By Noelle Sterne
Is your writing forced? Stale? Flat? You may be trying too hard. I know when I am. The first sign is murmuring admiration of my turns of phrase. The second is imagining readers’ gasps of delight at my ingenuity. The third, and most important, is a yellow-red warning flare—Oh, oh, ego’s rising.
If I don’t pay attention to that flare, I know it heralds disaster. The work cannot help reflect this overconscious effort. Somehow, all the technique, wordplay, and resplendent diction overpower whatever message I want to convey.
The idea isn’t new; it’s been called the Law of Reversed Effort. Aldous Huxley said, “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed.”
More specifically to us writers, in The Writer’s Book of Wisdom: 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, Stephen Taylor Goldsberry cautions, “Try not to overdo it. . . . Beware of contrived lyrical embellishment and fluffy metaphors” (p. 87). From my own work, I would add, beware of eloquent, balanced rhetoric. And repetition for effect. And overly ripe similes. And too-intricate expositions and too-pithy observations.
After reading Eat Pray Love, I read a transcript of an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert. When she worked on her next book, trying to imitate that first bestseller in the similar breezy, flippant, and pseudo-deep style, she produced 500 pages. Eventually realizing what she was doing, very courageously she junked the whole new manuscript.
Once Gilbert no longer tried to duplicate that success, she wrote a completely different book. Although Committed was not as successful as Eat Pray Love, its style and Gilbert’s reflections are honest and wholly appropriate to its subject, her misgivings about marriage.
Trying means we’re writing too self-consciously, usually to impress. In contrast, doing, as you probably know from your ecstatic writing stints, means total immersion. However many drafts we need, however many dives in the uncertain creative mud we can dare, our success rests not in trying but doing.
Like Gilbert in her post E-P-L foray, when we try to write impressively, even with all our might, we end up failing or at least falling short. Our writing lesson? Don’t try. Do—or don’t. Huxley has a lovely admonition: “Lightly, my child, lightly.”
Or maybe we’re moved not to write at all for a while. Or write a load of nonsense first, even though we know it’s crap. Or use the slash/option method incessantly (one of my favorites/best practices/most helpful methods/greatest techniques for skirting stuckness and continuing to slog). Maybe it means going back countless times to excise, refine, replace, restructure, or even, like Gilbert, pitch it all out.
So I tell myself, Stop trying to be clever and knowing. Stop trying to beat out your writing colleagues. Stop trying to show off your wit. Stop trying to replicate your recent success. All these tryings cut off your expressive truth and especially choke your honesty as a writer. Let’s all stop trying and watch our writing flow.
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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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