{"id":2132,"date":"2010-11-12T12:47:37","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T17:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=2132"},"modified":"2010-11-12T12:54:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T17:54:25","slug":"building-a-solid-writing-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2010\/11\/12\/building-a-solid-writing-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"Building A Solid Writing Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’ve picked up books that floored me with the writing.<\/p>\n

I appreciated the way the authors put words together — going as far as wondering what it must be like to have a mind that can write such beautiful prose.<\/p>\n

Many times, though, about 40-50 pages in I stopped and thought:<\/p>\n

“Okay, this is nice writing and all, but is anything going to actually happen?<\/em>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good Writing is More than Just Pretty Prose<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Don’t get me wrong — I love pretty prose. I read certain things and can barely fathom how to pull off with words what some writers do.<\/p>\n

I don’t have the ability to wow a reader for pages with pretty writing. I’m more about structure and emotion (and the occasional farting dog).<\/p>\n

Still, as much as I envy some writers who string words together much better than I do, I wouldn’t trade places with them.<\/p>\n

There are many writers who know how to write well, but they don’t seem to know how to build a story.<\/p>\n

Building Things<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I used to be the guy who dragged bricks from the street after they were delivered, up to construction sites. I stacked piles of bricks around construction sites for the crew that poured foundations, framed structures, and laid the bricks in place.<\/p>\n

Everything about the process was hard — all the way back to the kiln where the bricks were fired. You never think about how many bricks it takes to build a 7,500 square foot home until you’re the person dragging them uphill through the mud after a storm.<\/p>\n

But I learned a big writing lesson during that job and the other menial jobs that followed: just like building a house, writing is built in pieces — and only after laying a solid foundation.<\/p>\n

Had the crew skimped on the foundation, skimped on the following steps, and just created a facade — it may have looked beautiful from the street, but if you peeled back the shell, you’d find nothing.<\/p>\n

I’ve started reading many novels that lacked structure behind the facade created with prose. At some point, that nothing really stands out.<\/p>\n

A Solid Writing Foundation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There’s not much behind the facade of some writers. This isn’t to belittle what some writers do; I really do<\/em> appreciate great prose. But when all that’s between the covers are 100,000 words cleverly strung together and little more, that’s not writing from a foundation.<\/p>\n

Even Michael Chabon, in an essay in\u00a0McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales<\/a>\"\" (affiliate link), admitted there was a day he looked at what he was doing and realized there was no story. His writing lacked structure; it was just a facade. A pretty facade, but still…hundreds of pages lacking substance.<\/p>\n

Work at writing from a strong foundation. My podcast novel<\/a> is an older story and goofy, but I still like its structure and the things that happen to the characters.<\/p>\n

There’s a reason so many people flock to young adult fiction and genre fiction: to pull it off well, you have to be a solid storyteller (and it doesn’t hurt to know how to thread words together).<\/p>\n

Lay a strong foundation and the rest will come…<\/p>\n

Acknowledge What You Build<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you tell basic stories, take pride in them. Build your writing up brick by brick and never be ashamed of your hard work.<\/p>\n

Once you have that foundation, cover the brick with anything you want and paint it any way you can; that way, if somebody decides to try breaking through the facade, they’re met by a pile of bricks and mortar supporting what you do.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to tear down a well-built wall…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve picked up books that floored me with the writing. I appreciated the way the authors put words together — going as far as wondering what it must be like to have a mind that can write such beautiful prose. Many times, though, about 40-50 pages in I stopped and thought: “Okay, this is nice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[67],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}