“All you need is twenty seconds of insane courage, and I promise you something great will come of it.”
Some writers equate writing with power to writing with eloquence. In other words, writing with descriptive genius, lots of cool adjectives, and the occasional adverb. But that’s not writing with power, it’s like writing with gobs of slathered-on purple prose. Too often, this is the work of a newbie. It can come off as trying too hard. How often do we see a published book dripping with purple? Not so much.
To fully understand what writing with power really means, one has to know the difference and then recognize it when it crosses your path. We should understand that power has as much to do with sentences as good looks have to do with integrity and I.Q. (Have you seen a picture of Einstein or Kim Kardashian lately?)
It’s good to have both, but eloquence alone won’t get you published. Earlier I mentioned an agent who claimed he could tell if he wanted to represent a book after reading only the first page. Odds are he was easily seduced by eloquence. Odds are, too, that by the time he reached page fifty, he’d often changed his mind. Of course, that doesn’t sound as edgy in a panel discussion (that’s the trouble with venues like that—there are far too many generalizations, polarizations, and one-offs to cast any of them in stone).
Let me show you an example of a powerful moment.
In the trailer for the film We Bought a Zoo, there’s a line spoken by Matt Damon to his struggling teenage son that, in my opinion, qualifies as powerful:
“All you need is twenty seconds of insane courage, and I promise you something great will come of it.”
Man, do I wish my dad had said something like that to me. And man, do I wish I’d thought of it and used it in my own work first.
There’s only one adjective in there. My jaw dropped into my popcorn when I heard this line (great lines often make it into the trailer). We should strive to write lines like that. This line is powerful because of what it means, and the truth and the simple eloquence of it forces you to notice.
Simple eloquence trumps souped-up purple eloquence every time.
Power is not about adjectives. Power is all about impact … subtext, relevance, illumination, irony, clarity, truth, heart, soul … the poignant moment, stripped of pretense.
Go to Amazon.com to read the first page of a novel called Manhattan Nocturne, by Colin Harrison, originally published in 1997 to astounding critical acclaim and republished in 2008. Study that first paragraph, the one that begins with: “I sell mayhem, scandal, murder and doom.”
I believe the term OMG! applies. I’ve read this aloud at many workshops, and the universal response is the silent mouthing of the word wow. Only two of the sentences contain a total of four adjectives. And yet, this is as descriptive and compelling as it gets. That author, by the way, was once dubbed “the poet laureate of American thriller writers,” and it wasn’t solely because of his prose. It was because of his ability to write with power, which fueled his solid story lines.
Writing with power is nothing other than taking all the essences of story physics to a higher level.
You have to understand what a scene is going for—indeed, what the thematic essence of the entire story is—in order to optimize your ability to write it powerfully. Once again, being mission driven is the key. Don’t try to make every sentence quotable. If you season your writing with powerful moments, with only the occasional swing for the prosaic fence, you’ll imbue the whole thing with a powerful essence.
It’s hard to really learn this. It’s a sensibility, a nuance, a deft touch. Over time you can discover it from deep within yourself, and discovery always begins by noticing it when you see it. To write powerfully, you need to summon your inner poet, copywriter, philosopher, favorite uncle, JFK’s speechwriter, and Abraham Lincoln, all fused and staged with an exquisite sense of timing.
Don’t force it, just look for it, recognize it, and understand it. And then look for just the right moment to go for it in your own work.
If you expect to sell your first novel or screenplay—as in, the first story you’ve ever written—then you’ve just anointed yourself special. It hardly ever happens. A career as a fiction writer is a long-haul proposition. Getting published isn’t the benchmark … staying at it is. “On to the next” is the mantra of the successful writer.
That said, here’s a career-making question: Is your muse driving the bus, or waiting on a bench?
I had dinner recently with my beautiful stepdaughter. She was an English Lit major, and she’s a passionate consumer of novels. She’s someone in close touch with energies and enlightenments that would send many of us into hiding, or to a shrink’s office.
She has “the gift.”
I’ve talked to her for the last fifteen years about writing a novel. Her life has led her to a point where, one could argue, the time has arrived.
I asked her a question with interesting implications: What was she waiting for? Was she expecting, and therefore waiting on, one of the Muses to suddenly tell her it was the right time, and thus bestow a story idea upon her? Was she waiting for a cosmic shoulder tap that whispers the arrival of a Big Idea?
Before she could answer, I suggested that she may indeed be waiting on her Muse or a sign from the cosmos. And then I also suggested that she flip this whole proposition on its naive ear to see what might happen. What if, I postulated, the muse was waiting on her? Waiting for her to click into story-search mode, eager to climb on board if only she’d declare the intention and cast a net.
She said this was an interesting idea. She’d think about it.
I’m hoping you’ll do the same.
What have you written lately? If the answer is, “Not much,” then what are you waiting for?
The craft is already here. It’s yours for the taking.
So is the Muse, and so is the Big Idea.
The latter, however, is still out there, possibly hiding in plain sight. Possibly closer than you can imagine. But it must survive some vetting before you invest in it.
What if? Marry those two words with something that fascinates you, frightens you, challenges you, or calls to you … and summon the Muse out of hiding. Send some story physics her way … and who knows what might happen?
She won’t say the words for you … but she’s listening closely.
Tick tock.