Linking Local Literati
What we do as writers: audience, juice, craft, reading
Prepping for this semester's second writing class tonight at NYU, I got the idea that I should explain to my students that I think of the act of writing as not a single act, but as many acts falling into a few broad categories. In fact I came up with four such categories: audience, juice, craft, reading. These overlap, of course, so really they should be shown in a diagram rather than in a list as here.
AUDIENCE
Awareness of audience means you do all the activities listed here under the heading of “reading, reading, and more reading” and all the activities listed here under the heading of “technique or craft.” Why? Because you want to reach an audience. Even if you are writing in a cave or a cubicle, the act of writing is not complete without an attempt to be heard.
Reluctantly or not, you must cultivate some human connections (writing groups? teachers? fellow writers? editors?).
Reluctantly, perhaps even dreading it, or perhaps overstating its importance, you seek publication. An easy place to get hung up on, lots of fear and failure and painful comparisons. But without publication of some sort, there is no art, there is no audience. “Publishing” can be as easy as reading your work aloud to friends, or as difficult as pursuing a book deal.
“JUICE”
Juice is the thing that makes good writing lively, enjoyable; that keeps good readers reading rather than turning to something else.
The source of juice has many names: intuition; the muse; the nonconscious.
We can encourage juice away from the page - getting ideas while walking, showering, driving, etc. We can keep a notebook to capture these. Writing can be going on when we are not writing.
Many of us have had the experience of squeezing too tightly during revisions. Juice can be difficult, it can make things hard to clean up or even understand; yet if we revise too much in the sake of “readability” or “clarity,” sometimes there is no juice left at all. Often in such cases the only way to recover is to start with a completely fresh first draft.
We can allow ourself to try new exercises, to get past our inhibitions or past any voices inside our head that are not our own.
Writing often. Keeping a journal.
Giving ourselves permission to write badly.
But then, in revising, being able to summon the aesthetic critic, even the moral critic, inside ourselves, so that we can test for whether we have written sloppily or in cliches. For juice is not just “spontaneity.” Nor is it just “expressing yourself.”
Nor does it necessarily correspond to “what we want to say.” Sometimes it turns out that what we want to say (most often, when we first sit down to write) is dull or cliched or a rant. Then we must search deeper, longer - for something living; that is, on those occasions we want to write well. Other times we don’t need juice (see further on in this note), so we won’t waste time looking for it.
Juice is very close to what Peter Elbow calls “voice” - writing that has power for a reader, that quickens on the page.
Sometimes “voice” is called “authenticity” but that is not right - authenticity can be faked; it is hard to judge; it does not necessarily result in writing that excites the reader. Juice is alive; it brings pleasures to readers and, if the writer is sensitive to noticing it when it shows up, to the writer also.
Juice often involves detail, but detail alone is not juice. Juice is specific, but specificity alone is not juice.
Really talented writers have tons of juice; less talented writers have less, and so need even more attention to craft to support what they’ve got.
Without at least some juice, really good nonfiction or fiction is not possible.
Juice is much less important for routine journalism; and it is completely irrelevant for most technical or professional writing.
Juice is also less important for argumentative essays - usually! For it turns out that the very best argumentative essays also have a lot of juice, starting with powerful ideas and from there carrying over into powerful writing: think Martin Luther King’s jail letter.
CRAFT
Craft is also sometimes called technique, and this is close enough to being correct that usually we can let it slide. However, there is in fact a difference: craft is not technique, but rather, the cultivation of technique. Craft is explicit. Craft is conscious.
Craft has nothing to do with “grammar” as preached by scolding grammarians (e.g. Strunk & White in “The Elements of Style”). When a good writer is considering what may seem like grammar, in fact he or she is usually thinking about the issue from the point of view of usage. Usage is a far more flexible, accurate, and powerful way to approach matters such as diction, style, audience, etc.
The goal of technique (which we acquire through craft) is readability and clarity, so that readers will understand and enjoy what we have written.
Clarity and readability are easiest to achieve in nonfiction of any type.
They are harder to measure (and achieve) in fiction, since some effects may be “unclear” on the surface by design. Depends on the genre.
READING, READING, AND MORE READING
This is listed last here by chance only - for reading is where all writing starts.
Reading can be done explicitly to cultivate craft. We can analyze genres, forms, expectations, recipes, so as to improve technique and better connect with readers who are familiar with the genre we are writing in.
But the great gift of reading is to the unconscious. The more we read, the more we soak in genres, forms, expectations, “recipes”; the more we create the “reader inside us” who will guide our work intuitively when we are working within a particular genre.
EDITED: Here's a graphic of the above -
AUDIENCE
Awareness of audience means you do all the activities listed here under the heading of “reading, reading, and more reading” and all the activities listed here under the heading of “technique or craft.” Why? Because you want to reach an audience. Even if you are writing in a cave or a cubicle, the act of writing is not complete without an attempt to be heard.
Reluctantly or not, you must cultivate some human connections (writing groups? teachers? fellow writers? editors?).
Reluctantly, perhaps even dreading it, or perhaps overstating its importance, you seek publication. An easy place to get hung up on, lots of fear and failure and painful comparisons. But without publication of some sort, there is no art, there is no audience. “Publishing” can be as easy as reading your work aloud to friends, or as difficult as pursuing a book deal.
“JUICE”
Juice is the thing that makes good writing lively, enjoyable; that keeps good readers reading rather than turning to something else.
The source of juice has many names: intuition; the muse; the nonconscious.
We can encourage juice away from the page - getting ideas while walking, showering, driving, etc. We can keep a notebook to capture these. Writing can be going on when we are not writing.
Many of us have had the experience of squeezing too tightly during revisions. Juice can be difficult, it can make things hard to clean up or even understand; yet if we revise too much in the sake of “readability” or “clarity,” sometimes there is no juice left at all. Often in such cases the only way to recover is to start with a completely fresh first draft.
We can allow ourself to try new exercises, to get past our inhibitions or past any voices inside our head that are not our own.
Writing often. Keeping a journal.
Giving ourselves permission to write badly.
But then, in revising, being able to summon the aesthetic critic, even the moral critic, inside ourselves, so that we can test for whether we have written sloppily or in cliches. For juice is not just “spontaneity.” Nor is it just “expressing yourself.”
Nor does it necessarily correspond to “what we want to say.” Sometimes it turns out that what we want to say (most often, when we first sit down to write) is dull or cliched or a rant. Then we must search deeper, longer - for something living; that is, on those occasions we want to write well. Other times we don’t need juice (see further on in this note), so we won’t waste time looking for it.
Juice is very close to what Peter Elbow calls “voice” - writing that has power for a reader, that quickens on the page.
Sometimes “voice” is called “authenticity” but that is not right - authenticity can be faked; it is hard to judge; it does not necessarily result in writing that excites the reader. Juice is alive; it brings pleasures to readers and, if the writer is sensitive to noticing it when it shows up, to the writer also.
Juice often involves detail, but detail alone is not juice. Juice is specific, but specificity alone is not juice.
Really talented writers have tons of juice; less talented writers have less, and so need even more attention to craft to support what they’ve got.
Without at least some juice, really good nonfiction or fiction is not possible.
Juice is much less important for routine journalism; and it is completely irrelevant for most technical or professional writing.
Juice is also less important for argumentative essays - usually! For it turns out that the very best argumentative essays also have a lot of juice, starting with powerful ideas and from there carrying over into powerful writing: think Martin Luther King’s jail letter.
CRAFT
Craft is also sometimes called technique, and this is close enough to being correct that usually we can let it slide. However, there is in fact a difference: craft is not technique, but rather, the cultivation of technique. Craft is explicit. Craft is conscious.
Craft has nothing to do with “grammar” as preached by scolding grammarians (e.g. Strunk & White in “The Elements of Style”). When a good writer is considering what may seem like grammar, in fact he or she is usually thinking about the issue from the point of view of usage. Usage is a far more flexible, accurate, and powerful way to approach matters such as diction, style, audience, etc.
The goal of technique (which we acquire through craft) is readability and clarity, so that readers will understand and enjoy what we have written.
Clarity and readability are easiest to achieve in nonfiction of any type.
They are harder to measure (and achieve) in fiction, since some effects may be “unclear” on the surface by design. Depends on the genre.
READING, READING, AND MORE READING
This is listed last here by chance only - for reading is where all writing starts.
Reading can be done explicitly to cultivate craft. We can analyze genres, forms, expectations, recipes, so as to improve technique and better connect with readers who are familiar with the genre we are writing in.
But the great gift of reading is to the unconscious. The more we read, the more we soak in genres, forms, expectations, “recipes”; the more we create the “reader inside us” who will guide our work intuitively when we are working within a particular genre.
EDITED: Here's a graphic of the above -
Comment
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Comment by Brent Robison on October 16, 2009 at 9:49am -
I like your diagram a lot!
And thanks about the stories...
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Comment by Randy Burgess on October 16, 2009 at 6:05am -
Hi Brent,
I have a similar view. In terms of this schema as I’ve laid it out, Audience and Reading are spheres of activity in their own right, even as they are inputs for the yin-yang activities of Craft and Juice at the center of the writing process. I’ve added a diagram to the original post to show this. I sketched something similar on a blackboard on Tuesday night & got some puzzled looks from students till I labored to explain it. Mostly I wanted to tell them that although the course focuses primarily on Craft, we will try & get a little Juice in there too.
The schema is meant to be purely technical - i.e. “What does a writer do?” rather than “What inner or outer values does an author seek to fulfill?” That said, I have similar longings for Heart & Truth and would be surprised to meet an author who didn’t. And compassion is certainly important, especially in fiction: I am partway through your book of stories & note with admiration that quality shown throughout to characters in all sorts of trouble.
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Comment by Brent Robison on October 15, 2009 at 9:09pm
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I like this, Randy -- especially the Juice discussion, which is trying to get at something rather ineffable. I think of Audience and Reading as tools for reaching a goal that includes Craft and Juice. I discovered as I worked on Prima Materia that the writing I was looking for seemed to reside at an intersection of what I called Craft, Heart, and Truth.
Craft: very much as you describe it, that conscious pursuit of fine technique, using the tools of language, syntax, pacing, structure, etc...
Heart: avoiding sentimentality while exhibiting compassion for the human condition, even in the most subtle, and sometimes dark. ways...
Truth: probably the most subjective, and bearing no relationship to "facts," but rather convincing me (the reader) that I can trust what this writer is saying because it is not about showing off or manipulating but about digging deep and being genuine.
Like yours, these can apply to any genre: fiction, memoir, even poetry. But I'm grateful I'm not a teacher because they're pretty amorphous and really need specific examples. I know what I mean; others may not.
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