A few years back, I looked up from my cubicle and tried to move my cramped shoulders. I was tired; my back pain had been keeping me awake for the past few nights. As I rummaged in my drawer for a painkiller, my eyes fell on the clock and I realized that I still had a couple of hours to go before I could take another pill.
My boss called me to his office. He looked just as exhausted, and he had more than himself to worry about. Some wise guru whose name escapes me once said that "It is easier to give advice to others because you can see their faults clearer than you can see your own." When I saw his face I thought, he should leave this job and just as quickly it occurred to me; I should leave too. A few weeks later I walked out of the company door and had never looked back since.
I jumped at the chance to focus on writing. The first mistake I made was to assume that it would only take me a few months to produce the perfect story. Life may have brought me through many twists and turns, but none of those experiences had brought me anywhere close to learning about writing techniques.
Thankfully I was not entirely clueless, for a year back, I wrote a query letter to an agent in Australia. He asked for a sample of the first three chapters of my work. My hand shook with so much excitement I had trouble writing down his address on the envelope. However, a few months later I received a rejection. How come, I wondered. My grammar was right, I read and reread meticulously to make sure that there was not a single spelling error or wrong word, my characters were interesting, and most of all my story line was good. He must have known that it was good after reading the synopsis. Wasn't that why he asked for a sample?
There I was, in a bit of a pickle. What should I do? To take my mind away from my trouble, I turned my attention to non-fiction. Happily, that work was accepted by a publisher in Singapore, though I am still waiting for it to come out in print. I had a lot of fun writing it, and the few people who proofread my work had fun reading it too.
My fiction work, however, loomed over my head like a dark cloud. I decided to learn more about writing novels, especially since I had a sneaky suspicion that it was not my story that had gotten me rejected. After going through piles and piles of material, I learnt that I should have;
- used the active voice,
- used different sentence structures to avoid monotony,
- avoided adjectives and adverbs as they create weak writing,
- showed, not tell; and
- kept my words simple unless I have a good reason.
Since almost everything I read included these 5 points, I followed them to the letter as I wrote a new story. Result: disaster. My head-hunter protagonist turned into a boring two dimensional character whom I wished I could drown in a whirlpool at the foot of Wong Bakun (the Bakun Waterfall). My first stumbling block was the tip on avoiding adjectives and adverbs. The second was the use of active voice, where possible.
Strangely enough, it was an article on copywriting that made me see the light: modifiers, especially adjectives, are emotion words. That meant that if I don’t want to appear like a weak, sniveling writer I should keep myself in check. On the other hand, if I don’t want to be mistaken for an emotionless android, I should drip in a bit of “emotion” now and then.
Next I learnt that I need not use active voice all the time. I should instead decide on the subject and write in either active or passive base on the theme of the paragraph. Which method I choose will depend very much on the emotion I want to bring out in the reader: To create anger write about the abuser, to create compassion write about the victim.
Ah, I thought, that is what I should do. Soon after I read a book that writes in first voice from the point of view of different characters in different chapters. The idea was good but the impact on me was not good. At the end of the story, I found all the characters pathetic, selfish and not worth the time and money I spent. I think this must be the only time when excellent writing turned me off. The book, however, did really well so I guess there are people who like the style.
In addition to my problem with modifiers and verbs, I also struggle at describing scenes. Those either end up sounding like a scientific field article, "five three-foot hornbill feathers lined the crown of his coiled rattan war cap" or dry, "He had a war cap with hornbill feathers…." That was when I began to doodle, to keep me interested in the story. Another inspiration, for the act of doodling
Below is a picture of one of my sketches. The description I created out of it was not perfect, but it sure is a lot better than the first two.
Note: I chose the word 'tall' because it gives the impression of standing as well as length.
Everybody can write, as in everybody can draw. But there are only a few who can create art. I wanted to be one of that few, that was, until I learnt another point to ponder. To create art, you must be willing to expose your soul. Art is showing the world your feelings, your values, your pains, or your joys. If you are not willing to let the world judge you for who you are, you cannot create art. I think I am going to let this simmer for a while more. After all, head hunting is not a commendable practice in this time and age.
Try these English grammar drills.