On Writing and Teaching Better, and the Colonization of Language

Some of his advice for writers (especially writers of fiction):

• Don’t be boring — all good writing has passion; make your writing as intense as if it were your last utterance
• Show, don’t tell — use the words and actions of the characters in the story to convey how they feel and what they’re thinking
• Provide specific details, in easy-to-follow order, to transport the reader so they’re there
• Do your research
• Be courageous — challenge established ‘rules’ and prejudices
• Make sure your writing answers an important question
• If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong
• Spend more time thinking than writing
• Flush out your prejudices and get them out of your writing — you’ll never convince anyone else if you let them out onto your page
• Read and study great writing
• Make sure your stories include choices and transformation, and that these are credible
• Make every word count
• Mean something — give your reader a reason to care about your characters
• And show you care about them yourself
• Be clear — words are easy to misunderstand
• Writing dialogue is like “putting just enough stones in a stream to cross it without getting your feet wet” (authentic, but much sparer and less redundant than ‘real’ conversation)
• What you write about, and how well, is a function of knowing and conveying who you are, what you love and what you want; if you don’t know these things, find out

Some of his advice for teachers (especially teachers of writing):

• Your most valuable teaching will be one-on-one, e.g. working with a student to make one piece sparkle (“show, don’t tell” applies to teachers, too)
• Tell your students the six things you wish you’d been told when you were a student: that it’s OK to daydream; that their personal, tumultuous life will get better; that they should be bold and always follow their heart; that the older generation is sorry for ruining the Earth we are leaving for them; that our culture is crazy; and that it’s OK not to get a job, and to spend your life just finding out who you are
• “Love your students into being what they are”
• As an editor, help the writer find where their heart is, and then help them get there
• To teach dialogue, provide an exercise where the story, the setting, the situation etc. must be brought out using only natural dialogue (no descriptions or ‘thought ballooons’ allowed)
• Have at least ten times as many writing exercises as you would have time for, because many of the exercises you plan won’t work with every class
• To help students come to grips with who they are, provide a perspective exercise where someone fond of each student is asked to write the student’s obituary — how, and for what, they would be remembered if they died tomorrow (I think this is an awesome idea)
• Teaching anything, even writing, is fundamentally about teaching people to be free, and then teaching them to be responsible — both lessons are revolutionary and counter to everything the education system stands for, so if you dare do this, be prepared for push-back from The Man

This advice is quite consistent with the advice of other writers (Barthelme, Leonard, Orwell, Lamott) I’ve discussed on these pages. I find it interesting that, at least in fiction, male and female writers offer very similar advice (compare Anne Lamott’s advice to Jensen’s). If we acknowledge (and I do) that human languages (vocabulary, structure, syntax and semantics) have been primarily colonized by males, I would have expected women to offer workarounds that would help other woman writers repatriate (rematriate?) language to a more poetic, grounded landscape that women could use more effectively and relate to better. Any speculation on why that has not (at least not obviously) happened? Is this too Sisyphan a task to accomplish in a mere few centuries?

As with all Jensen’s books, there are some amazing quotes in this one. Here are my five favourites: