That’s what came to mind when I read Matteo Pericoli’s piece “Writers as Architects” in the New York Times’ Opinionator column, in which he describes his MFA students working with architecture students to create visual representations of the underpinnings of a short story or novel.
While there’s an awful lot of gobbldedygook in his essay, and in the descriptions his students offer of their architectural renderings of, say, Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” – is there really “magic,” as he says, in bringing “two students from very different disciplines coming together, now sharing a common language, knowing exactly where to meet, and why”? – I applaud the basic tenets of the exercise: Studying a novel or short story to examine its basic structure in order to understand if the structure itself lends to the story, its longetivity, its readability, and how readers relate to it.
I’m not much of a planner when I write – I just like to see
where things go. Sometimes, they go nowhere, which reveals the shortcoming of
my writing style. On the other hand, I have tried to be much more meticulous in
planning things out and researching them, and find, for the most part, I’m not
able to write the story. Maybe I’m the kind of writer who has to get stuff out
on paper before I can discern the structure a story is going to take. That’s
why we have drafts – and that’s why architects design their buildings time and
again, consulting with engineers and such, on paper before any dirt is ever
moved. I could learn from this concept.
I have done some visualizations – line drawings, character
trees, etc., as I write, in order to help me see things. I have done some very
rough storyboarding as a way to help me see more visually. So I get the concept
that getting something on paper besides words is a great way to help a writer
be better at the art of writing. But the craft still has to be there.
I’d be interested in being a fly on the wall in one of
Pericoli’s classrooms, seeing how and if his students take the concepts they’ve
learned and apply them to their own writing. Looking at how other writers write
is well and good, but until you can look objectively at how you write, and how
you could improve your writing through such analysis, such classes and such
projects are really only meant to employ MFA instructors and keep the local
arts and crafts supply warehouses with steady customers looking for knives,
glue, and cardboard.
That’s the thing, though – is this a useful exercise that
gets novels written? One rather snarky commentator on the article says this:
Sometimes when I read the NY Times I feel very inadequate.
This is one of those times. I just don’t equate writing with architecture.
I just completed my first novel and am trying my best to get
it published. Perhaps I should add a drawing in my query letter to agents.
Maybe I’ll get lucky! The novel is titles Passports Out of Crazy Town, so I
could construct a few buildings that are slightly askew and a bridge leading to
another group of buildings that are perfectly balanced. So much for wracking my
brains to write a decent synopsis, just a rendering of this may work wonders.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
Obviously, a writer who spends too much time with the
pre-visualization but who never actually goes on to the writing is probably
better off working as a model builder, not as a writer.
Here’s an example of what I mean (once you get past the clichés
– doesn’t everyone “push the limits” of their craft? Well, they should. But
they shouldn’t say it that way).
I think this is what Pericoli is shooting for in this class
and exercise, but ironically he’s too interested in explaining the process to
help us connect the dots as to why this is a valuable exercise for writers:
Visuatlization leading to better, more vivid writing. I hope he helps his
students connect the dots between the exercise and their own writing.
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