Tom Franklin Explains It All

Reading Jon Franklin's Writing for Story proved quite an experience. As I ran through the pages, I found many concepts that I instinctively agreed with along with others that left me a little confused but eventually accepting. Overall I hope that the text will help smooth the writing process along for me. Though I can't exactly say I used too much of his structure in writing this post, so fasten your seatbelts, this might be something of a rough, bumpy ride.

First of all, the things we hold in common. I enjoyed his section on outlining - the process is one that I myself, to an extent, attempt to or need to do in order to write anything complex. But the way I outline is far less refined and adept than his. His explication of how precisely one should outline is one that I want to use in my writing from here on out, and hopefully that'll be a resolution that I stick with; the process brings clarity and logic to writing, something we could all use more of.

His idea that one should begin at the end and work from there I also agree with. How can you really know what you're introducing the reader to if you don't quite have it set up yet? I also attempt to utilize this technique when I write. But here, again, Franklin's knowledge and experience with craft trumps mine, since when I do the writing that I most often do (critical writing, in my case), I usually jump headfirst into the development, the evidence I have for my argument, as opposed to starting with the major resolution part. It's what I did when I started writing this piece - skipped the introductory paragraph in favor of getting to the meat of the writing. Since I haven't quite got it in my head what I want to say about Writing for Story, I sit down and write it out first, then try to come up with an introduction that encapsulates what I've written, and a hopefully punchy conclusion.

This points to another problem I encounter when writing - not knowing exactly what I want to say yet and attempting to just sit down and write it all out. Which is where the idea of outlining - strictly structured outlining - will hopefully come in handy in the future.

Consistent use of active verbs is another writer's commandment I've heard preached ever since I've come to college - and if I had a better memory, I'd probably remember hearing some of that even through high school. It's something I'd like to improve on, though in crunch time more passive verbs or static 'to be' verbs sometimes present themselves as easier, or at least require less thinking about what word to use. Franklin also discusses word choice and the matter of getting the just-right word for the occasion. He says that the thesaurus on the whole isn't of much use to writers. Here I might have to disagree with him, because I've found the thesaurus in my word processing app useful over the years. Sometimes I'll come up with the next-to-right word, but for whatever reason there's an impassable block in my mind to that word that's just crying out for me to use, the one that I know but can't remember right now. Out comes the thesaurus, I look up the almost-right word, and there on the computer is the word that my memory has been scrambling for. It's also great for when you've been using a word over and over and over; you're sick of the word, you know whoever eventually reads what you've written will get sick of it, and with your handy thesaurus you can come up with something fresh and new.

Franklin's advice on how to structure your stories will be of great help to me; I have hardly anything of a creative writing background, so any words on how to show instead of tell are of use to me. His breakdown of the piece into transitional, preparatory, and climactic narrative also helps to see that writing isn't that complicated or intimidating of a beast, when you get down to the small parts. And his descriptions of the various storytelling techniques - foreshadowing, flashback, among others - make these things more graspable for the uninitiated writer that I am. His last chapter, about the artist and art, left me feeling a little left out because I've never felt the gripping need to write stories to change the world, or the distinction that I'm a special artist. In fact, I've never wanted to be an artist. All of which is helpful in evaluating what I want to do with my life; something I didn't really expect to contemplate when reading this book, but good nonetheless.