even if just in writing vs actually making them perform in front of their peers (lol), it forces the training wheels of defining who, what, where in a compact space (three lines of dialogue), and builds up the mental muscle for making them be sufficiently interesting enough to springboard a full scene out of
Excellent post and I agree with everything you say. This is succinct, generous, and fun to read...I like you wondering if you should be more didactic.
Yes. Take it or leave it but here it is, what I know.
Why do you think the resistance to learning technique because the prevailing attitude toward writing? Is it because we all learn to write and want to mystify it a bit? I wonder. When students tell me they don't want to learn plot for fear of becoming hacks (tell it to Tolstoy!) I say, why don't you drop by Julliard and see what happens to students who fear they will be inhibited by learning the scales?
I am teaching a craft class in the fall about cause and effect. Take it or leave it.
I think it's part of a broader trend of anti-intellectualism in American life. There is an intense hatred and mistrust of expertise. A lionization of the straight-shooting amateur. Tik Tok is full of people digging holes in their basements without any sort of formal training. It's honestly crazy, but also pervasive. It is in every level of our society.
The Julliard example is a great one. Years ago (before I had children, back when I traveled), I went to the Picasso museum in Barcelona. I knew (know) very little about painting, and Picasso in my mind was associated with his later work, Guernica and cubism, etc. I was *shocked* to walk through rooms where Picasso painted what I considered "typical" paintings. People praying, Jesus on the cross. Jesus on the cross?? Isn't that what everyone was doing? Yes. It was then I made my goal to write a "Jesus on the cross" novel. Still working on it :)
Brandon (and other fellow sweater weather readers) have you ever read About Writing, Samuel Delany? A productive collection of essays and interviews on technique which has parallels to and further development in what you say here, including some brief historical sketches of the forces that have changed MFAs and the graduate students in them.
I adore this. I'm currently leading a genre fiction class at a local writing workshop and we were talking about openings last week. I cautioned against the action-packed opening before we have learned enough about the characters to care about the outcome of the action. I love your examples. Thinking about our stories more (at all stages of the process) is a wonderful idea. Think about the story a whole bunch when you aren't in front of your computer or with your notebook, so when you sit down to write you've worked out some of these questions about character and motivation and why this story now.
Thank you so much Brandon. I'm fighting a draft of a novel and prevaricating with craft books and courses. This is the best thing I've read in ages. I'm middle aged, telling myself to delete Instagram because of what it's doing to me and only holding onto Substack for the 'solids' (at the mo you, Patti Smith and George Saunders). I'm very undereducated, a graduate chemist, possibly why I like this, and which in the UK means you stop English at fifteen. PS also write with Muji 0.38s in a B5 6mm notebook :)
Excellent. You are writing a book of craft essays, right? I want it!
Purely anecdotal and speculative here, but I wonder if young people are not engaging with entire narrative works nearly as often anymore, because of high-stakes testing and social media. In school, they read snippets for reading comprehension tests, and for fun, they're watching YouTube shorts *about* full-length movies much more than the movies themselves. My tween doesn't have the attention span for an actual Harry Potter movie but is up-to-speed on the characters and plot because of short parody videos.
I don't think it's just "young people." I think it's...a lot of people, lol. Like, if you aren't actively combatting this by reading full length texts, you are getting absolutely WHACKED. It can happen to anyone of any age. No one is safe!
It is. . . so many people. I have been thinking about this a lot but from a totally different direction--I was a sad humanities person who had no money and no prospects upon finishing grad school and found a job working with graduate students in biomedical research. When I started, I literally had no clue what was going on and I could not have told you what "biomedical research" was with any degree of credibility. So when I was in meetings that discussed things like NIH grant funding mechanisms, Responsible Conduct of Research, I always nodded along and then went back to my office and. . . researched the hell out of it so I could figure out how all this works and fits together. I, too, assumed this was the baseline of preparation for people in these fields.
This past month I have been pushing my students to advocate more for science, and in the process it has become clear that literally none of my students (and a shocking number of faculty) understand the basic building blocks of the biomedical research enterprise. These are very smart people who do things like study strokes in mice using very tiny tools and cool microscopes, but ask them what the FDA is or how clinical trials work and they simply. . . can't. This, to me, seems like a little bit of a problem in our current moment.
I now find myself, the avowed humanities person, designing and teaching workshops on the basic structures and practices of biomedical research. It feels very bizarre and has made me wonder where the basics have gone. Are we all just coasting on vibes at this point? Are the basics just too boring? Are we all too tired to be curious? It feels like a line I remember from a Sunday School song--"don't build your house on a sandy land." Doing the work of something without a grasp the fundamentals feels like doing exactly that. But perhaps I am just getting old and cranky as I reach middle age.
Wow, that is a great little story in itself. I am a big believer in needing to live some life to have good stories to tell. I know old and cranky—don’t think you’re within shouting distance of being that.
In my experience a lot of times it's worse for older folks - getting a drug late in life can be rough. ! I see many more kids reading on the train than older folks and the most screen addled people I know are lonely boomers.
The way I ran to open up a few WIPs and check my openings immediately after reading this, lol. I, too, am a former chemist with scraps of literary knowledge. Learning about craft is so overwhelming. I feel like I spend too much time thinking about my writing but this was really validating because answering those questions provides direction.
Another hit piece with solid writing advice, thanks, Brandon.
Thank you for this deep dive and breakdown of the key elements of a good opening. My critique group has been focusing on openings for the past few sessions, and many of the issues you bring up here are things that we struggle with. Your writeup made me think more deeply about why we struggle so much. There are 10,000 things the reader needs to know for your novel to make sense, and as the writer we have to identify the 10 things they need to know up front. While simultaneously being interesting, and without infodumping or going off on unrelated tangents. When I think of it that way it does seem like a hard problem. I guess I shouldn't expect its solution to be easy. :)
I am rewriting the opening scene of my novel right now, so this was immensely valuable and definitely changed my approach. Thanks again.
As a high school English lit and creative writing teacher, I thank you from the bottom of my well-read, as they say, heart. As a human, I sit at your feet.
This is so awesome and really, really helpful. Cleared up some things for me I was having trouble with. I was trying to start my story and everytime I wrote the beginning it felt off. Too abstract. Too much action (because I was following the in media res advice as I thought it was meant) that felt unnatural and like the core of the story I intended to write was missing. This is a really great help. Thank you!
Brandon, you are generous -- this is an invaluable post. I hope we continue to get such gold free.
said partially tongue-in-cheek, partially serious — your students may benefit from an improv game known as three-line scenes? https://improvdb.com/resource/three-line-scenes
even if just in writing vs actually making them perform in front of their peers (lol), it forces the training wheels of defining who, what, where in a compact space (three lines of dialogue), and builds up the mental muscle for making them be sufficiently interesting enough to springboard a full scene out of
Wait, I am going to send this to them, lol. Good idea.
Excellent post and I agree with everything you say. This is succinct, generous, and fun to read...I like you wondering if you should be more didactic.
Yes. Take it or leave it but here it is, what I know.
Why do you think the resistance to learning technique because the prevailing attitude toward writing? Is it because we all learn to write and want to mystify it a bit? I wonder. When students tell me they don't want to learn plot for fear of becoming hacks (tell it to Tolstoy!) I say, why don't you drop by Julliard and see what happens to students who fear they will be inhibited by learning the scales?
I am teaching a craft class in the fall about cause and effect. Take it or leave it.
I think it's part of a broader trend of anti-intellectualism in American life. There is an intense hatred and mistrust of expertise. A lionization of the straight-shooting amateur. Tik Tok is full of people digging holes in their basements without any sort of formal training. It's honestly crazy, but also pervasive. It is in every level of our society.
The Julliard example is a great one. Years ago (before I had children, back when I traveled), I went to the Picasso museum in Barcelona. I knew (know) very little about painting, and Picasso in my mind was associated with his later work, Guernica and cubism, etc. I was *shocked* to walk through rooms where Picasso painted what I considered "typical" paintings. People praying, Jesus on the cross. Jesus on the cross?? Isn't that what everyone was doing? Yes. It was then I made my goal to write a "Jesus on the cross" novel. Still working on it :)
Brandon (and other fellow sweater weather readers) have you ever read About Writing, Samuel Delany? A productive collection of essays and interviews on technique which has parallels to and further development in what you say here, including some brief historical sketches of the forces that have changed MFAs and the graduate students in them.
"we are in the era of the post-literate writer" - I like this, a lot. It helps to read this. It confirms things. I thought I was mad.
I adore this. I'm currently leading a genre fiction class at a local writing workshop and we were talking about openings last week. I cautioned against the action-packed opening before we have learned enough about the characters to care about the outcome of the action. I love your examples. Thinking about our stories more (at all stages of the process) is a wonderful idea. Think about the story a whole bunch when you aren't in front of your computer or with your notebook, so when you sit down to write you've worked out some of these questions about character and motivation and why this story now.
Thank you so much Brandon. I'm fighting a draft of a novel and prevaricating with craft books and courses. This is the best thing I've read in ages. I'm middle aged, telling myself to delete Instagram because of what it's doing to me and only holding onto Substack for the 'solids' (at the mo you, Patti Smith and George Saunders). I'm very undereducated, a graduate chemist, possibly why I like this, and which in the UK means you stop English at fifteen. PS also write with Muji 0.38s in a B5 6mm notebook :)
I'm in a very similar boat and similarly grateful. Thanks for your comment.
Excellent. You are writing a book of craft essays, right? I want it!
Purely anecdotal and speculative here, but I wonder if young people are not engaging with entire narrative works nearly as often anymore, because of high-stakes testing and social media. In school, they read snippets for reading comprehension tests, and for fun, they're watching YouTube shorts *about* full-length movies much more than the movies themselves. My tween doesn't have the attention span for an actual Harry Potter movie but is up-to-speed on the characters and plot because of short parody videos.
I don't think it's just "young people." I think it's...a lot of people, lol. Like, if you aren't actively combatting this by reading full length texts, you are getting absolutely WHACKED. It can happen to anyone of any age. No one is safe!
It is. . . so many people. I have been thinking about this a lot but from a totally different direction--I was a sad humanities person who had no money and no prospects upon finishing grad school and found a job working with graduate students in biomedical research. When I started, I literally had no clue what was going on and I could not have told you what "biomedical research" was with any degree of credibility. So when I was in meetings that discussed things like NIH grant funding mechanisms, Responsible Conduct of Research, I always nodded along and then went back to my office and. . . researched the hell out of it so I could figure out how all this works and fits together. I, too, assumed this was the baseline of preparation for people in these fields.
This past month I have been pushing my students to advocate more for science, and in the process it has become clear that literally none of my students (and a shocking number of faculty) understand the basic building blocks of the biomedical research enterprise. These are very smart people who do things like study strokes in mice using very tiny tools and cool microscopes, but ask them what the FDA is or how clinical trials work and they simply. . . can't. This, to me, seems like a little bit of a problem in our current moment.
I now find myself, the avowed humanities person, designing and teaching workshops on the basic structures and practices of biomedical research. It feels very bizarre and has made me wonder where the basics have gone. Are we all just coasting on vibes at this point? Are the basics just too boring? Are we all too tired to be curious? It feels like a line I remember from a Sunday School song--"don't build your house on a sandy land." Doing the work of something without a grasp the fundamentals feels like doing exactly that. But perhaps I am just getting old and cranky as I reach middle age.
Honestly...write that novel, Anne. I'd read it.
Wow, that is a great little story in itself. I am a big believer in needing to live some life to have good stories to tell. I know old and cranky—don’t think you’re within shouting distance of being that.
In my experience a lot of times it's worse for older folks - getting a drug late in life can be rough. ! I see many more kids reading on the train than older folks and the most screen addled people I know are lonely boomers.
The way I ran to open up a few WIPs and check my openings immediately after reading this, lol. I, too, am a former chemist with scraps of literary knowledge. Learning about craft is so overwhelming. I feel like I spend too much time thinking about my writing but this was really validating because answering those questions provides direction.
Another hit piece with solid writing advice, thanks, Brandon.
Thank you for this deep dive and breakdown of the key elements of a good opening. My critique group has been focusing on openings for the past few sessions, and many of the issues you bring up here are things that we struggle with. Your writeup made me think more deeply about why we struggle so much. There are 10,000 things the reader needs to know for your novel to make sense, and as the writer we have to identify the 10 things they need to know up front. While simultaneously being interesting, and without infodumping or going off on unrelated tangents. When I think of it that way it does seem like a hard problem. I guess I shouldn't expect its solution to be easy. :)
I am rewriting the opening scene of my novel right now, so this was immensely valuable and definitely changed my approach. Thanks again.
Hey Brandon, will you have another book club this year? I was sad to miss your Henry James discussions last fall. Perhaps a book club on Trollope...
If a person were open to writing in the first person, a fairly riveting story opening would be: "At heart, I am a technician. I love technique."
Also, Northrop Frye would be pleased by your essay.
There is so much valuable meat in this post. Thank you.
As a high school English lit and creative writing teacher, I thank you from the bottom of my well-read, as they say, heart. As a human, I sit at your feet.
This is so awesome and really, really helpful. Cleared up some things for me I was having trouble with. I was trying to start my story and everytime I wrote the beginning it felt off. Too abstract. Too much action (because I was following the in media res advice as I thought it was meant) that felt unnatural and like the core of the story I intended to write was missing. This is a really great help. Thank you!
Gratuitous comment about the worthless 20 minutes I spent on "Cat Person", never to return.
I completely understood why upon getting married spouse swore off all TV shows about single people doing stupid stuff.