How I practise the art of writing

Somebody recently asked me about this, unwittingly inspiring me for an August (or holiday season) article. So here I am, ready to share some aspects of my writing experience

Readers are perhaps unaware that each and every article I submit to this newspaper is 1,800 words long. Not one word less, not one word more. The first to notice it was a former Editor. He approached the subject tactfully, asking me whether his impression was right. I confirmed, giving him the background story.

Some years ago, I submitted an article to another newspaper for favour of publication. They sent it back, asking me to reduce the word-count to less than 700 words. It was then that something popped into my head. I decided that from then onward my every article’s word-count would be a round number – 700 words, say. Not one word less, not one word more.

It’s like classical poetry, where you have to abide by a number of syllables per verse. If you write a sonnet, it has to be eleven. Which isn’t easy. It means you have to say whatever you want to say in that number of syllables. Not only. Your entire idea has to be contained in fourteen verses, and the problem you raise in the poem’s opening part has to be resolved at a particular, pre-ordained point (and only that point) in the poem. You require a lot of discipline when you’re restricted by such rules.

But to go back to that article I was asked to edit. I reduced it to 700 words and I still managed to say all that I wanted to say, deriving enormous pleasure from the final result. I liked it so much, I decided I wanted to apply this new rule to all of my articles.

There was another reason, though. I had learnt from Andrea Camilleri that he used to do the same in his novels. He was allocated a number of words for each chapter, and consequently had to learn to narrate the story within the confines of that number. A sort of budget which he couldn’t overrun.

So when this newspaper’s current Editor texts me to ask when I’m handing in my article, I sometimes reply, “I’m busy editing. Furiously.” And he replies with a smiley or that other emoji depicting “rolling on the floor laughing”. There must have been a time when they had a lot of fun at my expense in this paper’s newsroom, joking about my eccentric habit. By now, I think they got used to my articles being precisely 1,800 words long.

You see, you rarely hit it right when you first draft an article: the writing usually runs over, by 100200 words. A process of pruning is obviously required. And believe you me, removing 200 words isn’t easy. It takes time and plenty of redrafting. The worst part is that it involves identifying “unnecessary” adjectives and setting them free. Even ideas sometimes. It’s not easy because at times finding what you consider as the right adjective is energy-consuming, sometimes you love an idea. But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Sort of. Anyway, the time needed for this bloodshed – I mean, for the editing process! – is sometimes as long as it takes you to write an article from scratch.

I read somewhere that Jane Austen’s prose owes much to her editor’s interventions that shortened considerably her prolix prose.

You might have watched that sketch on YouTube in which Hugh Laurie plays Shakespeare having a heated discussion with his impresario (Rowan Atkinson) who’s editing his manuscript. The negotiations going on between author and editor are hilarious, and enlightening.

Sometimes, I try to follow Scott Fitzgerald’s advice: “Use verbs, not adjectives, to keep your sentences moving. All fine prose is based on the verbs carrying the sentences.” Easier said than done. Sometimes, I try to apply Hemingway’s iceberg theory: you omit things but the reader still has a feeling of them as though you’ve stated them. That’s even more difficult. But I try. Sometimes, I simply leave things out because I run out of space. That usually happens if I start writing the article when it’s already very late, and my planning would be rushed and, thus, shoddy.

When I’m not under too much pressure (I do have a life beyond writing these articles), I usually start out by drafting a rough plan. My father had taught me (and a host of students of his) the age-old technique of preparing five main points and then keeping to them. I try to follow this as much as possible. If you keep the word limit in mind and apply the five-point technique, you can rein in the temptation of following a circuitous route when you write.

I apply all of these rules also to the articles I write in Maltese. Every Thursday, In-Nazzjon publishes an article of mine. They are always 700 words long, not one word less, not one word more. I did the same with the articles I used to write for il-mument. Again, you can’t imagine the satisfaction you get when you see that you’ve managed to say all you wanted to say and the final word-count is a precise, round number.

Sometimes, I throw in direct quotes without inverted commas. Once I used a verse from a poem by Keats we had studied at school without citing the source. It was for this newspaper, and thinking the construction was bad, the subeditor meddled with the punctuation. I protested with the then-editor, who understood my point. I mean, it’s one thing having my English corrected; it’s another, correcting Keats! We had a good laugh on that occasion. But it was my fault really, as I tried to smuggle a poetic verse through the customs house of prose.

Mind you, I do this “borrowing” thing sparingly and only as a nod or homage for purposes of style; I’m not into stealing other people’s ideas. So if you’re reading this and thinking of misappropriating whole sentences from books or other sources, re-think it. That’s plagiarism, and it’s a serious intellectual offence. You’re justified to make use of others’ material when you do it as an innocent stylistic game with the reader’s complicity, so to speak. Or else, if you’re employing inter-textuality, which is wholesale “borrowing” of others’ material in the context of an intellectual dialogue with the author you’re “borrowing” from. In both cases, the act is made in the light of day not surreptitiously. I rarely resort to the latter, but I do make use of the former, particularly when I’m in a good mood.

When I’m in some other mood, I feel like verbal pugilism, and then it’s my own stuff. When you want to make an assertive point, you can’t afford having the reader doubt whether you really mean it or simply fooling around.

That’s, in a nutshell, my approach to writing. I’ve said it in 1,200 words. Not one word less, not one word more.

(Being the holiday season, the next part will be a bit longer; it will be 1,000 words.)