Have you ever started a book and the farther you read, the further you delved into a past version of yourself? Sometimes it happens between the pages of a novel; sometimes it happens in the fluid emotion of a poem or the intense illustrations of a comic or graphic novel.
We sometimes forget that there’s an author behind the work, evoking these memories and setting the tone that pulls us back, but these writers are hard at work behind the scenes. One such non-fiction writer, Kevin Smokler, was kind enough to join me to talk about his editing process.
Kevin Smokler (@weegee on Twitter) is the author of the new book Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies, which the Library Journal called “pure delight,” and the 2013 essay collection Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven’t Touched Since High School. His essays and cultural criticism have appeared in Salon, Buzzfeed, Vulture, Fast Company, and on NPR. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, cat, books, and vinyl records.
Q & A with Non-Fiction Writer Kevin Smokler
Kevin: I know grammar is important, but I need to save that energy for arguments over whether Andie should have ended up with Blaine or Duckie in “Pretty in Pink.”
Kris: Fair point. We’ll turn to other parts of the editing process then, because it’s so much more than subject-verb agreement and proper comma placement, isn’t it?
Your voice rings so true in your writing–sincere, personable, casual guy I want to grab a beer with and talk about old high school English class assignments and pop culture that inspired me. I don’t want to go into how a writer finds their voice or their tone for a project, but how do you edit to stay true to your voice? Do you have any tips or techniques for other writers?
In terms of how I do it, I think non-fiction gives you a natural advantage as a writer in that the subject does a fair amount the work in making the piece interesting, and my voice doesn’t have to march at the head of the parade the same way it has to in fiction. That said, even as someone who writes non-fiction books about culture, I had to learn to build first and paint second, i.e. say what’s on your mind in as basic and straightforward a way possible, even if you have to recite it out loud while nobody’s listening, and then, if the passage calls for it get fancy with a metaphor, a turn of phrase, or the right 50 cent word. Often it doesn’t, and straightforward and basic is exactly what that moment calls for.
I understand the idea of being true to yourself in your writing and that if you think and talk in dark passages and twisting corridors, why can’t you write like that? You can, but come to it from time and experience, from trying and failing and being edited and being told it doesn’t work and trying to write in super simple terms. Because I promise if you can write simple, you can write fancy. If you can’t write simple at all, it’s my experience you’re trying to keep yourself at arm’s length from what you’re writing about, which always reads worse than it should.
Kris: Speaking of time and experience, what do you wish a younger version of yourself knew about the process of editing a book or any other type of writing project or communication?
Kevin: That this is work, as in manual labor. Its crazy sexy fun, yes. If it wasn’t, no one would do it—and no one would want to be a writer if it wasn’t intensely erotic to say “I am a writer”—but that doesn’t mean that writing is romantic or sexy or fun. Often it’s pushing oak barrels up a hill over and over again, only the barrels are words. The hardest and best and most important part is getting over feeling self-important about it an just doing it.
Or as an old teacher of mine liked to say. “No such thing as writer’s block. Writer’s Block is the unwillingness to be bad.” Be bad, be awful, be wretchedly dreadful, shit-ass awful. Because you can always be better. But you can’t even get to awful if you don’t start.
Kris: When you’re editing your own books, do ever think about how you need to do justice to the other works you refer to–either the classic literature you discuss in Practical Classics or the 1980s films in Brat Pack America? How does that play a role in your final read-through?
Your obligation is to be fair and thorough but not worshipful. A book, a play, a song, a work of art that’s out in the world belongs to everyone, including you, and not just those who will say nice things about it.
Kris: What about the nice things in the creative process? Some writers’ favorite part is the research; others love the drafting and crafting; others love the later editing stages. What is your favorite part of writing a book and why?
Kevin: Jeez, that’s hard. I love research because that’s learning new stuff and what’s more fun than that? I like the middle and end parts of writing because that’s when the words and lines all start to sing in unison. The beginning, what Twyla Tharp calls, “the white room” still scares me. I usually have to say some version of “F-This” to the universe and then start babbling nonsense all over the page before I actually get anywhere.
Kris: I hold that babbling nonsense is often an essential part of the creative process! But when you’re working on those final stages of making “the words and lines singing in unison”—which I love—are there any words you know you overuse that you always pay special attention to?
Kevin: Too often, I’ll forget I used a phrase 15 pages ago and repeat myself 20 odd times, before I catch on that I am essentially writing the equivalent of a nervous tick.
Something I tell my students a lot: “The reader can always tell when you haven’t ‘gone there,’ when you haven’t gotten close to the emotional heart of what you are writing about and instead have used a lot of fancy language or worse, vague, bloodless language as a way of not really wrestling with what is at the dead center, the vibrating soul of your piece. And the moment the reader gets wind of you caring less than they do, it’s over. Pack up and go home. You’ve lost them.
Kevin: When you are ruthlessly honest with yourself and you can answer the question: Am I making this better or am I just making myself less anxious?
Kris: That’s such a great question to ask, because it’s so hard to walk away from a project sometimes. A writer can edit a project to death, nit-picking over details that delay the project’s birth into the world; of course, there’s always the opposite problem, of rushing the project to completion, not taking the time to edit something thoroughly first. It’s a delicate balance, a balance every creative has to establish for themselves.
Last question: when you’re tired of writing and proofreading and just want to pick up a great book, what’s your favorite local bookstore?
Kevin: The Booksmith in San Francisco.
Kris: Awesome. You’ve got to love a good indie bookstore.
Thank you so much, Kevin Smokler, for sharing your thoughts on your editing process, and happy writing everyone!
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