing assignments, stating, “This is shit” may well constitute a necessary and important comment).
I think that one can describe the quality of writing in a two-dimensional space where the efficacy of style and the (albeit hard-to-define) importance what is said are the axes. If we use such a space, then my little free verse is shown to not be brilliant. It is trite; it would be judged lowly on the axis of importance – independent of the efficacy of relating point of view.
So, in essence, I think that both style and substance matter. And it has been a problematic period of all art (not just writing) that has valued one so highly as to diminish the necessity of the other.
Touche re: high school writing assignments!
I don’t know what it is about people that makes us turn everything into a top-10 list instead of admitting that multiple things can matter equally, but I agree that art of all kinds suffers for it.