Schenectady Synecdoche

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August 22, 2005

About writing a writers' handbook

One of the hardest things about writing a writers' handbook is stifling the urge to make everything new. However much comp teachers may complain about writers' handbooks being "all the same," the fact is that one that was totally different would not sell, because teachers would have to work too hard to learn how it works. And a book that does not sell is a book that has failed to change the world or at least encourage good pedagogy. So the challenge is to write a handbook that looks and works like all the other handbooks but has fresh material within the received structure.

So. I've been working on this handbook off and on (in between surgeries, deaths in the family, and a car wreck) for five years, and now the thing is actually moving toward production. And as I polish off the few remaining undrafted chapters, I have to remember that it's not only okay to work within the received structures; it's necessary to do so. What I've done on too many chapters is to completely reinvent the genre, which takes a looong time to draft—compounded by the fact that (as I've observed here before) nobody can possibly be expert in all the material covered in a contemporary, which means there's also a steep learning curve for some of these chapters before they can be drafted. And what makes it even worse is that after I've completely reinvented the genre, my editors and I then have to reformulate the chapter so that it isn't a new genre.

If this isn't making a whole lot of sense, it's because I'm dog tired. I went to our welcome-the-new-grad-students symposium today, which was quite stimulating, but by the end of the morning my eyes were watering because I was yawning so hard. Sleep. I need sleeeeep.

Posted by senioritis at August 22, 2005 10:14 PM

Comments

Posted by: dr. b. at August 23, 2005 01:20 AM