The internet, as I am wont to say, is full of things. Some of them are interesting things. Some of them are horrific things. Some of them are funny things, or useful things, or OMG-my-eyes-are-bleeding-just-can’t-look-away-trainwrecky things. And if you are a writer, online, one of those things is likely to be… your blog.
So, how does one write an interesting weblog, anyway?
Well, it’s actually pretty easy. First, one gets passionate about something.
And then one talks about it.
Let me explain.
I read or have read blogs by people who are bespoke tailors, video store clerks, strippers, middle-aged weightlifters, doctoral candidates, medical researchers, ER docs, horror movie junkies, librarians, soldiers, housewives, disaster survivors, artists, Hollywood scriptwriters, cooks, citizens on the ground in war zones, and so on.
Some of these blogs are focused on a topic. Some are online diaries. Some are broadcast media. Some are, eclectically, all of the above–in parallel or in sequence.
But they have something in common: they really care about what they’re doing. Some of them hate it, and some of them love it, and some take turns. But they all care, and they all write with passion.
And that’s what makes them readable–compulsive, even. Because they’re committed. They’re there laying it on the line. This is what I do, and this is how I do it.
And that? Is interesting. And it’s interesting in ways that apply to fiction writing, too. Because characterization counts. I mean, let’s be honest here: Shakespeare couldn’t plot his way out of a wet paper bag. And he knew it, too, which is why he lifted stories from everywhere and anywhere, with the peculiar light-fingered pickpocket’s touch of his. But the man could write characters–people–better than just about anybody.
A good weblog is about character. I’m seriously unlikely ever to become a tailor, for example, and my suit-wearing opportunities are exceptionally limited these days, as I have chosen a profession that lends itself to work in one’s pajamas. (On a dress-up day, I put on jeans even if I don’t have to go to the store.) But man, I actually find myself doing a little happy dance in my chair when Thomas Mahon updates his blog, English Cut, because I always learn something from reading it. And his love of what he does shines through.
There’s another way one can apply that knowledge to fiction writing. Which is to say, one of the things that allows any art to successfully connect with an audience is that same commitment. The ironic pose is all very nice, but after the first couple of iterations, one inescapably tends toward the suspicion that the writer is holding back because he doesn’t actually believe what he’s writing about. Either that, or he’s too scared of being naked in public to strip and get on with it.
Whereas, one of the things great writers have in common is that they have abandoned themselves to their work. Which does not mean confessional writing, necessarily. Nor does it mean giving up on artifice and art and craftsmanship and all the skills that go into storytelling.
But it does mean that they’re not holding anything in reserve; they’re extending themselves to the fullest, like a runner driving for the tape, and if they get hurt in the process well, that’s part of the game. It’s what you risk. In life as in art, if you don’t put it on the line–if there’s nothing at stake–then there’s no interest in the story.
If we wanted to protect ourselves, to stay within our limits, we should have chosen a different field of endeavor.
7 Comments, Comment or Ping
Sam Taylor
Here, here.
Passion _is_ meaning.
It really is that simple.
Aug 7th, 2007
Frank Wydra
Okay. I sort of buy that, intellectually, passion being unfettered enthusiasm for whatever.
But there are these niggling little doubts that keep gnawing at me.
Like, can you be intellectual about passion, it being an emotion, and all?
Like, how many people are really passionate about anything?
Like, is what gets labeled passion just hyperbole for what otherwise be called a serious interest?
Or how long can passion be sustained?
Or is the emotion being felt really passion? Could it be fear, hate, lust?
Or if it’s passion, can it be contained enough to make it coherent?
And just what is it that we, as writers, are supposed to be passionate about?
And, if I have to ask these questions, can I be passionate?
Do you abandon logic when in the throes of passion?
Is passion suppressed when in the grip of logic?
You get the drift. It’s a grand idea. But what to do about these niggles that clutter the mind?
Frank
Aug 7th, 2007
Elizabeth Bear
Frank–
I think I’ve adequately explained what *I* mean by passion in the body of the text.
I don’t see it as dichotomous to craft or logic or any of the other things it takes to create art. I’ve known people who were passionate about math, about physics, about music–it’s a false binary.
I’ve been passionate about writing for going on thirty years now. So I think it’s possible to sustain it for some time.
It’s not my place to tell you what to be passionate about; it’s your place to decide. For me, I didn’t experience success as a writer until I committed to the practice of my craft as central to my life.
The disposition of the niggles, alas, is for you to decide.
Aug 7th, 2007
Sully
My niggles are indisposed, but passion works for me. You can’t fake it, though, and it’s about as obedient as a cat. Doesn’t come when called. What you can do — and what blocks it in most people — is eliminate the entropy and inhibitions that keep it from flowing naturally. Stiffs are stiffs because they wear suits of armor for protection. Buck naked will create a lot of passion, believe you me. So while Bear writes in her pajamas, I just write bare. That is to say with an open mind, so that my brains can freely fall out. Which apparently they have. Good night.
– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)
Aug 8th, 2007
David Niall Wilson
I’ve long believed that when doing anything…and I literally mean anything…any time spent doing it less than 100 percent is a waste of life. Anger is something I will devote very little time to. When I spend time with my kids, I try to think about nothing else…same with my writing, relationships, etc. When I have something in front of me, I want it to represent me.
Frank, your niggles may well just be excuses to either not believe in the passion, or not give yourself up to it…(And I’m not saying they are, just maybe).
Confucius (or one of his followers?) said that any time you try to explain or write about “Tao” or “The Way,” it isn’t really “Tao,” and I think this expands to include any time you niggle over it (:
DNW
Aug 8th, 2007
Elizabeth Bear
Sully, with the bare and the brains, you have left me with a truly unfortunate mental image. For which I apologize copiously.
Passion–yeah, you can’t make it come. But you can get the fear out of the way, and it was the fear that held me back for so long. Now, of course, “What works for me may not work for you,” but I finally started to have some success with this thing when I realized that the difference between not trying and trying and failing was just that, in the first case, WHEN I failed, I could tell myself it was okay because I hadn’t really tried. And in the second case, I stood a chance of succeeding.
David,
The Tao that can be explained is indeed not much of an epiphany. That’s the thing about click experiences: you try to explain them and they come out dumb.
(I have a refrigerator magnet that says, “After ecstacy, the laundry.”
Which reminds me, I really need to wash the floor and also some clothes today.)
Aug 8th, 2007
John Skipp
Dear Elizabeth –
You have nailed — and nailed completely, for me — the SINGLE MOST ATTRACTIVE QUALITY a writer can bring to their work.
Subject matter, shmubject matter…it’s the passionate engagement of the person writing that brings me along for the ride. In the right hands, EVERYTHING IS INTERESTING. And I live for the people who remind us of that.
You are clearly one of those people. THANKS FOR WRITING THIS PIECE!
And man oh man, would I like a list of your favorite blogsters, just to dip in their pools.
Yer pal,
Skipp
Aug 8th, 2007
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