Introducing Structure
I recently came across a thought-provoking article by Thomas C. Foster, which in reality was an excerpt from his brand-new book on writing. (The article I found via the excellent weekly roundup over at The Porcupine’s Quill, just to show my work and shoehorn in as many hyperlinks as possible.) Foster is perhaps best known as the author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, which I admit is lingering unread on my bookshelves somewhere.[1] He’s prolific as both a teacher and author, and seems like as high an authority as you could hope to appeal to about writing.
Which means that I automatically don’t trust him. He’s also invoked a tired Biblical metaphor by titling his article/excerpt in part “The Seven Deadly Sins of Writing,” which rubs me the wrong way and makes me even more eager to disagree with him. Let’s take a look at his list.
Foster’s sins, though he implies he could certainly enumerate more, are: Worry, Self-Doubt, Overconfidence, Muddiness, Vagueness, Poor Structure, and Dishonesty. He then delivers the following zinger: “Notice that nowhere on this list is there a mention of semicolons. Or subject-verb agreement. Or sentence fragments. All of those things can be fixed.” The sins Foster is worried about are the ones that keep writing from happening in the first place.
In a sense, as an editor I can’t argue with him too much. Once writing gets to my desk, it’s already happened (by and large). The sins, I suppose, have been overcome. On the other hand, as a writer there are certain of these sins to which I can absolutely relate: Worry, Self-Doubt, Dishonesty, and even Overconfidence are well-documented psychological pitfalls of the writing life.
But you will note that three of Foster’s sins, in my opinion, fall neatly into the chasm between the writer and the editor. Muddiness and Vagueness, I would contend, are semantically similar enough to be considered the same. His own definitions kind of present them as two sides to the same coin: muddiness, which comes from a dearth of clear thinking, leads to vagueness, a preference for generalities in our prose.
Which leaves us with Poor Structure. It’s probably indicative of our different roles that both Foster and I choose to highlight one sin in particular. His outlier is Worry, which is what kills writing in its infancy. He wants you, the writer, to get it down, an approach shared by inspirational powerhouses like Julia Cameron,[2] Natalie Goldberg,[3] and Chris Baty.[4] And don’t think for a second that I’m belittling this focus; I’d love to talk about these and other empowering books on writing in the future, and despite my initial reservations I have nothing but respect for Foster’s intent in singling out Worry for a precision strike.
Still, my outlier is Poor Structure. It’s both within my purview as an editor—a work that’s come to me for structural editing embodies this utterly—and a concern over which I’m sometimes powerless. Often, by the time a piece of writing arrives in my inbox, the structural work has been done. I’m being asked to copy edit, to proofread, to fix the nuts and bolts that Foster considers secondary (I’m not bitter).[5] But that is to say that I frequently no longer have the power to effect change on a structural level: it’s out of my hands.
On the face of it, the whole project of assessing and improving structure is a bit absurd. Compare Hamlet, the prototypical five-act play, to a modern Harlequin novel, which tends to be laid out according to a formulaic three-act plan. Now compare those to something like Naked Lunch: widely considered a classic, thought to be incomprehensible by many (myself included), and utterly eschewing notions of structure.[6] This is the range of possibilities we’re supposed to think about when we mention structure? And even Foster relegates structure to post-writing, to the editing. It’s an afterthought rather than something to be considered from the get-go.
So look: I started out wanting to critique good old Thomas’s list of sins. But at the end of the day, I don’t have a huge problem with them. Like everything else in the world of writing advice, they’re simply guideposts towards better, more fruitful, more enjoyable writing, and you could add or subtract elements from his list with ease.
Structure, however, is a fundamental issue, and one that sets itself apart from the other doozies on his list. It’s also finicky and complicated as hell. Some writers don’t even want to think about it until the second round of edits: surely adhering to a structure will limit their creativity, will interrupt the flow, won’t it?
Will adhering to proper grammar and spelling interrupt the flow?
I mean, yeah, sometimes. But just being aware of them, being aware of the way(s) that language and writing works, means that 90 percent of the time you’ll be on the right track—and I’ll worry about the other 10 percent.
So let’s take a look at structure. More to follow.
Brock
1 If we’re all being honest, the reason it’s lingering unread is that I’ve always been a little bit suspicious of it. Am I really certain I even want to read literature like a professor? Obviously it depends what he means by that; at face value, it seems to imply reading analytically, which could take a lot of the fun out of it. But maybe he’s trying to subvert our understanding of how, exactly, a professor might approach literature. Begrudgingly, I concede there’s only one way to really find out.
2 The Artist’s Way, 1992
3 Writing Down the Bones, 1986
4 No Plot? No Problem!, 2004
5 I also have to jump in here and admit that this was originally going to be the focus of this post, back when I was bent on being contrarian. My claim was going to be that often a writer’s grasp of these nuts and bolts will predict their mastery of the deeper issues of writing. The problem with this is that it’s fundamentally elitist, insults my potential customer base, and (as Foster might say) just generally a muddy idea. Plus, it’s way more fun to talk about structure than to whine about punctuation.
6 Given the amount of ink spilled about this book that I’ve invoked merely as an example, it would surprise me not even a little bit to discover that some literary scholar (perhaps a professor) has uncovered an underlying structure in Naked Lunch. I do not care. Don’t tell me about it.
