Perfectly Equipped

I have a client, a professional standup comedian, who has long had an interest in fiction and creative non-fiction writing. He admires authors, these writers of thick books who do not require a joke every thirty seconds to hold an audience’s attention. To be clear, he’s an extremely successful comedian. He works not in clubs but in theaters around the world. He likes what he does, but he’s a creative guy who, as I mentioned, loves literature and has dabbled in poetry and fiction for decades.

Some of the work we’ve been doing has been to help him recover from a novel writing class he took years ago. The teacher, a well-intentioned professional, was adamant about his students learning the form a book-length story must take. He taught them all about inciting incidents and rising action and how there must be something at stake in every scene. All of this is true, more or less. Almost every story does in fact settle into a natural pattern of escalating problems and resolution; characters are more compelling when they want something.

But that doesn’t mean having a formal structure in front of mind is a good way for everyone to work, particularly not my client. He’s a natural and highly intuitive storyteller, having told them informally and on stage all his life. The rules only confused him. Thinking about something that you already know without thinking about it can make it seem like you don’t know anything, as if all knowledge lies outside of you in the minds of experts, or ancient books, or scientific studies. Believe this deeply enough and nothing you do will seem right unless it fits within a mold someone else has carved.

I say this as someone who enjoys teaching writing from time to time himself. My main job when doing so is to remind my students that they are perfectly equipped to tell any story the want to tell. In fact, they are far better equipped than I to tell their story. I couldn’t tell theirs if I wanted to, which I don’t, which is why I can’t tell it. If you want to learn a little craft from a book or class or online magazine, that’s just fine. But don’t imagine for a moment that anything valuable exists anywhere but within you. Even the stories and songs and paintings you love are merely a reflection of what you love already, and if those works seem striking or original it’s only because you’ve forgotten or lost track of your own genius as you looked for what you desired where it wasn’t.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com