Carbonless Copy

Word count: 355             Reading time: 1-2 mins 

In her Novel Immersion Workshop in 2009, Pearl Luke mentioned that when she finds a novel she admires, she often types certain passages, verbatim, to get a feel for that writer’s magic. That comment chilled me because I thought if I did the same thing then surely I’d end up plagiarizing, unintentionally or otherwise. A few years down the road two different writing coaches advised me to copy-type from novels in my genre as a method of learning what works.

Could so many experts be wrong? I decided not and opened a book by YA writer John Green and started typing. I soon realized enormous inspiration lies not just in reading good writers but in mimicking them, at least for a short while. “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to,” said Jean-Luc Godard.

Now I copy-type every week, at least a page or two. The trick is to internalize the masters’ skill, not to ape their words or stories. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says there is nothing new under the sun and Jim Jarmusch agrees. “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. […] Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.”

And, if you’re really worried about plagiarism, the Grammarly website offers you a Plagiarism Checker. I tried it with a few paragraphs from Green’s book Looking for Alaska. The Checker reported unoriginal text detected. Then I put in excerpts from Ellen Hopkins, Sherman Alexie, and Sarah Dessen. In each instance Plagiarism Checker recognized that work was not original to me. When I checked my own work it reported this text in this document is original. Phew.

Have you ever copied anyone else’s work for practice? What did you learn from the experience?

PS if you need some ideas on how to widen your inspiration, look no further than the book How To Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. I bought my e-copy only yesterday and it’s already helped with this blog.

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Original art: (c) Dawn Hudson

Feeling Resource-Full

 

Word count: 268                 Reading time: 1-2 mins.

One spring when I was a teenager, a dream came true with the gift of riding lessons. What I learned about horses in ten short hours stayed with me through my own horse ownership and beyond.

Still, when I started to write fiction, I thought I could do it without the help of good instruction. For one thing, I thought the creative process was meant to be inherently obvious. The other dilemma was the worry that someone would call my bluff; they would say I had no business trying to write.

So I wrote in isolation until I stumbled on a course with Kathy Page on Salt Spring Island. The island setting was magical. Kathy was warm and helpful.  At the end of that workshop, she offered a further online course that was enormously productive. After that I joined a cyber-class with Pearl Luke. Pearl’s weekly lessons were rich in writing technique and involved a group of five critiquing each other’s work. I met my writing partner in that critique group and that was an unexpected bonus.

Currently I’m taking Sarah Selecky’s course, Story is a State of Mind and it’s the best online classroom I’ve found so far. It is also the most reasonably priced and allows a person to work at his or her own pace. Margaret Atwood called this course “smart, encouraging, practical.” How much more of an endorsement does anyone need?

If you’re not in a writing class now, how do you hone your craft? Did you just jump on that horse and ride? Or are you home-schooling yourself with reference books and courses?

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Photo by: Melinda Fawver