Writers for Writers: Alexander Chee’s Writing Advice

Alexander Chee is author of the novels Edinburgh and Queen of the Night. He came to UMF in Spring of 2011 to give a reading and to meet with senior writing majors and gave us a lot of refreshing ideas about editing and self-doubt. Here are some of his insights.
For more about Chee, see:
http://alexanderchee.net/home.html


Chee’s Thoughts on Editing
1. Return to where you left off to go on
This sounds simple, but there’s an explanation. Chee explained an interesting theory about the difference between writing by hand/typewriter, and writing on a computer. In the days of old when one had a paper copy of their novel on hand at all times, a writer would just press on from where the last line left off. But on a word processor, the electronic document always opens to the beginning, and you have to scroll to find where to go next. “I’ve seen writers murder their openings with these revisits,” Chee told us, and it makes sense. We should be careful not to doubt what we have each time we go back to our work. If one isn’t careful, their self-doubt could talk them into starting all over, or worse, into quitting, if they judge a first draft too harshly while trying to finish it. Best to zip immediately to the blinking cursor and write as if you hadn’t just seen your beginning and its inevitable flaws.
2. Don’t start to edit until you’ve drafted to the end
Have you ever embarked on a first paragraph, and then halfway through a second or third, gone back to read over what you have? Then, while re-reading, have you starting changing words around, and becoming frustrated with how unpolished your beginning looks? No one will find value in a perfect beginning if a beginning is all you have. Soldier through (on your intuition) and then edit the entire thing. This will also help to keep a consistent voice and to look at the big picture as you polish. 
3. Let the story be your editor, not your fears
This is something I know that we all know, but have not necessarily taken time to think about. The stories and characters we’re working on normally have a logical procession, and to allow this to develop without worrying about judgement usually allows for a fuller piece we are happier for in the end. Are your doubts interfering with where your story needs to go?
4. “Intellect is for edits, intuition is for drafting”
This is somewhat of an elaboration of the above bullet. Once you get a sense for how much or little control you’ve been inflicting on your storyline, Chee’s line is a useful motto to remember. When beginning a story, its good to just allow things to unfold without trying to mold them too much. Worry about what makes sense once everything has filled out, and you’ll be able to progress much faster.
5. Save EVERYTHING that you cut
I normally do this out of paranoia, and was happy to hear it endorsed by another writer. Its a good idea to keep up a notepad document alongside your draft as you’re editing, and to copy/paste paragraphs or pages into it as you’re removing them from your story. This way if pieces were sliced out in a self-loathing rampage, this can be discerned and remedied later with little harm done. Also, you never know when a side-tracked idea that doesn’t fit where it began, could become a useful seed for another endeavor. I could go on for a while about why you should save what you remove and perhaps this will be a larger post in the future, but let the base fact stand that it is rare where an idea created and then not needed in one place, would not be useful on a future date.
6. Keep a writer diary 
This may sound silly. In fact, some of my writer friends have raised eyebrows at me when I’ve told them that I do this. In the same way that talking about a conflict can untangle it better than thinking alone, writing not just your story, but about your story can help you realize a lot about your characters’ motives or situation that you may not have actualized before. Chee also pointed out that it’s handy for reminding you how you felt during your last writing session: “This way, I’m not so far away when I come back. Page 37, still horrible!” It’s also a good place to keep a to-do list of things you meant to get back to, like moments where you meant to add research or tension.

7. Changing font and text sizes
Although all of Chee’s advice was intuitive and helpful, I found this piece to be the most clever. We are all painfully aware, I’m sure, of how easily a typo or awkward sentence can be overlooked. The reason for this, Chee suggests, is because the text, as an image, becomes familiar to us. If we change the font or the sizing of our test to rearrange the way we’ve come to look at the lines and body shape, it will snap us out of skimming because everything will look new. Then once you’ve polished away all the rough pieces, feel free to return the text of your writing to your original graphic presence.

Quotes on Writing

An extraction from my collection, correlating distinctly with this blog: Quotes and advice pertaining directly to the writing world:

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” ~Franz Kafka

“You know you have read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as though you have lost a friend.” ~Paul Sweeney

“Writing is an exploration. You start form nothing and learn as you go.” ~E.L. Doctorow

“Do not come lightly to the blank page.” ~Stephen King

“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.” ~Hermann Hesse

“Creativity is making the complicated simple.” ~Charles Mingus

“The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familar things new.” ~Sam Johnson

“I only know one story. But oftentimes small pieces end up being stories themselves.” ~Patrick Rothfuss

“Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.” ~Jessamyn West

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

“Sometimes, if there’s a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself.” ~ Ann Patchett

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality–Its a way of understanding it.” ~Lloyd Alexander

“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” ~Edwin Schlossberg

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” ~Ray Bradbury

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter–it is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” ~Mark Twain

“I write because I have women living inside me who lay alone on their deathbeds.” ~Natasha Nelson

“Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.” ~William Wordsworth

“If you go into a room…full of books–even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you” ~William Ewart Gladstone

Defeating Writer’s Block: A Tip

This is what I like to do when I’m stuck. I am sharing with you because, because. I’m not an authority on the matter, but where would writers be without other writers to throw rescue ropes into our word pits? =)
Writer’s block, as many of us are anguishly aware, is often when we have the desire or need to write, but nothing is occurring to us. If only the beginning of an idea could show itself, we may know where to go.
One thing we can do rather than leave ourselves to entire sentences, is start with the baby-step of filling in the blank.

Step 1: Look up famous first lines, famous last lines, find a line in a random book near you, get a favorite quote—start somewhere, and take a line out of context entirely.

Step 2: Take the line you’ve chosen, and find a way to fill it with blanks. Take only the first half, or remove all the verbs, or take the end of the line and plan to end up there, or use any other method of diminishing you can think of.
Examples of steps one and two completed:
For the seventh time, …
As he fumbled to ____________, he looked up and saw….
One thing that ___________ never was, so they said, was….
…and lay in a crumpled heap at the feet of his _________.
Her ________ was/were wide, and his was/were __________.

Step 3: Have a field day. Even if lines like these don’t lead you to accomplish your task at hand, they tend to break the embargo that kept dramatic and enticing words from reaching you.