My mother taught me to crochet when I was six. She showed me how to make a loop and put it on the hook, then how to draw the yarn through the loop to make a chain. Then she showed me how to stick the hook back into the chain and pull loops through that. That was it — just the most basic of techniques.
From that point on she kept me in yarn and I made all kinds of things. I’d play around with looping and sticking and pulling in various places and numbers and combinations, and come up with a “stitch” that turned into a flower or a doll’s skirt or a hat or whatever. It was pure exploration and creativity, and although I couldn’t have followed a pattern if you paid me, and I had some trouble getting round shapes to actually lie flat (flowers could be ruffly, and doll skirts were supposed to flare, but flat was tricky) there were plenty of things I could make and I had great fun doing it.
When I was twelve I took a class at school called “Stitchery” and one of the things they taught was crochet. I learned the “real” stitches there, and how to follow a pattern. I learned a lot in that class, and while I can still start with a hook and yarn (or thread) and just make something up if I want to, I’m consciously using this or that stitch or combination of stitches. I lost the ability to think purely in loops and sticks and pulls. I can’t not see and think in the real, official stitches, and that wonderfully chaotic creativity of my childhood crocheting is gone, but if I start out with some goal in mind, my knowledge of the craft is more likely to get me there than my blind experimentation of earlier, no matter how much fun I was having at the time.
I do still have the ability to freestyle, though, and it was only later that I realized most crocheters can’t. And if my mother had started out by teaching me the stitches, and showed me how to follow appropriate beginner patterns, I don’t know that I’d have ever been able to learn to just make things up. Certainly it would’ve taken a lot more conscious study and practice to get to that level, which experts and designers have but so few casual crocheters do. So although I’ve lost a certain point of view, a crocheting “innocence” if you will, I still gained something invaluable from that early, chaotic exploration.
I learned to write the same way. I’d been an avid reader for about as long as I’d been crocheting, and started writing not long after. My first stories were written in pencil in notebooks. I rarely finished them, but I had ideas about characters and things they’d do, and I did a lot of experimenting and exploration, completely unfettered by rules or boundaries or ideas about what a story was or how to go about creating one. It wasn’t until I got into high school that I took a creative writing class, and bought some writing books and magazines, and started to study plot and character, genre and theme, dialogue and transition.
With writing, my earlier experience seemed like a hinderance for a while. Not at the time, of course — I was sure I knew how all this stuff worked and fought my teachers at every step! But looking back, it did take me a lot longer to learn the more formal mechanics and craftsmanship than it would’ve if I’d come in cold. If I’d been more open to the instruction, I’m sure I’d have picked up on all that much more quickly.
Now, whether I’m reading or writing, I see protagonists and supporting characters, goals and obstacles, point of view and pacing and structure. I can’t not see these things, now that I’ve learned them, and no matter what I’m writing, it’s constructed from the official building blocks, even when the words are flowing and I feel like I’m just transcribing the play running through my mind.
The years of freestyling let me see all the rules and elements as tools rather than immutable laws, though. They help you get where you want to go, but they’re not valuable alone, for their own sake, any more than the ultimate point of crochet is the yarn-over or the double crochet. The point is always the product, not the process, whether you’re making a doll skirt or writing a romance.
For people who’d like to learn to write, my advice would be to start writing. Leave the books and articles and classes alone for a while and just explore. See what you can do, what comes out of your pencil or pen or keyboard. You don’t have to show it to anyone. You don’t even have to finish; if a story peters out or sputters to a stop, that’s all right; set it aside and start something new. Just see what comes, and have fun doing it. Then, when you have some idea of what you want to do and where you want to go, learn what the official building blocks look like, what everything’s called and how the experts say they should go together. All of that is important, yes, but the memory of just letting the story in your head carry you along to wherever it wanted to go that day will help you keep your focus where it should be — on the story, not the stitches.
Angie
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Great advice. That’s exactly how I started. I had no clue about the rules, but I had fun. In fact, I really hadn’t set out to be a writer at all. I fell into it by mistake.
I always felt if there was a magic way to write, then there would only be one writing book out there.
I always felt if there was a magic way to write, then there would only be one writing book out there.
Things like that infuriate me. [nod] It’s fine for someone to say, “Here’s a technique you might want to try,” or “Here’s a set of rules which work for me,” or “I know a lot of people who’ve been successful with this,” or whatever. But when people try to say that their pet rule or technique or mode of working is Absolutely The Best and anyone who doesn’t work that way is a hack who’s doomed to failure, I just want to reach through the screen or the book and smack them silly.
Angie
Funny, but I’ve never gotten into crocheting because I thought I’d have to follow a certain pattern and only make certain things.
I also can’t write within the conventions of genre or even subgenre to save my life.
I learned to write a similar way. First, I loved to read and I read all over the place. I started writing as a kid when there weren’t enough stories to keep me happy or the ones I read didn’t turn out the way I thought they should. I rewrote them.
Darn, if I didn’t have tendonitis I’d run down to Joann’s right now and buy some yard!
When your tendonitis clears up, definitely give it a try. You can get a skein of basic acrylic yarn for cheap, and a crochet hook — I like aluminum, and size F is good for just messing around, neither too big nor too small — and just start messing. You can probably find instructions online for making a chain if you don’t already know how, and from that it’s just a matter of sticking the hook back into what you’ve already made to build masses of stitches. From there it’s just fun.
Angie
I used to worry that not having formal writing training hindered me but now I realize it allowed me to find my rather unique style (that readers either love or hate).
I focus first on what I want said and how. Then I figure out how to use grammar to accomplish this. I fit the rules around my writing instead of my writing around the rules.
Right, the rules make great servants but poor masters. [nod]
And I think everyone with a distinctive voice has that experience, that some people love them and others hate them. It’s just a matter of finding your audience.
Angie
I also wrote a lot before I learned the “rules” – and I’m glad I did. It allowed me to find my own voice. I’m not sure I could have done that if I had been concentrating on the rules first.
That’s exactly it — finding your own voice before you start putting up barriers. [nodnod]
Angie
Excellent advice.
Certainly, I had my basic writing tools under my belt when I started out — grammar, punctuation, how to write dialogue, etc. (the writer’s version of the basic crochet stitches) — but fiction writing rules? Nada. I’d always been a voracious reader, however so even though I didn’t actually buckle down to write seriously until my early forties, I had more than thirty-five years’ worth of osmosis to subconsciously draw on.
Oh, sure, there were some bad (read: amateur) habits to banish
, but nothing that a thorough perusal of SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS couldn’t tidy up. 
Not that I didn’t read every how-to fiction writing book I could get my mitts on (um, after I sold my first two or three books), but I think I mentally dumped probably 75 percent of “The Rules” almost immediately. 
Fifteen years later, I still rely far more on intuition than technique, falling back on the latter only when I can’t muddle my way out of something. Although I must have a basic sense of my characters (their conflicts and goals) and enough plot to convince my editor (and myself!) there’s a story there before I write a single word, worrying about turning points and acts and beats, etc. would paralyze me.
For me it’s always characters/story first, structure later. Certainly the “rules” hum along in the deep, dark recesses of my brain to a certain degree, but I don’t consciously use them as I write.
So, yeah, my advice to new writers is the same as yours — just give the muse free reign and see where she takes you. You can always fix stuff up later.
I think a lot of people, certainly a lot of the folks who teach writing, emphasize learning to Do It Right before you form bad habits. They’re right up to a point, in that it can be very difficult to banish those bad habits once you’ve gotten used to them, and have trained yourself to think and see in sub-optimal modes.
But I think banishing some bad habits can be easier and faster in the long run than breaking out of the formal rules after you’ve deliberately studied and learned them, finding your own voice and the confidence to create freely in a way which might be outside the rules at times. I’ve seen people who spent time learning the rules first, who then write very stiffly, in this dry, ultra-formal mode. Young people who write fiction in the same style their high school English teachers demanded they use for formal essays is particularly painful. :/ And I’ve known English teachers who insisted that all the formal essay rules did apply to fiction, such as marking down students for having characters in a story speak with less than perfect grammar. [headdesk]
So what it comes down to seems to be, which is easier to unlearn? And which will be easier to learn second — the formal rules after you’ve learned to write with free creativity, or the free creativity after you’ve learned the formal rules?
Angie
Absolutely, creativity first, rules second (within reason — it helps to know basic grammar/syntax/punctuation in order to have the tools with which to translate thoughts into writing). But even little kids are encouraged nowadays to get the story down, even before they know the basic rules. Spelling, punctuation…not nearly as important as content. The IDEA. The other stuff can come later.
Although please note I am NOT advocating anyone considering writing as a career to ignore their craft, or assume an editor will “fix it.” There is a difference between the so-called fiction writing “rules” and language proficiency.
For me, though, I learned my cart-before-the-horse lesson in art. I was never allowed to simply experiment with various media — it was all about technique. As a result, I became a fairly decent craftsperson, but a lousy artist, without an original idea in my head. So I was determined not to let that happen to me as a writer. And it’s worked out pretty well for me so far.
And, oh, my — it makes me seethe, too, to hear fiction held up to the same technical standards as formal essays, etc. Ninety-nine percent of fiction is (or should be) told from the characters’ viewpoints, in their voices. Sentence fragments happen. As does grammatically incorrect speech. Otherwise the prose — and especially the dialogue — is probably going to sound stilted and unnatural.
But try telling the purists that. Oy.
Although please note I am NOT advocating anyone considering writing as a career to ignore their craft, or assume an editor will “fix it.”
Oh, not at all. [nod] The rules do need to be learned, mastered and fully assimilated, IMO. It’s only when you completely understand a rule up, down and sideways that you can break it effectively, deliberately and for a purpose, as opposed to someone who’s just ignorant of the rule who breaks it at random because they don’t know any better, or someone who’s memorized the rule but doesn’t actually understand it, who never breaks it even when they should.
When I’m workshopping, my critiques are usually longer than the story or chapter I’m critting, and most of my comments are on mechanics. I figure by the time someone joins a workshop, they’re there for the purpose of learning the rules. I hope, though, that most people have learned to be creative and think about the story, and what they want to do with the piece as a whole product, before they start studying the finer points of grammar and structure and such.
Angie
I also came into writing with the goal of being a professional much after I started writing. Yet I think there are as many different ways of going about it as there are writers. To me the most important thing is to find your own personal style – that might involve ‘freestyling’ or a more disciplined approach. As long as you end up finding a comfort zone and getting the words out there.
Yet I think there are as many different ways of going about it as there are writers.
Sure. [nod] It seems, though, that folks who start out by taking a class or reading a book or something similar, are less likely to just try a bunch of things and see what works for them. Most books and teachers will try to tell you that they have the right way of going about it (because if they didn’t then what reason would they give you for why you should buy their book or take their class?) If you’re an eager newbie who’s looking for handed-down wisdom, it’s easy to get hung up on that and figure that if the espoused technique or set of rules or handy checklist doesn’t work for you, there must be something wrong with you. I’ve seen people get stuck on this kind of thing — not necessarily garbage, but some approach or technique or list of rules which works wonderfully for some people but not for everyone.
Angie
I like your crochet analogy.
I also learned how to crochet from my Mom. She showed me how to make loops and chains and the most basic stitches and tried to get me to make potholders, which were then thought of as a suitable beginners’ project. The only problem was that I didn’t have the least bit of interest in potholders – which nine-year-old would? Eventually, I figured out that I could also make doll clothes and that doll clothes were a lot more fun and useful (to my nine-year-old mind at least) than potholders. I made a lot of doll clothes over the next years and I rarely used patterns, I just measured straight from the doll.
When I was a few years older, I taught myself how to follow patterns, because I wanted to make some of the crochet animals and doilies I’d seen a craft mags. I was shooting past my Mom’s level of crochet knowledge by that time, because she wasn’t good at anything but the most basic patterns. Once I’d figured out how the combinations and patterns worked, I started making my own projects again, using what I’d learned. Nowadays, I no longer need a pattern, unless I see one I really like, and design my own projects. Like you, I was also surprised that most crocheters never manage the final step of creating their own patterns.
As for writing, I started as a teenagers with very little knowledge of anything beyond grammar and spelling rules and some very basic knowledge about different POVs I’d picked up at school. I attended a few creative writing workshops at college. The workshops helped a lot and luckily, we had a teacher who taught us about styles and rules without getting prescriptive about it. One of the sample texts he brought in (an excerpt from a Booker Prize winning novel no less) was highly ungrammatical, because the first person narrator was nigh illiterate.
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Like you, I was also surprised that most crocheters never manage the final step of creating their own patterns.
I still find it kind of boggling. [nod] I mean, I can see having a problem with making up your own knitting patterns, where you have to think a row at a time; knitting design is significantly more complex than crochet design. With crochet, though, you only have to think one stitch at a time, and you can put that stitch pretty much wherever you want. And if something doesn’t work out, pulling out however much is easy; you don’t have to worry about dropped and laddered stitches, as with knitting, or make sure you get every loop back on the needle with the correct twist, as with knitting. It’s just orders of magnitude easier.
The only thing I can think of is that some people, if they’ve learned The Right Way and all the rules and how to follow step-by-step directions right from the start, can’t make that extra step to freestyling, for whatever reason.
I worked in a fabric story twenty-some years ago and I ran into the same thing there. This one woman once decided not to buy a pattern because it called for regular lace and she wanted eyelet. I suggested she just use the eyelet, and she looked at me as though I were crazed. Same thing with another woman who decided not to buy a skirt pattern because she wanted one a couple of inches shorter. I suggested she just hem it a couple of inches shorter, and got the “Are you insane?” look again. [bemused smile] Detailed instructions can certainly be useful, but being a slave to them is just sad.
One of the sample texts he brought in (an excerpt from a Booker Prize winning novel no less) was highly ungrammatical, because the first person narrator was nigh illiterate.
Which is perfectly valid, of course, but I’ve run into English teachers who’d have given a student who turned in such a story a very low grade. :/ I really wish people who don’t know anything about fiction writing would stop trying to teach it.
Angie