There Are Only Two Things You Need To Be A Great Fiction Writer
Almost every time you pick up a book on writing, read an article from a revered writer, or listen to a lecture from a creative writing teacher, you’ll be hit with a whole host of dos and don’ts within writing. There are good reasons for this, and the biggest reason is that you should probably start somewhere when it comes to any art form.
But the fact is there are no hard and fast rules. There is a time to break every single rule you’ve ever been taught when it comes to writing, and those that teach a type of prescriptive writing will always, in time, be made the fool.
So yes, learn the rules of writing, but also be willing to break them when necessary. But how do you know when to break them?
That’s where this article comes in. There are only two things that a fiction writer needs to be great. Here they are.
He or she must be a good judge of things
First and foremost, a writer must have what the author and teacher John Gardner called a “sane humanness”—that is, they must be a trustworthy judge of things as they are. The writer must produce in their writing an affect which makes the reader stop and go “that is the way it is.”
How does one acquire a “sane humanness” which allows them to be a good judge of things? One way, and perhaps the best way, is through experience. You must experience the world and everything (to the best of your ability) that it has to offer. You must always be on the lookout for truth—wherever you can find it—in character, in people, in language, in movies, in the rain, while scared and alone on an empty street corner.
You must absorb these experiences, write them down on your mental notepad, and bookmark them to be used at a later date. Truth. That’s the lifeblood of good fiction.
Confidence in your aesthetic choices
The sad part is that no serious writer will have confidence in their aesthetic choices when they first begin writing. If they do, they might be suffering from a (now well known) phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Those with little to no knowledge tend to overestimate their abilities and those with lots of knowledge tend to underestimate their abilities. Which makes it difficult to achieve confidence in your aesthetic choices.
I’m here to tell you, however, that there’s a cure. Read widely. Listen with open ears. Watch every great film ever made. Talk to your peers. Learn your craft and hone your instincts. You will get better—because if there’s one thing humans do best, it’s gradual, incremental improvement. We are creatures of advancement. We do not know how NOT to get better.
So practice. Read lots. Write lots. Trust your aesthetic choices. Be a good judge of things that are real and true. And you will, through a force of will, become a great writer.
Ian Canon is the author of It’s A Long Way Down (2018) and Before Oblivion (2017). His second novel What We Do On Weekends is forthcoming. His stories have been featured in The Junction, The Sunlight Press, The Spadina Literary Review, Montreal Writes, Found Polaroids, and he’s been profiled for Vue.
