Steve Almond is the author of several books, including three short story collections. My favorite of these is to the left: My Life in Heavy Metal.
As provided on the back of its cover, The Boston Globe notes, “Almond writes graphically, vividly, and with unflinching detail about relationships, mostly between men and women, in and out of bed. At times it’s the hum of conquest in the air that drives a story, but at least as often it’s something more complicated: the potential for love, for salvation, the possibility of possibility.”
I met Almond years ago at the Festival of Books at UCLA, where he spoke as part of a panel, and afterward, he mingled with his fans and autographed books.
I praised him for his work in My Life in Heavy Metal, and he was very humble and gracious.
When I handed him two of his story collections to sign, he didn’t hurry me along (like some writers do). He asked me which of his stories I liked best. And I told him “Valentino,” which seemed to surprise him. He asked me if I wrote, and I told him I tried. He opened one of them and wrote:
Ryan–
My rules:
- Love your characters at all times.
- Slow down where it hurts.
- Don’t give up.
Hell Yes,
Steve Almond
I thought I’d share his three rules with you today in hopes that you might find them as useful as I have:
1. “Love your characters at all times.”
If you don’t love your characters, it will be much more difficult for your readers to love them, too. It’s noticeable when writing characters we’ve judged and dislike, especially if they are our viewpoint characters. Their complexity will be stunted. Their rationale will read as shallow. And the writing falls flat. Besides, if we have time to judge a character, we are not in “the zone.” We are not in the “creative trance.” People are never completely good or completely evil. It is our job as writers to present fully realized, tragic, and flawed individuals on paper. Allow them to be vulnerable. We act as conduits to our characters’ dreams and fears and emotional baggage. Even antagonists have redemptive qualities.
2. “Slow down where it hurts.”
To slow down where it hurts is to “never avert one’s eyes” (to borrow from Akira Kurosawa, the famous director). It can be difficult for us to slow down painful scenes. If you’re like me, our tendency is to want to blow past these uncomfortable moments, to get out of them. But if we can’t slow down the images, sounds, and feelings of our characters, opportunities will be missed–the power of a scene utterly diluted. At best, our scene will read as complete B.S. When creating art, this is unforgivable. Readers need to experience what our characters see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel. This doesn’t mean that we are contradicting the first rule at all here. We still always need to love our characters.
3. Finally, Almond wrote, “Don’t give up.”
The life of a working writer in this day and age is difficult, to say the least. For every Stephen King or Stephenie Meyer, there are millions of struggling writers working odd jobs just to pay the bills. We battle rejection. We battle illegitimacy. We battle a culture of immediate gratification and consumerism. The writing life is hard. But we must not give up. Talent is overrated. It is paramount to establish a routine and to sustain the drive and focus to keep it!
I hope you found this week’s post helpful. Please drop me a line below in the comments to let me know what you think. Do you have any writing rules that you live by? If so, please share.
And above all else, write your heart out!
P.S. Here’s a short clip of Steve Almond talking about how he became a writer: