The Myth: You write best when you feel moved to do so, when you are inspired. You don’t really have any control over when you’ll produce good writing.

This is a lie. This is an excuse for those who lack discipline. This is something people say who don’t write. This is what people say who are in love with the idea of writing.
Listen to me. All you have to do is write every day*. If you will do this one simple thing you will find that the process will, in due time, produce good writing. After writing every day for a year and after your fifth draft you will see that in fact you do control when you produce good writing. You control it by putting your rump in the chair every single day.
I have never felt like writing except when I’ve been writing. I can think of 100 other things I’d rather do than sit down to write. I know what is in store for me in the discipline and in the process of draft after draft. It is lonely and slow going. But here’s the thing…it works. The process delivers. Confidence in the daily process – this is what motivates me to write every day. Not some abstract inspiration. Not a muse – whatever the dickens that is. Not some highfalutin artistic sensibility.

The Truth: You’ll write best when you do it every day. That is what will result in your best work. Lots and lots of writing is what produces good writing.

*And read. Don’t neglect reading good and great writing. If you’re not a reader you can’t be a writer. The two cannot be separated. Ever meet a musician who never goes to a show?

The Myth: Writing good fiction is about creating wonderful language. Your reader wants luxurious language.

Your reader wants a story, not language. If you were a poet or a librettist we might talk more about language, but not in fiction. Your sentences need to be understood by the average (seventh grade) reader. Wonderful language will wow your reader for a page, maybe two, but not 20 or 200.
Your reader will not work very hard to understand your sentences. There are too many novels on the shelves. Just tell the story. That is your obligation. That is how you will get read.
When you read a “highly stylized” book or story (Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” comes to mind), what you’re reading is not a voice the author is employing, it is a way of thinking, either theirs or the character’s. It is craft, not invention. (This is part of the ‘write what you know’ conversation. The way you think and speak holds wonderful stories. Write what you know in the way you know it. Your life and experience is much more wonderful and interesting than you think.)
When you reflect on your favorite book you remember all sorts of complexity and depth. However, if you go back and look at the text you’re remembering you’ll find that the language is simple and straightforward. That complexity and depth is what your mind does with story. That is what your reader will do with your story. Leave that to them.

The Truth: Writing good fiction is about creating clear and direct language. Your reader wants language they can understand.

The Myth: Your voice, the way you talk is not adequate to the task of good fiction. You’ll need to find a literary “voice” and then tell stories in that voice.

Here’s an exercise*.
Sit down and write for 30 minutes. Try to write a great first page of fiction – the start to a great novel or short story.

Now, go to the library and find the fiction stacks (I am sure you already know where they are). Start pulling down modern^ novels and short story collections. Read the first lines, maybe the first pages of them. Read the first pages of 30 or 40 novels and/or short stories, more if you have the time. Here is what you’ll find. You will find simple and direct language, clear and concise images. You may not understand exactly where the story is going, but what you’ve read will be clear and straight forward, not open to interpretation. Here are a couple of examples:
“Officially, I started destroying my life that Wednesday morning. But it had been on my mind for a while.” [from The Next Right Thing by Dan Barden]
“The two old men slept on the bank of the dirty flooded river, and from above they would’ve appeared as dead men – corpses washed ashore and left to rot in the coming sun.”

[from What This River Keeps by Greg Schwipps]

Look back at what you wrote. What you wrote is likely not simple and direct. It is complex and trying to do too much. It is working to impress the reader with the author’s skill.
Rewrite your opening as if you were telling your best friend.
There, that is your voice. Write in that voice. Keep writing in that voice.

The Truth: Your voice – the way you talk – is fully adequate to the task of good fiction. Write in your voice. Tell stories in that voice.

*The impact of this exercise will vary depending on how much fiction you’ve written. The only way to become a good writer is to write – everyday, for years and years.
^Published since 1980.

The Myth: Writing good fiction requires talent. It is like playing the piano well or being a good golfer. You really have to be born with it.

Please determine now to take the position that there is no such thing as talent. Taking this position will save you a lot of worry and wasted time. You might have this thing we refer to as talent and you might not. I don’t know, you don’t know. No one knows. It doesn’t matter. It is a useless conversation. It is irrelevant to everyone, including you.

Commitment + hard work trumps talent every day.

Are there are loads of talented people who accomplish nothing of lasting value? Are there lots of writers who publish lots of writing who are amazingly untalented? Yes and yes. There are lots of houses built by untalented builders and lives saved by untalented doctors. Who is your favorite great author? Are they your favorite and are they great because they were/are talented? No. There are your favorite and great because they wrote a book that you love. Writing a book – a good book and even a great book – does not require talent.

The Truth: Writing good fiction requires commitment, hard work, and the discipline to practice.

The Myth: Writing good fiction is a mysterious process. It’s an art and we can’t really define how it works or why it works.

Writing is a process that can be taught and understood. The novel is old. (“Pamela”, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel of 1740 is by some estimates the first novel, although examples of book-length fiction can be identified much, much earlier than that.) The short story is a whole lot older. There are many examples dating back to the advent of man himself.
Novels and short stories have been dissected and we know how they work and why whey work. We know what causes them to fail as well and why some people who would like to write a novel never do.
It is no more mystical than building fine furniture or learning to play the bassoon. There is a way of working that leads to learning, which leads to accomplishment. It is not an art, it is a craft. This is important because if you call it an art then the focus is on the artist. If you call it a craft then the focus is on technique. Let’s call it a craft.

The Truth: Writing good fiction is a learned process. It’s a craft and we know how it works and why it works.

My great-grandfather was Fritz Merkel of Peoria, Illinois. If you are really into mid-twentieth century duck decoys of the Midwest (and if you are, you are a lonely, lonely person) you may have heard of him. A few of his decoys are part of the collection now held by the Illinois State Museum. Fritz was an avid outdoorsman and he worked as a bricklayer. He built two houses that still stand today on Hayes Street. Fritz died when I was a baby. I have seen one picture of him holding me. I am slowly slipping off his lap. He looks happy.
For a long time I have wished I could have spoken with him. It would have been a hoot to ask him about his fly rod or his straight razor (both of which I now have). I have wondered if he had a German accent, though I don’t think he did.
And then about a week ago I realized that I can speak to him. Why not?
Enter: the fictional interview.
Over the last ten days I have written a four page interview with Fritz Merkel. I ask him all sorts of things about his experiences as a sportsman. I learn about those houses and about his and my great-grandmother’s relationship. It is a hoot. Fritz shows up on the page and there we are, in his workshop together.
I have no idea if he had a workshop. I took some liberties as I wrote the conversation but there is nothing there that could not have very reasonably happened. And this is fiction – the joy of it. There was never an interview with Fritz Merkel that I’m aware of, so this one, this one is the most factual one that will ever be. Fritz Merkel has made it onto the page.

“The sportsman smiles as I enter and offers me a stool at his workbench. Below tufts of white hair, he has deep wrinkles with a ruddy complexion, neither of which comes of sitting in an easy chair. He wears a well-used pair of carpenter pants, a jacket that is something between a sweater and a flannel shirt, and a leather cap that I begin by commenting upon.”
– From the opening of “An Interview with Naturalist and Sportsman Fritz Merkel”, By Dave Marsh

Steve is a friend of mine. He is also an improv and stand-up comic. A couple of weeks ago we were having lunch at a local Mexican joint. We do this once a month and talk about the mechanics of telling people stories. This is something we both care about, a lot.
As we were covering some common ground, Steve made a point that is simply fundamental to story-telling of all kinds. He mentioned the thing that ensures your story will keep moving and your audience will stay tuned. It struck me that I hadn’t mentioned this point here, and it would be irresponsible for me to allow you to go any further without knowing.

One of the books nominated for the National Book Award this year is called “Wolf in White Van” by John Darnielle. It is the story of a troubled teen who attempts suicide, shooting himself in the face. He survives but is horribly deformed and so becomes a recluse, retreating to the world of pre-Internet computer gaming.

[Now I’m going to hook these two together.]

Steve reminded me that one of the keys to great story telling is to take your protagonist(s) and follow these three “easy” steps:
1. Imagine: what is the absolute worst thing that could happen to him/her/them. Don’t go with your first idea. It is not awful enough. Don’t go with your second either. Take your third idea. Don’t worry in fiction there is nothing that is too horrible. Horrible = better. More horrible = more better.
2. Once you have that in hand, start writing and make that happen to your protagonist ASAP. Don’t get cold feet. Go ahead, write that ugliness down.
3. When the dust starts to settle, when your protagonist seems to be regaining their footing: repeat. Once your protagonist is permanently and eternally changed such that the truth of humanity is on display, write the ending.

Mr. Darnielle made the move of an expert.
Now you can too.