Writing is an art

In a Youtube video an artist mentioned three dynamic laws that made him a better painter:

1) Preserve the integrity of the brushstrokes
2) Be authoritative with the decision
3) Use enough paint.

As a painter, that makes a lot of sense to me, but I also play music and write. Artists need to create. It’s like the need to eat. What is equally strange, though, is that it hardly matters which form the art takes. We can feel just as fulfilled painting, writing, dancing, acting or playing music.

The natural extension is that quality in one art should apply to different art. So, how might these three concepts of watercolor painting apply to writing?

1) Preserve the integrity of the brushstrokes

I’m inspired to correlate the first idea to essay writing. As well, the Chicago Book of Style comes to mind. I know some writers who are journalists, and they sometimes have a rigid slant on writing. One rule in particular comes to mind: Avoid alliteration (Really?). Another might be, never repeat yourself (Always?).

Just the other day a journalist told me she’d not have my character say that another one was pretty because, “Everyone has a different idea regarding pretty and you used the word two paragraphs up.” Good point.

I replied, “But this is how this POV thinks. She wouldn’t think to micromanage how the girl in question looks at that particular moment. She’d just say, pretty. That’s her head, and that’s where we’re at in that part of the story.”

Essay writers need things orderly, all the details smoothed out and in their place, conforming to some set of rules, most of which are often correct. The King’s English and the Chicago Book of Style predominate. Art is different. With art, you are on a more human level. You have to understand the Chicago Book of Style and live by it most of the time, but once in a while you don’t get out the brush and blend to make that shadow look perfect. Once in a while you leave the imperfection, so we know that we are really here, in someone’s human space.

2) Be authoritative and bold with your decision

I like this idea the most. While writing Satan’s Daughter Walks to Portugal (my current project), I lamented how I might actually get this crazy girl to walk to Portugal. It occurred to me that maybe she could walk on a boat (too much of a cop-out). After landing her car in the Atlantic, I imagined writing her walking the bottom of the ocean, all the way there (too much of a stretch of believability, even for a farce). I told all my friends that I was never going to figure it out.

I sought something bolder. And, once I found it, I dove to it. They snuck into the space center, put on some spare spacesuits, shoved three astronauts into a closet, and since nobody could see past their faceplates, ended up in outer space. Ruth took a spacewalk while looking for her waylaid angel boyfriend (perfect).

To me, this is a law. Always seek the unusual, and give your readers something special. It should pain you when you are predictable. While being unpredictable make utter sense. That’s the dichotomy that makes anything worth reading. You want your readers to be subconsciously thinking, “Oh my God! But wait, that makes sense. How whack!”

Be dynamic. When I took sculpture class at CCAD, I sucked. It was my worst class. But, one thing I learned was to be dynamic. The imperfect departure from the plain sphere or the plain white canvas has to move people to the point where they at least think the cost of the materials was worth it.

3) Use enough paint.

This relates to the notion of being direct and dynamic, but I think I’d rather illustrate my thoughts on it with some text from a short story I wrote for “Loconeal” last week:

“I’m letting my toenails dry,” I said. Stupid, stupid, stupid; it will only encourage her.

“I do that at home. You know, a place with walls and a roof, not aluminum and likely to blow away, along with the outhouse, in a tornado.”

“If there was someone else here, would you be talking to me?”

“No.”

Imagine, for a moment, each line of this dialogue as paint. Are any of the lines transparent washes, or has it been applied in thick layers that present unavoidable attitude, points of view, directness, detail and color?

While this example is pretty dramatic, I know enough about art to appreciate white on off-white, if it can be pulled off nice and thick. Subtlety can also be very dramatic when applied with a deft hand. Drama is not always about a hammer, but like art, we know it when we see it.

What I detest is wishy-washy, plain, drab writing. The fact is these two girls don’t really like each other. They might have beat around the bush. They might have said their peace in four times the number of lines. Someone might have even mumbled hello. Or, avoiding item two above, they might have found more conventional ways of saying they disliked each other.

If you really want to do art, though, it’s often a good idea to get the big tube out, squeeze half of it onto the pallet, and get busy being direct.