Despite being the first book I started reading this month, Steering the Craft was the last that I finished. This is not to speak ill of it, mind you, as it is an excellent book on writing, written with candor, honesty, and expertise. Nor is it long. It IS, however, chock full of exercises of varying length and difficulty, and in trying to do at least some of them, it took longer to complete than I had expected. I’m glad I took the time, however, and I hope to return to the exercises I did not complete in the near future. Ursula LeGuin is easily one of the best science fiction authors in the history of the genre. If science fiction authors were a royal court, she would not just be a dame or duchess — she would be the Queen. And justifiably so. He writing is eloquent and remarkable, and her knowledge of the genre and field of writing in general is awe inspiring. I hope very much to meet her at some point, given that she lives a mere two hours south of me, in Portland, Oregon.

One of the interesting aspects of Steering the Craft is that it is actually a how to book, a book about writing, unlike most of the other writing books I’ve read thus far, which really amount to writer’s memoirs. To top that off, the book is done well, unlike so many other books of its type. It includes a glossary of terms, and an appendix of tips and advice on handling common issues like the lie/lay/lay debacle (it is not simply a matter of laying something down and lying down, there is also the intransitive verb that requires an indirect object, with its own set of rules), and the use of tense. The chapters themselves are insightful, and handle the more substantial aspects of writing well (tense, point of view, rhythm, sentence structure). She does away with many of the more stolid (read: stupid) rules from grammar school, and explains the ones she chooses to keep. Basically, what it comes down to is that any rule can be broken, but if it is broken, it should be broken well, and for a reason.

The book can be used in a variety of ways. Each chapter can stand alone rather well, and can be referenced fairly quickly as a desktop companion. Additionally, it can be used as a textbook for a peer writing group (and one of the appendixes is how to find or start such a group), or simply slogged through individually (what I ended up doing). Because each chapter stands alone, it can be done at whatever pacing necessary, though she recommends trying to spend at least a few days to a week on each chapter. Something else that I find particularly encouraging is that she includes her mailing address, and encourages readers to contact her with opinions on the text, how we found it useful, what could be improved, et cetera. Given her list of achievements, talent, and respect within the field, she could very easily have handed this book down from “on high.” I respect her a great deal for choosing not to do so.

Some parts of the book were more useful to me than others. I already have a fairly strong grasp over point of view, and while I occasionally absent-mindedly slip, a good grasp of tense as well. That said, it was vindicating to hear someone I respect as much as LeGuin declare that there is nothing wrong with using some of the more esoteric tenses (future perfect and past perfect, for instance), if you understand how to use them (which I do — four years of Latin does have SOME uses), and that largely the current avoidance of them stems from many mainstream authors and journalists NOT understanding how to use them properly. Her comments on the use of passive voice was also insightful and directly relevant: I am notorious for using qualifiers and passive voice in my writing, which makes the writing instantly less personal than it otherwise would be. It also makes it seem more “scholarly”, which is where I picked up that particular rut. It’s a vicious circle: we spend 95% of our academic career learning how to write things in an “academic” manner, which then permeates the media through graduates entering the workforce, which spreads it to the rest of the world… leaving so much of the population’s writing dense and impersonal, lacking the ability to truly COMMUNICATE.

A chapter that I found particularly useful for my own writing and myself is the first chapter, “The Sound of Your Writing”. It’s not just a matter of the rhythm, but also a matter of the sounds each word makes, in your mind and out loud. Using strong words, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyming, the flavor of what you’re talking about can convey a different effect. Something else I noticed about it, however, is that the nature of the exercise encourages word association, which can lead your story in unexpected directions. Word association is like a backdoor, getting you past that guard-dog we call our self-censor, and can let you be honest in ways that might not have otherwise gotten out. When I did the exercise for chapter one, what had started out as a silly little exercise ended up being a somewhat angst-ridden prose poem, which led me to discover that I still have a lot of angst in me, for better or worse. It made me realize that maybe I’m not handling my depression as well as I thought, because it became clear that I wasn’t DEALING with any of it, just burying it. Now I’m actually trying to take a more proactive stance in dealing with my depression.

Another chapter I really enjoyed was chapter nine, “Indirect Narration, or What Tells”, mainly because it’s a weak point for me. I’ve spent so much of my writing life outlining or creating character sheets and histories and not actually TELLING THE STORY, that I really found the information in the chapter really useful. It discusses ways to work in personality and history (both of the characters and the world) directly into dialogue and narrative, without creating “expository lumps”. I’ve always found my dialogue to be somewhat flat or weak in my writing, and this chapter made me realize that what I need to work on is weaving history into the dialogue. This will smooth out the story, and add a great deal of depth to the dialogue. I’m still not very good at it, but at least I’ve realized a method of improvement and can work on it more. (This is far more useful advice than what Stephen King said about dialogue, namely, you either have an ear for it or you don’t, and no amount of practice will change that.)

This is a remarkable book, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in writing. In particular, I’d recommend it to writing workshops and teachers (in fact, I’m going to email my high school creative writing teacher and suggest it), as so many of the exercises in it are perfect for a workshop environment (LeGuin even marks the ones she feels are particularly suited for workshops). I’m greatly looking forward to returning to the book as the semester goes on, to visit and revisit some of the exercises within it. Like any other artistic endeavor, art is not just a matter of creativity, it is also very much a craft. I’m looking forward to refining mine.

LeGuin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft. Portland: Eighth Mountain Press, 1998.

Zen in the Art of Writing is not precisely a book about writing. Rather, it is a book about being passionate about what you do. While there are tips and tricks to writing and writing well, it is rather superfluous to the overall value of the book. In my eyes, where the book is most valuable is in encouraging you to be passionate. We have emotions, and yet so much of our academic lives are spent subjugating those emotions in a misguided attempt at objectivity. It is like a breath of fresh air to not only be told it’s okay to get angry or excited, but to be encouraged to do so.

The book is broken up into several essays, written over several years for various other reasons, collected into one book. As such, there is a bit of repetition in his subject matter (he comments on several of his stories several times through several different essays, often saying almost exactly the same thing), which can largely be forgiven. It really only irks when the points of repetition essentially boil down to some personal horn tooting on the case of the author (which kind of jives with what I’ve heard about Ray, namely that he is a very nice person but not all that modest about his talents). None of the repetition really harms the core of any of the essays, so no harm done, I suppose.

I thought about responding to each of the essays, but decided it would be more fun and rewarding to point out the parts that really struck me. In the essay “On the Shoulders of Giants”, Bradbury talks about the Science Fiction Explosion:

[…]and placed a gentle bomb on teacher’s desk. Instead of an apple it was Asimov.
“What’s that?” the teacher asked, suspiciously.
“Try it. It’s good for you,” said the students.
“No thanks.”
“Try it,” said the students. “Read the first page. If you don’t like it, stop.” And the clever students turned and went away.
The teachers (and the librarians, later) put off reading, kept the book around the house for a few weeks and then, late one night, tried the first paragraph.
And the bomb exploded.
They not only read the first but the second paragraph, the second and third pages, the fourth and fifth chapters.
“My God!” they cried, almost in unison, “these damned books are about something!”
“Good Lord!” they cried, reading a second book, “there are Ideas here!”
“Holy Smoke!” they babbled, on their way through Clarke, heading into Heinlein, emerging from Sturgeon, “these books are — ugly word — relevant!”
“Yes!” shouted the chorus of kids starving in the yard. “Oh my, yes!”
And the teachers began to teach, and discovered an amazing thing:
Students who had never wanted to read before suddenly were galvanized, pulled up their socks, and began to read and quote Ursula LeGuin. Kids who had never read so much as one pirate’s obituary in their lives were suddenly turning pages with their tongues, ravening for more. (Bradbury 102-103)

This piece right here is precisely what I’m talking about when I say that Bradbury’s writing is passionate and bordering poetic. It also strikes a very strong chord with me, on many levels. For one thing, I was one of those kids growing up, but in a later wave with a different fight on their hands. I had the side of the teachers now, and instead I was up against the other students, trying to convince them to just try it, and if they didn’t like it, they could throw the book in my face. I can count the number who actually took me up on my suggestions on one hand. A different but related chord is that the essay explains and encapsulates my feelings about science fiction so well. Science Fiction in so many ways should have stuck with an earlier moniker: Speculative Fiction. The genre is filled with ideas and notions and questions and ideals, some of which become reality, but that’s really superfluous to the nature of the genre. It’s the IDEAS that are important. And, for me at least, it is the challenge of Humanity.

The next most striking and invaluable essay for me was the title essay: “Zen in the Art of Writing”. It is one of his more straightforward essays, dealing with a (somewhat) more technical part of writing, namely how to do it. The entire essay can be summed up in one line: “WORK – RELAXATION – DON’T THINK – FURTHER RELAXATION” (Bradbury 144). The rest of the essay just explains that statement. What it comes down to is this: writing is WORK, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There is craft in addition to art, and that is the structure of writing, and the act of writing itself. That said, if you are stressed out, your work will be stressed as well — it will not flow, and it will not be nearly as honest as you likely want. Likewise, if you let yourself think about what you are writing, you censor yourself: get it OUT THERE, you can always censor it later — chances are, once it’s out, you’ll be glad it is, no matter what your censor tells you when you’re writing it. Which brings us back to relaxation: ideas are from a deep part of your mind, and it takes being relaxed and receptive to get them to the surface. It’s where the “Zen” in the title becomes slightly less of just a turn of phrase. A major principle of Zen is an acceptance and receptiveness to one’s surroundings. Writing is very Zen.

The third and final essay I’m going to write about is “How to Keep and Feed a Muse”. There is always talk about a “writer’s muse”, talk that never seems to get anywhere, mostly involving some people arguing against any outside source, and others citing divine inspiration. Personally, I’m somewhere in the middle. Bradbury seems more in the camp of citing the Muse as our subconscious. There’s nothing wrong with this, and the essay is very valid regardless of which “camp” you belong to. It is worth noting that in either camp, there is the agreement that a muse must be fed. It needs experiences to grow from and work with, and life is its food of choice. It must also have an outlet, however: whether the work is good or not or feels particularly inspired or not, you need to write to keep a muse. Or paint, or sculpt, or any other creative medium — take your pick, the fact remains the same: if you are not willing to let the muse speak through you, then the muse will stop trying to. Of this I am absolutely certain, speaking from first-hand experience. You don’t even realize how important the interplay between yourself and your muse IS until it’s gone, whether through abuse, or neglect.

Zen in the Art of Writing is definitely worth reading. I would recommend happily (and have) to anyone willing to spend the few hours necessary to read it (it is not precisely long, weighing in at 176 pages in trade paperback size… I read it in less than a day). Those looking for a how-to book on writing should look elsewhere… and then come back when their priorities are in order. After all, what is the point in knowing how to write if you have nothing to say?

Bradbury, Ray. Zen in the Art of Writing. Santa Barbara: Joshua Odell Editions, 1994.