Chip's Writing Lessons #94
In this issue:
Writers Speak: Jon Fosse on listening to yourself
Four Questions with Gerry Goldstein
WRITERS SPEAK
I think the best advice I’ve learned from life is to listen to yourself, not to others. Stick to what you have, not to what you want to have or wish you had. Stay close to yourself, to your inner voice and vision and how you want the writing to be.
—Jon Fosse, 2023 Nobel Laureate, Literature
—Simone de Beauvoir
FOUR QUESTIONS WITH GERRY GOLDSTEIN
Gerry Goldstein, a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist, is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island journalism program who began his professional career in 1962 at the weekly, hot-type Narragansett (R.I) Times, where journalism was as personal as the next person to walk in the door. He later moved to the statewide Providence Journal, where for 25 years he was chief of one of its suburban news bureaus and a weekly columnist. For eight consecutive years the Rhode Island Press Association judged his column the best among community columns in the state, and in 2003 he was inducted into the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame. His work has also been cited by the New England Press Association and United Press International for feature and news writing, community service, and investigative reporting. Since his retirement from the Journal in 2002, he has worked as a consulting editor and freelance writer and essayist.
What is the most important lesson you've learned as a writer?
That while we may think we're listening and seeing, the material for turning a piece from good to great may sneak by us.
Did the town councilman who cared for a rich, aged widow do so altruistically, or was his eye on a reward he eventually reaped – her money? When she died and made him a millionaire, questions arose about the arrangement.
As a Providence Journal bureau chief I sent reporter Colleen Fitzpatrick to interview the councilman. Because she listened with a keen ear, high up in her story she produced this gem:
“He did her banking … washed her hair. He emptied her bedpan. He sat at her bedside, and he held her hand. He fed her. He demonstrates by picking up a spoon and shaking it gently. “Fifty-four of them in a bowl,” he says. “Fifty-four times to her mouth.”
Yes, he counted. And, more importantly, Colleen’s radar captured pages’ worth of insight into kindness laced with tedium and resentment – in two sentences.
Not to be badly metaphoric, but there’s a lot to chew on there: The rewards of paying – really paying – attention, the need to understand the core of your story, and the vital step of pausing to synthesize what you have so you can build with essentials that support the focus of the tale.
The larger lesson, as I’ve learned it: Great writing (or, in my case, aspiring to it) is no accident; nothing, not a phrase or a sentence, should be arbitrary.
I’ve also learned how to determine when my research has been sufficient. That’s when I can do first things last and write the ending before the beginning. Once I do that I know where I’m going, so it’s easier to keep the train off side spurs and on the main track.
What has been the biggest surprise of your writing life?
That while clichés are the killers of good writing, the ones about how to achieve it really work:
Hammer away at using active voice until it becomes instinctive; root out negative phrases such as “didn’t remember” instead of “forgot,” eschew useless qualifiers like “very” and “quite."
These tips are useful, but not exhilarating. The most joyful surprise of all is the adventure of starting with a single piece of information that’s potentially a “story” and riding it through currents and rapids of scrutiny that churn up remarkable details and, many times, unexpected conclusions.
If you had to use a metaphor to describe yourself as a writer, what would it be and why?
Considering that I’m ancient enough to have been writing professionally for more than 60 years, I guess I’m a hunter/gatherer, or should I say gatherer/hunter, collecting the wool of good yarns, spinning it into digital fabric on a screen, and then hunting down all the knots before they can tangle things up in print. The hunt is the best part – for just the right verb, for the sentence that’s too long, for the mixed metaphors and lapses into journalese, for generalities where specifics are essential.
What’s the single best piece of writing advice anyone ever gave you?
There are two: "Little words are words of might,” and “A writer’s best friend is the period.” With either, you can’t go wrong – period.