This post is about the process--or the goal, really--that I've fallen into with work on Erra's Throne. Pretty important proviso: you may not believe me, person-reading-this, but none of the below is offered as good or 'correct' in any way that I can or would want to argue, particularly as opposed to some other way of viewing this whole enterprise. I'm talking about a demonstrated preference on my part, a thing I've learned about myself as a writer, through observation.
I'm writing it here because it's sometimes hard to talk about 'writing'; it devolves into either abstraction or really personal stuff. This is my attempt to talk through a couple of things in a straightforward way.
I'll fail.
So, for the last like basically 18 (24?) months, I've been wrapped up in what can only be called a kind of obsessive weird process with this thing, Erra's Throne. Now that "obsessive weird"-ness may be inevitable, may just be what writing a thing like this entails. Or entails for me. I don't know. But even if that's true I feel pretty comfortable using those words: "obsessive". "Weird".
BUT. It's not "bullshit", in that a large share of that time has been spent very actively engaging with this text, with the prose, and I think at a minimum I've learned a few things and gotten better at a few elements of craft.
So here's what I'm trying to do right now as I go through again (from the f#*%ing beginning) to clarify story and make Erra once-and-for-all the best thing I can possibly write at this moment.
On a mechanical level, coming down from big questions of story structure, theme, character: it's about making sure that I like every sentence and how every sentence meshes with the sentence(s) before and after it. Over and over and over again.
The elements that tend to leap out for me are syllabic count and syllabic emphasis.
Does the sentence have the right number of syllable beats? Is a downbeat or cadence beat out of place? If so, that means changing a word. Which means changes, quite possibly, to the sentences around it. Over and over and over again. The "right" number of beats is in my mind dictated by the rhythm established in the paragraph or section. This tends to be exact: not like "oh it should be a bit shorter", but rather like "this sentence needs seven syllables, with accent beats on 3 and 7."
Closely related to that is the sound and sound-structure. The most obvious thing here is open vowel sounds versus consonants, and with consonants the distinction between...ah, sh*t, I'm forgetting all my drama school phonetics here. The difference between like a sibilant ss or th sound and a front-palette tt sound and a more glottal bb sound. All those land in different ways and flow in different ways and, while I don't care that I don't remember what they're called, I care a great deal about how they flow and link together in the prose.
It's a little crazy, but also a real pleasure, to approach the text this way. It's also a great pleasure to NOT approach prose this way: as I am in this blog post, for example. As I am NOT in this blog post, I mean; what I'll do with this post is I'll write it and then I'll read it over to make sure it basically makes sense and hopefully doesn't have any egregiously missing words; in that process I'll inevitably edit a few things but we're talking fast -- I'm writing this now to fill some time while I digest something sugary before a bike ride. I too have spent "much too long" on some emails in my day, yes. But even that is not what I mean with the detailed revision stuff I'm describing re: Erra. Not same category, even.
The craziness and pleasure--the "weird obsessive"-ness--of the prose work in Erra is totally different. The language is a vehicle, yes, but also a reason in itself; the thing (to my mind) need not and should not exist if I have not at least tried to achieve something with the language that is rare and heightened (not meaning fancy! Meaning...awesome). So that means there are many sentences that have literally had hours put into them, many paragraphs with literally dozens of hours inside them, and all that adds up to thousands of hours of just...I mean is it "tinkering"? I don't know. This is what I mean when I say I don't know if the "weird obsessive"-ness is inevitable or normal or what. I do suspect, from a lot of things that a lot of writers say about writing, that while I guess there are sometimes Mozart-moments where you just write the thing perfect and bam! U R DUN, true excellence often resides in this iterative, endless, excavatory iteration.
You do have to stop at some point, though. Right?
I also appreciate--and kind of don't care!--that a lot of people just don't care about this in their prose. As writers, or readers. I'm reading a str8-up genre fantasy novel right now and having a good time. I'm glad to be reading it; I see why people like this writer; I'm not "forcing" myself through it. But also: the writing is, to me...well qua writing it's frequently preposterously bad. Like, "did you even read this section?" bad. Or: "do you think I'm a moron?" expository, tell-y not show-y bad. Etc. And I GET that some people just...this kind of writing fulfills them as readers. I'm reading this thing pretty happily; I might even read the next part! IT'S ALL GOOD.
But the writing that lights me up, and that I think I can achieve at least a flickering occasional resemblance to, is a little different.
So that's what I'm trying to create, with my thing. With Erra. I know there are people who like what I like, who resonate at the same frequencies. Who are lit up by language and expression that exists as an end and completion in itself, not just as a vehicle for information. And I hope I'm achieving something good enough on that metric that some of those people--the people who like that kind of thing--like my thing. Like Erra.
Okay that's all I have to say about that at the now so I'm just gonna end this one here. TA DA! Thank you for listening.
I'm writing it here because it's sometimes hard to talk about 'writing'; it devolves into either abstraction or really personal stuff. This is my attempt to talk through a couple of things in a straightforward way.
I'll fail.
So, for the last like basically 18 (24?) months, I've been wrapped up in what can only be called a kind of obsessive weird process with this thing, Erra's Throne. Now that "obsessive weird"-ness may be inevitable, may just be what writing a thing like this entails. Or entails for me. I don't know. But even if that's true I feel pretty comfortable using those words: "obsessive". "Weird".
BUT. It's not "bullshit", in that a large share of that time has been spent very actively engaging with this text, with the prose, and I think at a minimum I've learned a few things and gotten better at a few elements of craft.
So here's what I'm trying to do right now as I go through again (from the f#*%ing beginning) to clarify story and make Erra once-and-for-all the best thing I can possibly write at this moment.
On a mechanical level, coming down from big questions of story structure, theme, character: it's about making sure that I like every sentence and how every sentence meshes with the sentence(s) before and after it. Over and over and over again.
The elements that tend to leap out for me are syllabic count and syllabic emphasis.
Does the sentence have the right number of syllable beats? Is a downbeat or cadence beat out of place? If so, that means changing a word. Which means changes, quite possibly, to the sentences around it. Over and over and over again. The "right" number of beats is in my mind dictated by the rhythm established in the paragraph or section. This tends to be exact: not like "oh it should be a bit shorter", but rather like "this sentence needs seven syllables, with accent beats on 3 and 7."
Closely related to that is the sound and sound-structure. The most obvious thing here is open vowel sounds versus consonants, and with consonants the distinction between...ah, sh*t, I'm forgetting all my drama school phonetics here. The difference between like a sibilant ss or th sound and a front-palette tt sound and a more glottal bb sound. All those land in different ways and flow in different ways and, while I don't care that I don't remember what they're called, I care a great deal about how they flow and link together in the prose.
It's a little crazy, but also a real pleasure, to approach the text this way. It's also a great pleasure to NOT approach prose this way: as I am in this blog post, for example. As I am NOT in this blog post, I mean; what I'll do with this post is I'll write it and then I'll read it over to make sure it basically makes sense and hopefully doesn't have any egregiously missing words; in that process I'll inevitably edit a few things but we're talking fast -- I'm writing this now to fill some time while I digest something sugary before a bike ride. I too have spent "much too long" on some emails in my day, yes. But even that is not what I mean with the detailed revision stuff I'm describing re: Erra. Not same category, even.
The craziness and pleasure--the "weird obsessive"-ness--of the prose work in Erra is totally different. The language is a vehicle, yes, but also a reason in itself; the thing (to my mind) need not and should not exist if I have not at least tried to achieve something with the language that is rare and heightened (not meaning fancy! Meaning...awesome). So that means there are many sentences that have literally had hours put into them, many paragraphs with literally dozens of hours inside them, and all that adds up to thousands of hours of just...I mean is it "tinkering"? I don't know. This is what I mean when I say I don't know if the "weird obsessive"-ness is inevitable or normal or what. I do suspect, from a lot of things that a lot of writers say about writing, that while I guess there are sometimes Mozart-moments where you just write the thing perfect and bam! U R DUN, true excellence often resides in this iterative, endless, excavatory iteration.
You do have to stop at some point, though. Right?
I also appreciate--and kind of don't care!--that a lot of people just don't care about this in their prose. As writers, or readers. I'm reading a str8-up genre fantasy novel right now and having a good time. I'm glad to be reading it; I see why people like this writer; I'm not "forcing" myself through it. But also: the writing is, to me...well qua writing it's frequently preposterously bad. Like, "did you even read this section?" bad. Or: "do you think I'm a moron?" expository, tell-y not show-y bad. Etc. And I GET that some people just...this kind of writing fulfills them as readers. I'm reading this thing pretty happily; I might even read the next part! IT'S ALL GOOD.
But the writing that lights me up, and that I think I can achieve at least a flickering occasional resemblance to, is a little different.
So that's what I'm trying to create, with my thing. With Erra. I know there are people who like what I like, who resonate at the same frequencies. Who are lit up by language and expression that exists as an end and completion in itself, not just as a vehicle for information. And I hope I'm achieving something good enough on that metric that some of those people--the people who like that kind of thing--like my thing. Like Erra.
Okay that's all I have to say about that at the now so I'm just gonna end this one here. TA DA! Thank you for listening.