He wrote with interminable boredom punctuated only by equally tedious interruptions of ennui. And who would want to read words marked by this kind of world-weary languor? No one.
In the most elemental sense, it was only a creative writing course that I recently taught at a local college. But viewed from a higher plane, it appears a microcosm of a grander scheme, more than a series of simple drills for beating boredom out of writing.
Even ordinary athletes–or writers–can be shaped into tolerable performers through extraordinary effort. Since no "one size fits all" approach exists, our calisthenics varied from the side-straddle hop of vocabulary to the push-ups of editing. Soon, zip and hardness began to displace the flabby words the seven somber students had dragged into the training room.
Like spice to food, metaphors and similes sprinkle flavor on both poetry and prose. Thus these literary devices, unknown at the beginning, eventually emerged as the Sunday punch of choice against the hulk of predictable, ho-hum writing.
Successful society is governed by rules of conduct. Likewise, sentences are but strings of words satisfying the grammatical rules of a language. Short. Long. Simple. Complex. Mix 'em up for variety, but keep the rules in mind.
Life comes not in discrete blobs like eggs in a carton–so neither should thoughts on paper. Hence punctuation that mirrors life's twists and turns holds more appeal. The em dash interrupts, the colon and semicolon break, the ellipsis pauses….
Experiences in life are usually deeper that the ability to communicate them, so we employed the exercise of journal to capture thoughts and memories that might one day shape the future.
New jobs. New projects. New lives. The begging of new endeavors–including the opening of any piece of writing–should be interesting and enticing. We drilled with openers.
But closure presents a more formidable challenge. As we would all like to wrap up life with all the loose ends neatly tied, the goal is no different in a piece of writing. Closing should be memorable and meaningful, for the last thing read may be the only thing remembered. More drills.
And connecting the beginning to the end is a finite set of transitions. We glide–sometimes with bumps and lumps–from school to job to family to church. As the evolving circumstances between takeoff and landing define the quality of the flight, so the transitions in writing distinguish the piece.
Despite their doubts, the somber seven eventually emerged better writers because of their diligence. They learned by doing.
And if they persist as "doers of the word and not hearers only," they will discover that their lives will be rendered neither useless nor unprofitable. No matter what the endeavor.
Copyright 2003 James McAlister
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