Voice and Language

The Inner Life of My WIP

I’m still deciding what this forum will be used for, but I think for the near term I’ll use it like Steinbeck used the left-hand pages of the journals in which he wrote THE GRAPES OF WRATH and EAST OF EDEN.

On the right-hand pages, he wrote the manuscript. On the left-hand pages, though, Steinbeck would think out plot points, flesh out characters and their motivations, lament the difficulty of the writing and his inability to do the work justice, or simply leave notes to his editor about all manner of pedestrian things.

They are fascinating reading, especially if you, like me, hold Steinbeck in awe. All great noir writing has a Steinbeckian throughline, and seeing his mind at work is an unbeatable education.

(NB: if you’re interested, both journals have been collected and published as JOURNAL OF A NOVEL, covering EAST OF EDEN, and WORKING DAYS for THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Both of these are slim volumes full of amazing insight and advice)

For the near future, I think this is how I’ll use this platform. I’m a little more than halfway through the WIP I expect and hope will become my next novel. There are things I’m trying to do in this one that I wasn’t attempting in my first, buuuut of course there are things I’d like to repeat as well.

It’s a great trapeze act, writing a novel, and there is no net.

For the moment, the thing I’m struggling with the most is the language. Or maybe it’s voice. Or maybe it’s creating that alchemy that arises when someone manages to capture a person, place, or time through a unique combination of language and authorial voice.

Among the books I’ve finished lately are Cormac McCarthy’s THE PASSENGER and Edna O’Brien’s WILD DECEMBERS, two masters at doing this thing I’ve so poorly explained. They are each so masterful at what they do that you could easily recognize their work even without a name.

Right now, I struggle with the pedestrian words I seem to be putting to paper (ok, electrons on a screen). They’re serviceable, but I didn’t start writing to create something serviceable.  

The curse, of course, is that there’s a real possibility that desires be damned, I may not be capable of creating something better than serviceable.

I’ll keep trying, though.

What else is there to do? You’ve got to be stubborn with your dreams.

I’m not one of those writers who can’t read fiction when they’re writing. I understand the hesitancy—no one wants to unwittingly create a pastiche of a book they’ve just read.

But when I’m looking for language, when I’m struggling to find the voice of the piece, I go back and re-read some favorites—writers like David Peace (especially any of the RED RIDING quartet) or, very specifically, the opening chapter of Elmore Leonard’s KILLSHOT (go ahead, we’ll wait. Go read that first chapter.)

I re-read books or sections of books like that not to imitate, but to try and tap into what psychologists like Csikszentmihalyi meant when they talked about flow state. It’s not a perfect analogy, but the engrossing feeling I get re-reading selections from great writers I admire allows me to focus in a deep way on my own WIP.

(NB: in case you’ve stumbled onto this Substack and aren’t a writer—which is totally cool—WIP stands for “Work In Progress”)

I think now, a hundred or so pages in, I’m starting to clearly see the voice of the novel, even as I struggle to nail down how the language will be used to carry that voice throughout the book.

But I’m on my way.