2008 Woodie Awards
Quality writing
Chris Ankney
Issue date: 7/7/08 Section: Forum
There is a notebook in my desk drawer with an unfinished short story inside called "Stroke of Beauty." It's about an old painter who has lost the inspiration that once helped him paint magical masterpieces and flowing vistas that would fascinate those passing by him in the park. Now, he sits for days, weeks, years staring at a blank canvas, wondering what happened, where the world's beauty went. For the last five years, I haven't figured out how to end it.
I realized in the twenty minutes that I was staring at this blank page, wondering what to write, that I had forgotten something I once knew about writing. At its most satisfying, writing is personal.
That's why I have notebooks full of short stories from five, seven, ten years ago. Notebooks full of stories about kids who think they're from the future, about an old man lost in the crippling chill of an arctic blast taking place in his own backyard, about a down-trodden overweight woman whose tragic life mimics that of her most recent Blockbuster rental in ways she doesn't even recognize, about a man whose hatred for the moon drives him to destroy it, devastating the things most precious to him in the process.
I didn't sit for hours, or even minutes, in front of those notebooks thinking about how I can make this story something that someone would want to read. In fact, most of them are probably not worth reading (only the last one has actually been published). I wrote them for me and they were satisfying.
I imagine this is what happens to most of those writers who seem to have lost the ability to tell a good story. They forget that good writing doesn't come from over thinking plot points or how to sell a book or movie ticket. It comes from forgetting the outside audience and engrossing yourself in the world, lives and problems of others.
Andy Rooney is a good example of someone who is writing for himself. In his most recent book of essays "Out of My Mind" he writes about hating newly cleaned sheets and spends four pages waxing philosophic on the disappearance of door knockers. You can't write that thinking "man, the audience is gonna love this one." But we do. We love it for exactly that reason. It's pure and doesn't try too hard to make us love it.
I realized in the twenty minutes that I was staring at this blank page, wondering what to write, that I had forgotten something I once knew about writing. At its most satisfying, writing is personal.
That's why I have notebooks full of short stories from five, seven, ten years ago. Notebooks full of stories about kids who think they're from the future, about an old man lost in the crippling chill of an arctic blast taking place in his own backyard, about a down-trodden overweight woman whose tragic life mimics that of her most recent Blockbuster rental in ways she doesn't even recognize, about a man whose hatred for the moon drives him to destroy it, devastating the things most precious to him in the process.
I didn't sit for hours, or even minutes, in front of those notebooks thinking about how I can make this story something that someone would want to read. In fact, most of them are probably not worth reading (only the last one has actually been published). I wrote them for me and they were satisfying.
I imagine this is what happens to most of those writers who seem to have lost the ability to tell a good story. They forget that good writing doesn't come from over thinking plot points or how to sell a book or movie ticket. It comes from forgetting the outside audience and engrossing yourself in the world, lives and problems of others.
Andy Rooney is a good example of someone who is writing for himself. In his most recent book of essays "Out of My Mind" he writes about hating newly cleaned sheets and spends four pages waxing philosophic on the disappearance of door knockers. You can't write that thinking "man, the audience is gonna love this one." But we do. We love it for exactly that reason. It's pure and doesn't try too hard to make us love it.
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