It's All Been Done

Do you ever get the feeling that there's no point in writing another word because everything's already been said, and it's nearly impossible to say something fresh in a new way? That was my reaction after reading this article by Sam Sacks, about the sad state of fiction being written by MFA program graduates, called "The Fiction Machine."

... I was reminded of Narayan's machine recently while reading the Best New American Voices 2006, an anthology edited by Jane Smiley. The book gives such a desultory vision of the future of American letters that one can only hope its title is wrong. Without ignoring the occasional flashes of verve, the stories included are so monotonous that they seem to have been written by a single person of middling talent. All but one of them are written in the first person; a similar percentage hinge upon the narrator's difficulties with dysfunctional or deceased members of his or her family, or with ex-lovers. The tone is always confessional and saturated with self-pity. The plot and action are always negligible: one story takes place on a road trip to a presidential birthplace, another while moving apartments, another at a wedding, another while opening presents in front of the Christmas tree. None of this much matters anyway, because the things the characters do are always mundane and largely incidental to their psychological conflicts. From time to time a structural innovation appears to offer an interesting novelty, but under the packaging the same old formula is always to be found.

As a writing program graduate myself, all I can say is "Ouch." The article is well-written and Sacks makes excellent points about the pitfalls of the writing workshop, but I want to know, do I really have to compare my work to Katherine Mansfield, Chekhov, and Eudora Welty? Really? At the end of this article, I am so discouraged by the great classic writers and how I am doomed to follow the Rules of the Workshop, that I almost want to pack it in.

Thank goodness I found this other article today, via Miss Snark. It's by Arthur A. Levine, a children's book publisher, called Plastic Flowers and Channelled Raisins (the January 20 entry). Levine identifies the problem with so much children's fiction: writers' imitating another writer's style. And isn't this exactly what's going on in the MFA workshop fiction that Sacks despises?

Channeling is a common problem to writers of any sort of piece be it poetry, fiction, or journalism, but it’s a particular hazard of the various literary forms that make up the broad category of children’s books: picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, “Young Adult” novels and nonfiction of all levels.

In most cases, I believe channeling is not done intentionally. A writer simply sits down at his or her computer and sets out to write, let’s say, a picture book story. Suddenly, that person is possessed by the spirit of Dr. Seuss. Everything comes out in rhymed, metered verse, with a plethora of made-up words to help make the lines work.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against rhymed verse – Dr. Seuss did it very well, as did Robert Frost. The problem is, when writers channel Dr. Seuss, he never comes through without a whole lot of static. There’s something phony about it. It’s as if his lines are being spoken by an android. They have the sound of imitation.

The antidote to this type of channelling, says Levine, is to drop down into the one thing each writer has that no one else does: themselves.

Let’s take the question of what to write about. This is the first and the biggest of the big questions every writer faces. How many of you have heard the advice to “write about what you know.” Is that a meaningful phrase? I think it is. But if I were to edit that phrase, I might cut out two of the words. “What” and “know.” So “Write about what you know” would become "write about you.”

Who are you?

Writing about oneself in the way that Levine describes can be frightening. (He doesn't mean "Turn your own experiences into thinly veiled fiction" but rather "Write about the truth as you yourself see it.") What if I can't find anything interesting in there? What if someone doesn't like what I create, does that mean they don't like me? Will something awful happen if I give myself away in my work? It's easier to hide behind someone else's style and content.

Until someone like Sam Sacks finds you out.