Don't Be Afraid to Be Honest

'Honesty' is a watchword for writers.  "What do you honestly think?" we ask, showing our second or third draft to a friend for the first time.  "Be honest," we say to our writing group, or "let me be honest" when we're on the giving end of criticism.

But a different kind of honesty has been on my mind since I saw Pacific Rim.  That'd be the Guillermo del Toro movie with all the giant robots and giant monsters.  Go see it now, in fact.  It's in theaters.  I'll wait.

No really.  I'll still be here when you get back.  So will the rest of the internet.

Now that we're on the same page: did you notice how frank everybody was?  How the film wasn't afraid of the emotions it was invoking, how it didn't flinch from love, awe, fear, and rage?  How it went beyond 'not flinching' to showcase these feelings, even in moments when many modern movies would turn to wink at the camera and say, yeah, we know this is a bit ridiculous?

This is a 'cool' film, in that there are giant monsters everywhere, and robots, and Idris Elba, but at its core Pacific Rim doesn't care about looking cool.  Nobody appears impassive or above the action, except for Ron Perlman's character—and look how well that turns out for him.  (Not well, if you didn't listen to me a few grafs back when I told you to go see the dang movie.)  Nobody holds ironic distance from the kaiju, and as a result the movie feels fresh and exciting and new, even when it's invoking common tropes.

When I'm writing first drafts, I have a tendency to get clever, to wink at myself or at the camera.  There's a strong temptation to have cool guys not look at explosions.  That approach is great and has its place, but in a world full of self-awareness and irony, maybe we can make better art by being emotionally honest, by feeling the situations through which we force our characters to stumble.

Have you ever caught yourself being too clever in a scene?  Or too distant?  How did you respond?

Do the thing that scares you: switching genres

Is there a genre you love to read but won't even try to write?

For me, it's commercial science fiction. I absolutely love a story based in science gone awry. It tickles my brain and makes me feel like my world is much, much bigger than day-to-day life.

But when it comes to writing it, I chicken out. It's the preparation time, the painstaking process of creating an entire alternate reality: world-building. And if you just pants it, it ends up missing a lot of important elements, like a consistent history explaining how the current status quo came to be or a social caste system which there always must be. The idea of writing a science fiction novel is overwhelming to me.

Why?

Because I've been looking at the masters.

In a similar vein, I've always wanted to be an artist and never have been one. It's the details there, too. The shading and lighting, the organic flow of a subject's hair or feathers. My drawings are awkward, my eye completely untrained. I'm no artist. Don't you have to be born with that talent? Despite my American upbringing, I've always kind of believed that there were some things I just couldn't do. Like math. Art. Science Fiction.

Again, too much looking at the masters. 

While drawing with my five-year-old yesterday I decided to do something about it. See, I've been making a point of telling him that he won't be perfect at anything the first time he tries it and that everything takes practice.

"But I'm not good at tennis." 

"Keep trying. Everything takes practice."

"But I'm not good at reading."

"Keep at it. Everything takes practice."

"But I'm not good at writing on the lines."

"Keep going, sweetie. You're doing better than you know. And with practice, you'll get even better."

Suddenly the hypocrisy of my words hit me. (If you're a parent, you know exactly how this feels.) So I picked up my husband's sketch pad and a regular old pencil and, armed with a giant eraser, started sketching. Nothing original, yet. Like fan fiction or formula fiction, copying the art of others makes me better. I took my time, was patient with myself, and accepted that the first several things I draw will be goofy-looking. Sure enough, everything so far has been quite goofy.

But I'm doing it.

My first animal drawing: a crane

And someday, maybe I'll actually draw something I've only seen in my imagination and combine two of my great loves: art and creative writing.

What scares you?

Benjamin Franklin Homework:

Ben Franklin used to go to the library to copy essays from the great writers. When he was done, he'd set aside the copywork and try to duplicate and improve upon the essay from memory. Then he would compare his new essay to the master's essay and spot areas where he was yet lacking. Eventually he was able to improve even upon the masters' work. 

So your homework is to pick up your favorite sample of the genre or style you've always wished you could write, and read the very first chapter. Then, without looking at the original, try to duplicate and improve upon it. If a story springs up in your mind, by all means veer off and write your own thing. 

But above all, keep practicing. 

Be Creative. Make Mistakes.

                "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
                                                                                                                          (Scott Adams)

One of the other creative things I do, other than writing, is drawing. There's something about a blank piece of paper that makes me smile. It can be what I want it to be. I can mould the image to reflect what's in my mind. When I studied art at school, the teacher told us never to be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes can be erased, painted over. Heck, even artists like Vincent van Gogh used to paint over their canvases and start again.

But mistakes are also lessons. Without mistakes how do we know what works and what doesn't?

Look at Pointillism. Up close it's a mass of dots, but stand back and the image takes shape.

(Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886. Georges Seurat)

Art critics coined the term Pointillism to make fun of the technique. They thought it was a mistake. Now those paintings are some of the most visited works of art.

And writing is just like art.

We ready our canvas. Mix our words on the page. We delete to start over. We agonise over tiny sentences and words. We don't want to make a mistake. The mistake can ruin everything. Sometimes we just need to let the words flow. Creativity an writing is about discovery. Taking the story in places you never imagined.

So let creativity be your guide. Make mistakes. They can always be revised later. Who knows, one of them may end up being the most important dot in your word painting.