writing – Page 7 – This Builds Character

When the best words aren’t the right words

Dena and I have been having a lot of conversations with our daughter about Thankfulness because of the napkins on our kitchen table.

Every napkin has a discussion prompt for people at the table, and this one is Sprout’s favorite:

It’s her favorite because of the cat, not because of the question.

The other night, we wanted to know what she would say, but she stonewalled us when asked to answer the question about what she was thankful for that day.

Part of it was just being an overtired kiddo having a late dinner. Part of it was probably the fact that she’s facing all the sea changes that come with a new baby brother, starting kindergarten, and missing her friends from day care. But there’s also the part of it where she just didn’t seem to understand the question.

So we worked to define thankfulness for her, and how it wasn’t just about saying thank you when somebody gives you something. You aren’t only thankful for presents, or for somebody bringing you the ranch dressing when you want some for your broccoli. It’s about appreciating what other people do for you that they choose to do for you. It’s about appreciating what makes you feel fortunate.

It wasn’t clicking. She got frustrated with us. We set the topic aside and gave her an opportunity to think about the question some more until dinner the next night.

And that night I asked something different: “What are your three big thank yous for today?”

I took a phrase she was already familiar with, I narrowed it down to a set number of things, and kept the question short without a lot of additional explanation to process.

It took her all of 30 seconds, and she felt good about her answers.

Yes, it’s more precise to ask her what she’s thankful for. But for our intended audience, there was this extra layer of unpacking the words themselves that kept her from joining the conversation.

When I was younger, I always associated having a larger vocabulary or being able to deploy more complicated words and ideas as a sign of intellect. I blame all the Frasier I watched.

It’s one thing to be precise, and always use exactly the word you want. It’s another thing entirely to be clear, and try to always use the words that will be understood.

Using words you think your audience will readily understand isn’t inherently condescending. It’s a way of talking to people that shows you’re listening to them.

You show that you pay attention, and your attention is a sign of respect.

It’s also about identifying what your purpose is. If we wanted this to be a lesson in the definition of thankfulness, we may or may not have succeeded. But our goal was to encourage our daughter to express gratitude. That purpose was more important than precision.

I do an exercise with students where we talk about the way Mister Rogers wrote his tv show. In an interview with two of the writers, they discuss a variation on the process that’s a joke that tells the truth:

Fred Rogers was always laser-focused on making sure each word was appropriate to his audience.

He spoke to children on their own terms because he knew that the audience was what mattered. He wasn’t concerned with only appearing kind on camera, or looking like he had all the answers, because he left ego out of the equation.

His focus on his audience, in listening to how they interpreted the world (and their concerns about it) was practicing kindness.

Because speaking to others or writing for others can, and should, involve thinking about how you can treat your audience with kindness.

When I was interviewing for my current teaching job, they asked me to give a sample lecture to a media criticism class on any topic I saw fit.

I went with applying the Buddhist concept of Right Speech to how we evaluate media.

To summarize the concepts, Right Speech is about making sure that our communication with other people is coherent, wholesome, wise, and skillful. There are four principles that help judge if speech clears this bar.

Do we avoid lies or deceptions?

Do we avoid divisive statements?

Do we avoid abusive statements?

Do we avoid idle chatter?

Avoiding lies and deceptions is not just about speaking the truth in any given moment, but reliably acting as a truthful voice.

Avoiding divisive statements is about abstaining from slander, and trying to use speech to bring people together instead of isolating them.

Avoiding abusive statements is about showing compassion and respect for the audience, and using language that they will appreciate and take to heart.

Avoiding idle chatter isn’t just about speaking with purpose, but framing your speech so that you address topics at the proper time with words intended to remain valuable beyond that moment.

As an individual, these goals can act as a good baseline for being seen as a respectful, and respectable, person.

When thinking as a writer or person who communicates through different media platforms, it can act as a good metric for if what you’re sharing with the world feels more like useful signal or distracting noise.

If you sit down to write for others, only focused on what they will think of you, you’ll never be happy with the result. If your only metrics for success are Likes, page views, or how much you got paid for your work, you’ll wind up in an endless loop where the next project will always have to seem bigger and better.

If you’re only writing with the hope that you’ll be recognized as a great writer, no praise will ever feel like enough.

There’s satisfaction to be found in the attempt to make today’s work an act of kindness. To make today’s words something that your audience will find useful whether they encounter it now or ten years from now.

There’s satisfaction to be found this way even if your audience is ten people instead of 10,000.

And there’s satisfaction to be found in seeing how much gratitude you can express for the opportunity to help others. To speak to them directly, honestly, and thoughtfully.

Other uses for seeds that don’t sprout

This morning, I watched a squirrel eating helicopter seeds off the ground.

Look, when your mind latches on to an analogy, and the world around you seems to be prompting you, just run with it.

The tree made the seeds to try and grow more trees. Instead, that tree was feeding a squirrel, so that squirrel had the energy to keep running around, being a squirrel.

When the helicopter seeds come raining down heavy, on a windy day, or in a storm, sometimes they can clog the gutter on a house. Maybe that causes the owner of the house to climb up on a ladder to clear the gutter, changing the shape of their day. Maybe they go to a home improvement store to buy some gutter guards, creating another project that takes some of their time (and moving money around in the economy).

The seeds aren’t fulfilling their intended purpose, but they’re not without purpose.

Pages might not make the finished draft of a story. Your script might not make the cut for the next round of the competition. Your tweet might get a lackluster number of Likes.

Only attaching value to an action if it gets the desired result diminishes your ability to see inherent value in the action itself. It diminishes your ability to see value in yourself.

Don’t get discouraged. Do the work. Clog the gutters.

On continuing to try

Out for a run this morning, I watched a helicopter seed spiral out of a tree and land on the concrete.

Nothing will come of that seed. It has nowhere left to go.

But the tree has hundreds more seeds to drop, just waiting for the right breeze.

Any one of them might land somewhere that it might take hold and sprout, but the tree needs to keep producing seeds, regardless of where each one lands.

And that’s what I want to think about when I try to remember the importance of valuing the process and the habit of work instead of only valuing the end results.

Because a helicopter seed can spiral gracefully no matter where it lands.

Why I grade writing students on respect and empathy

Years ago, when I was still teaching writing classes with training wheels, I had a student turn in a short film script that I wanted to refuse to workshop in class.

It involved a fashion model with no interior life, treated with disdain and ridicule by the dialogue she was given and the way the action and description lines of the script referred to her. There was a lecherous, controlling photographer who the script treated as a virtuous character, even as he sexually assaulted and murdered her.

I met with this student before showing the script to the class and tried to suss out his intent. We spoke for over a half hour as I tried to get across the numerous reasons I had for believing this script wasn’t appropriate for our class.

But he was set in his belief that there was nothing wrong with what was in his script. His said it was honest: That all women just want to be famous, and this woman that he depicted being gaslit, sexually harassed, and murdered deserved what she got.

I had to repeat this back to him to make sure I had heard him right: He wanted to write a script where the audience felt that the model deserved to be murdered for being a model.

As I was trying to explain the many problems with all of this, he interrupted me to ask a question: Was he going to be graded on any of this?

I hadn’t anticipated that a student would be willing to share something so toxic with a room full of their peers, and be willing to be graded on it.

The truth was, I didn’t have anything in writing that directly and specifically addressed the issues we were discussing. He would lose points for flawed characterization and an exploitative and non-sensical plot, but those didn’t get to the heart of the issue.

That was a big problem. A student could turn in an absolutely abhorrent story, and I hadn’t given myself a way to check their impulses with the most powerful leverage I had in the classroom.

I needed better grading tools

After that semester, I evaluated all of my grading criteria and lectures. Something was missing, and it needed to be front and center.

From that point forward, every writing assignment I have given to students involves some variation on the same grading rubric. If they want to get all the points available for this rubric, they need to demonstrate respect & empathy in their writing.

All characters on the page treated as fully-dimensional humans. No stock types, straw men, or derogatory stereotypes used. Every role gives an actor someone specific and realistic to inhabit.

I don’t get as much time as I’d like with each student. I don’t get as much time as I’d like with each of their assignments. So I find a way to make them sit up and take notice of a real problem for writers by making their grade depend on them taking stock of how their writing could have an impact on others.

There’s no clear way to look inside the hearts and minds of every student to see if their default is to look at other people with dignity, respect, and affirming their basic humanity. When we talk about developing characters in class, one of the main points I always make is that we can never truly know anyone. We only know what we see from what we see them say and do.

So that’s what I tell them I’m looking at — What did you write, and what does that show me?

Because narrative choices are moral choices.

No fiction is objective

The defense of saying “That’s just how things were back then!” or “That’s just how people are!” doesn’t work with me.

Any time you tell a story, you’re telling a specific story, loaded with the choices you’ve made as one person, from your perspective.

You can never be objective.

To be truly objective, you would have to know everything and also not have any stakes in the story you’re trying to tell. The first one is impossible, and the second is improbable.

You’re not going to spend the time writing a story that doesn’t mean something to you.
You’re not going to tell a story that doesn’t have some kind of personal point of reference somewhere in the narrative.
You’re going to create characters and situations based on your individual knowledge and experience. Even ways you use to expand your knowledge and experience are still filtered through your individual perceptions of what’s important, meaningful, or useful.

You will always be one little person.

And that’s okay…

So long as you acknowledge that in your writing and as you’re writing.

You need to think about how the stories you choose to tell put the audience in the perspective of certain characters, and what it means to prioritize the perspective of those characters over others.

You need to think about how the resolution of your story gives the victorious perspective moral weight, even if you don’t believe your story has an Aesop-style moral.

You need to think about how, if you’re writing a dramatic work, every single role will be performed by a living, breathing, feeling human being. What are you asking them to do? To think? To feel?

Are you asking an actor to choose between paying their rent and portraying something that reinforces negative stereotypes? Are you going to make an actor feel guilty for taking their paycheck?

And you need to consider how, even if it’s abundantly clear that what you’re writing is fiction, some people may use what you’ve written to further a very real agenda.

Act like your words matter

Because it’s the only way that they will.

If you want people to take your writing seriously, write in a way that shows you give serious consideration to what your words could do if shared with the widest possible audience.

Don’t treat something you’re writing as beneath you, or look at your characters with contempt.

Any story has the potential to carry deep meaning for another person.

People have the opportunity to see themselves reflected in stories in ways that their life may deny them, or in ways that they didn’t anticipate. But a story can’t take hold of a person’s hopes, fears, and sense of self if the writer doesn’t consider it possible.

Give them a mirror worth looking into.

Professionalism and Style

While listening to the latest episode of The West Wing Weekly, there was a great comment from presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg that

“Your job is to decide how much you’re willing to conform to [what’s expected of you]. It’s often ocurred to me that all the ways in which you — in any profession, not just politics — but all the ways in which you conform to what’s expected of you, the sum total of that becomes your professionalism. And then all the ways in which you decide not to conform, the sum total of that becomes your style.”

(You can listen to the full interview here.)

This comment encapsulates a lot of the things I try to get across when talking to writing students.

You learn the rules, tactics, and techniques of writing not so that you can follow them religiously, but so that you know what’s expected of you.

What do people who consume a lot of material see frequently, and what conforms to their expectations? What has worked for other writers in the past? What can you draw from the past that applies to your work in the present?

But you also have to find ways to make something your own. To differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace of ideas.

A thousand other people could be writing a story just like yours right now, so what is it that you’re going to do that subverts the expectations of the audience? What bends (or breaks) the tropes and rules and traditions of the kind of story you’re trying to tell?

And this quote makes a case for thinking on a continuum, where every choice moves your position just a little bit between one end where you’re all professionalism (but no individuality) and one end where you’re all style (but with no sense of accountability or being responsive to expectations and norms).

It suggests a mentality where skill comes from learning to serve expectations where it makes sense, and carve your own path when necessary. And that seems like a pretty healthy mindset to aim for.