HOW TO SCRIBBLE

by James Lincoln Warren

This summer, on June 13 and 14, the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime Los Angeles Chapter will be co-sponsoring a mystery writing workshop called the California Crime Writers Conference at the Hilton Pasadena here in sunny SoCal. (In previous years, SinC L.A. sponsored a one-day event called No Crime Unpublished; with the added co-sponsorship of SoCalMWA, the conference has been expanded to two days and undergone a name change.)

The conference will feature two days of workshops and breakout sessions; top-flight faculty, including best-selling authors, literary agents, legal and forensic experts; sessions on PR and book marketing; manuscript critiques to the first 30 registrants for a reasonable surcharge; goodie bags, giveaways and raffles; an agents cocktail party; and a bookseller and vendor room. The keynote speakers will be Robert Crais and Laurie R. King.

On the second day, June 14, at 10:30 a.m., Melodie Johnson Howe and I will be teaching/mentoring a 90-minute mystery short story workshop. I am really looking forward to this opportunity, not in the least because Melodie and I have such radically different approaches to writing, and because I think that together, we’ll be able to help the twenty or so students we’re expecting to tap into their muses. And of course, because being on the same bill as Melodie is a signal honor no matter how you look at it.

I love to teach. In the Navy, one of my Commanding Officers wrote in my fitness report that I was the “best pedagogical Officer of the Deck” he had ever seen. This was very flattering, because one of an OOD’s primary responsibilities is to develop the skills of his subordinates.

These days, on Saturday mornings I act as a Candi- dates Coach for my Lodge and help young Masons discover the moral beauties to be found in the ancient craft of speculative Freemasonry by helping them to appreciate its sublime and stately symbolism. It is very rewarding.

But as far as writing goes, I am not one whose primary goal is to inspire my students to express themselves, nor to spark their creativity. Now, I have no problem with inspirational mentoring—the ability to fill someone’s heart with the desire to perform and succeed is a true gift. Likewise, I do not scoff at teachers whose aim is to get their students to expand their boundaries and look at things in new ways. But I’ve always thought that the truly creative person will not be denied when it comes to their desire to exercise their talents. One of the things that is a constant in any sort of creative endeavor is dealing with the times when instead of flying, one is compelled to drudge instead. For me, knowing how to deal with that is much more valuable knowledge.

So my goal is to give my students techniques they can apply to produce a workmanlike product. It is less like telling somebody how to design a beautiful house than how to use a hammer and saw to make sure the house will stand. When actually building the house, it is not necessary to be motivated strictly by its beauty at all times—there is also satisfaction in knowing that you’ve used the right size and number of nails to hold a joint secure. Such things may be invisible to the tenant, but not to the carpenter.

So while some instructors might be trying to get their students to hear sounds, smell odors, and feel textures, or to stretch their imaginations to include heretofore undreamed scenarios, I like to teach them about things like plot structure, use of voice, economy of expression, avoidance of cliché, applying effective cadence, and so forth. This might not sound too exciting, but to a wordsmith, I think these things ought to be. To switch metaphors, it’s like the mechanic repairing a car who loves his set of wrenches almost as much as he loves the engine he’s working on.

Several years ago, I had a great-grandmother of a case of writer’s block. To try to break out of it, I signed up for a course in screenwriting through UCLA extension. The Gentle Reader should know that I am not, and have never aspired to be, any species of screenwriter whatsoever—but I reasoned that having to learn how to use a whole new toolbox could not but have a salutary effect on my writing in general.

I got a little frustrated when it turned out that the instructor was far more interested in teaching “creative” writing—character development and snappy dialogue—than in teaching the nuts-and-bolts of putting a story into a professionally acceptable screenplay format. I already understood character development and snappy dialogue, and frankly, I didn’t need a TV-Sportswriter-turned-Movie-of-the-Week-Author’s take on what he perceived to be good wordage. (Let us just say it wasn’t the same as mine.) But there was enough of the nuts-and-bolts stuff, basic things he really couldn’t avoid teaching, to make the class worthwhile, and the writer’s block evaporated.

Ever since then, whenever I find myself sitting and staring stupidly at the keyboard, I fire up Movie Magic Screenwriter or Final Draft and tippity- tap my cares away wasting time on my Western Movie that will never, ever, see the light of day, but which serves an invaluable function nonetheless in breaking up the verbal logjam in my brain. (And so harmony is restored.) And that’s because I am concerned with how to put the words down more than with which words to put down, and I know which available tricks are waiting up my sleeve.

To use yet another metaphor, I am sometimes less concerned with making music than with playing the piano. And that actually makes being creative much easier, because being able to play the piano means you have the foundation for making the music. And that’s the thing I want to pass on.