the reader or lesser, depending on what’s afoot. The point is, without the active participation of the reader’s mind and imagination, absolutely nothing will happen. As well, the model says nothing about the degree or intensity of the energy from the two sides in relation to one another. Obviously it takes very much more energy (and time) to write good prose than it does to read it.
All right, the students say, assuming we buy the idea of the zone for the moment, what can you tell us about getting into it or writing toward it? I respond that that is what we will be doing all semester and that in preparation I will put forward some unproven but possibly useful ideas.
Most writers began writing as an extension of their love of reading. They were excited by books even as children, perceiving a kind of magic going on in narrative that they were eventually drawn to emulate. As they grew older they simply plunged into literature and became used to reading over their heads. They eagerly read over their heads. When, as adults, they try to write they are often as much preoccupied with magic—effect, simile, metaphors, mood, etc.—the fancy stuff—as meaning. They are intoxicated with the seemingly endless power of language, an intoxication mat can be dangerous. For although it is true that reading over one’s head is good, writing over one’s head is very bad indeed. It is an almost certain guarantee of failure, in fact.
When we write we are not alone, starting everything from scratch, however much it might feel that way. Literature is a continuum—moving and changing to be sure—but much has already been done for us. Conventions have been established. When we make paragraphs, use punctuation, follow (flexibly) the rules of grammar, and so forth we are home by the flow of that continuum. We can employ an omniscient third-person narrator without having to explain who is narrating because Flaubert and others cleared that particular problem away. A tremendous amount has been done for us. Literature is a river, full of currents and crosscurrents, and when we write we are in it, like it or not. If we grow too forgetful, we can drown.
At the blackboard again I draw the following box:
This is the first order of business in trying to write toward the zone, the first signal to the reader that his or her energy is welcome, the first announcement of a common ground.
1. Meaning. At the literal level, the writer’s words must mean what they say. The author, having chosen them, must stand fully and firmly behind them. Obese, fat, chubby, heavy, and stout , for instance, have different meanings. They are not interchangeable. He sat down with a sigh means that the sitting and the sighing are happening at the same time, which precludes a construction such as “I’m too tired to think,” he said as he sat down with a sigh. The reader will undoubtedly get the drift and will separate the sighing from the saying, but the writing is sloppy from the point of view of meaning. It doesn’t, at the literal level, mean what it says. Errors of meaning are quite common in lax prose, and there are more ways of making them than I can list here.
2. Sense. The text must make sense, lest the reader be excluded. The boy ate the watermelon makes sense. The watermelon ate the boy does not, unless the author has created a special world in which it does. Unmotivated behavior in characters doesn’t make sense to the reader, who is also confused by randomness, arbitrariness, or aimlessness in the text. The writer must recognize the continuous unrelenting pressure from the reader that the text make sense. It can be strange sense, to be sure, but the reader has to be able to understand the text to enter it.
3. Clarity. Strunk and White tell us not to use ten words where five will do. This is because the most compact language statement is almost always clearer than an expansive one. The goal is not brevity for its
All right, the students say, assuming we buy the idea of the zone for the moment, what can you tell us about getting into it or writing toward it? I respond that that is what we will be doing all semester and that in preparation I will put forward some unproven but possibly useful ideas.
Most writers began writing as an extension of their love of reading. They were excited by books even as children, perceiving a kind of magic going on in narrative that they were eventually drawn to emulate. As they grew older they simply plunged into literature and became used to reading over their heads. They eagerly read over their heads. When, as adults, they try to write they are often as much preoccupied with magic—effect, simile, metaphors, mood, etc.—the fancy stuff—as meaning. They are intoxicated with the seemingly endless power of language, an intoxication mat can be dangerous. For although it is true that reading over one’s head is good, writing over one’s head is very bad indeed. It is an almost certain guarantee of failure, in fact.
When we write we are not alone, starting everything from scratch, however much it might feel that way. Literature is a continuum—moving and changing to be sure—but much has already been done for us. Conventions have been established. When we make paragraphs, use punctuation, follow (flexibly) the rules of grammar, and so forth we are home by the flow of that continuum. We can employ an omniscient third-person narrator without having to explain who is narrating because Flaubert and others cleared that particular problem away. A tremendous amount has been done for us. Literature is a river, full of currents and crosscurrents, and when we write we are in it, like it or not. If we grow too forgetful, we can drown.
At the blackboard again I draw the following box:
This is the first order of business in trying to write toward the zone, the first signal to the reader that his or her energy is welcome, the first announcement of a common ground.
1. Meaning. At the literal level, the writer’s words must mean what they say. The author, having chosen them, must stand fully and firmly behind them. Obese, fat, chubby, heavy, and stout , for instance, have different meanings. They are not interchangeable. He sat down with a sigh means that the sitting and the sighing are happening at the same time, which precludes a construction such as “I’m too tired to think,” he said as he sat down with a sigh. The reader will undoubtedly get the drift and will separate the sighing from the saying, but the writing is sloppy from the point of view of meaning. It doesn’t, at the literal level, mean what it says. Errors of meaning are quite common in lax prose, and there are more ways of making them than I can list here.
2. Sense. The text must make sense, lest the reader be excluded. The boy ate the watermelon makes sense. The watermelon ate the boy does not, unless the author has created a special world in which it does. Unmotivated behavior in characters doesn’t make sense to the reader, who is also confused by randomness, arbitrariness, or aimlessness in the text. The writer must recognize the continuous unrelenting pressure from the reader that the text make sense. It can be strange sense, to be sure, but the reader has to be able to understand the text to enter it.
3. Clarity. Strunk and White tell us not to use ten words where five will do. This is because the most compact language statement is almost always clearer than an expansive one. The goal is not brevity for its
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