On Report Cards and Other Things
January 14, 2002
7:37 a.m.
The conversation is a sham.   Brigid got her report card this weekend. One B, the rest some variant of an A--9.8 average on a ten point scale. Gold Honor Roll for the semester. Looking down her list of subjects you see three foreign languages, science, mathematics, reading and language arts, social studies. She did great in everything. It was a well-rounded performance. I’m thinking about it this morning in light of this running conversation Greg and Steve and I and a few others have been having in regard to story and style. I’ve loved having this discussion, you know? Great fun and all. Greg and Steve are both fantastic people, and I appreciate that we can riff off each other like that. But in the end I think we can all pretty much agree that you are unlikely to find a successful story without some form of “style,” and that style is useless without a reasonably adroit story. Sometimes we throw in different phrases—vision, or character, or whatever. Truth of the matter is I think it all really boils down to character eventually. If you get the character right, most everything else just kind of falls into place. But I digress again. In the end, one cannot attain a 9.8/10 grade point average with a zero in one category. A writer puts it all together. That’s what we do. We strive to make it all work. We strive to make something we’re proud of in some way or another—even the folks writing work for hire stuff in other people’s universes. And so we think about all these things and we make trade offs, because nothing is ever perfect, you know? I can always find something I can change--we saw “Lord of the Rings” again yesterday, and I was struck several times by things I think could be done differently, yet still I like the movie. This struggle is what it means to be a writer. It is a very personal for of warfare. It is a struggle that, like our work itself, defines who we are. For those who are “blocked” because they are afraid to meet the highest standards of the Great Ones, I say don’t worry—your natural flare will arrive as soon as you stop expecting it to. So just start with plain prose. That was my original point, and I’m sticking with it. Just write. Say what you think. Let your characters do things they think are interesting. Don’t worry. Work hard, and enjoy the work for the pure simplicity of the pleasure of it and it alone. Think not of publication. If it sounds right to you, leave it be. If you don’t like it, do something else. Just work. Tell stories. Pay attention to details. Play-act all the characters. Whatever it takes. Just have fun, and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe you’re tone deaf to words and will never have what it takes to be a writer. You won’t know until you let it fly, you know? Perhaps you’ll have music in the end. Style vs. Story? I’ve got news for you—if you think about it hard enough it all comes out the same, so don’t get caught up in this fracas. Just write. No matter what, just write every day in whatever way makes sense to you. This is what will give you your voice, or your vision. This is what will let you become your characters. Whatever you will be you will be. Just go with it and things will work out. I’m thinking about Brigid as I write this. She’s worked really hard to stay up on all her homework, and she’s adjusted to a big school and an entirely new set of friends in doing it. When she saw her report card, one of those great expressions welled up over her face. She was proud of herself, and she should be. She’s done it all—and it shows in her work. I can think of no better way to waste a weekend than to receive a pair of new computers on Friday afternoon. Okay. That was a lie. But still, we received our last Christmas presents this Friday, and spent a huge chunk of the weekend dealing with the fallout. Somewhere we did manage to zip out and see Lord of the Rings again, but that was it. Worse, I have now decided to throw caution to the wind, and head directly for the dark side. That’s right. XP, IE, total submission. Now, you have to know that my old system was nearing five years of age. It was a clunky, Windows 95 machine with …blah, blah, blah. For years I have been a stalwart follower of Netscape and other brands. But I figure XP is a different beast, and I’m tired of Netscape 4.7’s flaws, and I wasn’t overly impressed with the 6.x versions I’ve tried. Opera is still flaky in places. I'm not really techy enough to deal with Linux and all that entails. So I’ve sold my soul. The powers that be grant me peace.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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