Speculation, Fact and Fiction

I'm a great fan of Raymond Chandler, of his books, of the films, and of his various observations on the writing life and craft. Such as (and I'm almost certainly paraphrasing here) 'if you're completely stuck, have a man come through the door with a gun' and 'there are only two stories; man goes on a journey and stranger comes to town'. Both of which statements have a good deal of truth in them.

Yesterday I came across a new observation by Chandler, courtesy of The Guardian Review letters' page. He wrote this in Dec 1946 to Mrs Raymond Hogan, a teacher looking for advice to give to the young.

"My experience with trying to help people write has been limited but extremely intensive. I have done everything from giving would-be writers money to live on, to plotting and rewriting their stories for them, and so far I have found it all to be a waste. The people whom God or nature intended to be writers find their own answers, and those who have to ask are impossible to help. They are merely people who want to be writers."

Ouch.

Well, on reflection, I can only think Chandler was very unfortunate in those limited attempts to help aspiring writers. I've never yet come across anyone expecting me to give them money to live on, though granted, I have come across several who have seen nothing wrong in asking me to re-plot and rewrite their stories for free. I'm generally inclined to excuse them on grounds of startling naivety, as is usually evident from everything else they say.

It's true, by and large, that natural born writers simply can't not write and many will find their own path without needing help. But just as many will benefit from some help and direction, to show them useful shortcuts and ways to avoid the pitfalls. There are plenty with talent and ideas who simply lack the tools to make something of them, especially if their educational choices took them away from formal English studies. I think it was Robert McKee who said something alone the lines of 'talent without craft is fuel without a rocket. However brightly it burns, it's going nowhere'.

True, there are always some who will ask for help and then not like the answers, mostly when they're being told where their writing is lacking, and how much concentrated hard work will be necessary to turn their beloved novel into something that might stand the faintest chance of not being sent straight back to them by an agent or an editor. I've certainly come across those.

But if they want to persist in their delusions, I'm not going to let it get to me. I'll be thinking about those people who have really listened to what I have to say at a creative writing workshop and whose work has benefited.

Not that I'm the fount of all wisdom, by any means. I'm just passing on things I continue to learn about this business of writing, not least because I would never have made the step from aspiring to published writer without the generosity of so many authors willing to offer me help and direction.