The Illusion of Simplicity
The illusion of simplicity is nothing new to me. Those that are really skillful at what they do, make it look easy. I’m talking about any measurable skill here. From the professional athlete to the professional math-lete.
I love storytelling. I love ‘tuning in’ to a world, a group of characters, a plot and seeing it to the end. It’s a selfish motivation. I don’t tell stories that bore me. I need to be excited about the concepts, and/or the characters involved. I need to want to get to the resolution of a story in order to be able to finish telling it. If it doesn’t engage me, I just can’t complete it.
Interesting characters, exciting world or environment, evocative plot or story hook, have all got to be present to a greater or less degree. If all of those ingredients are there, then telling the story is easy. It flows, from the pictures in my head, down my neck, through my arms and out my fingertips. Sometimes I even fancy that I can feel the words, moving in chunks, down through my veins. That, as a writer, I must have a whole extra set of veins just for the transport of words, an artistic arterial system, to carry this semi-sporadic tap-tap-tapping from my brain through my fingertips and into a document to capture it’s form, forever.
During this birthing process and right up to first draft completion, the story is my new shiny.
Before I became an author, my storytelling was oral. It revolved around table top gaming. I had a much smaller audience, but the feedback loop was nearly instantaneous. I started with a concept, sat with my players for 4 to 5 hours a session, two sessions a month and got through to the end of a campaign in approximately 50-80 hours total. Aside from the recaps of previous sessions, there was always a ‘look-ahead’ mentality in my storytelling. Move on, move forward with something newer, something more exciting, something to raise the stakes even further when the players couldn’t possibly see another way I could make their situation more intense.
Plot holes were jumped over, two dimensional non-player characters were ignored and faded into the shadows side-stage. The play generally adopted all of what worked and dropped what didn’t, instantaneously. Forward, forward, forward with the story, with the excitement, and with the juicy character interactions and dialog.
This is not how writing works. I think the crux of my issue with transitioning from oral storytelling to written storytelling is the nature and differences of each process, the impermanent versus immutable, dynamic versus invariable. At it’s core, the permanent nature of the written and published word, renders the opportunity to ignore a poorly constructed character or step over a plothole, almost impossible. Once the joy of birthing the story is done, the real work begins. Because, at least for me, it never comes out perfect the first time.
I recognize that a glaring plot hole, or hastily created, one-dimensional character, can pull the reader out of the story and make the whole experience less enjoyable, even seem like work. During oral storytelling there was a co-creative process, where the players worked together to sustain and even improve this shared reality. In writing, that responsibility seems to fall solely on the shoulders of the author.
This means that, well after the new-car-smell of my story has faded for me, I find myself picking over the minutia, polishing and preening. I don’t do this out of pride. I do it out of obligation to the reader. I know you can’t co-create with me, and I know you need a tale with as little turbulence as possible, so that you may enjoy the complete immersive experience.
This doesn’t change the fact that everything after the first draft for me, is a pain in the ass. But it does help to know that I’m only adding value to your final experience of my tale. That knowledge and the hope that I’m actually getting better at this is what keeps me writing.
I raise a glass to my readers in a toast, that one day, I may make this look easy.
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