A Writing Tip by Shanti Chandrasekhar
CREATIVITY AND CRAFT: BALANCING THE DELICATE DANCE
Why do we write, really?
For almost all writers, the answer is because we have to, because we love words, sentences, language. Because when we don’t, we feel like we’re existing, not living.
Oh, that unmistakable pull of art!
That pull is what leads us to a first draft. You revel in putting one word after another, in the musicality of the sentences, in simply telling a story. The critic in you might point you in another direction or say it’s not in you to do this. You tell that voice to shut up and flash a smile at your muse. For now.
Eventually, when you find something isn’t working, you listen to the critic, and think about craft, about what you’ve learned in writing workshops, perhaps. I’ve always loved attending writing workshops and classes, and every time, I learn something.
More often than not, however, I find myself not following some rules — mainly, plot-related rules more applicable to genre fiction (the protagonist striving and failing to overcome obstacles, for example). Not that I deliberately ignore such rules. They don’t seem to fit into my stories, which deal with the main character’s internal conflict and emotions rather than external, plot-driven situations. Some of my stories could be deemed vignettes with lyrical prose, and some a hybrid of fiction and creative nonfiction. I can’t help but write what comes naturally to me. Perhaps it’s detrimental to getting my work published. But I know when I force plot-related craft elements, my work does not sound authentic. And if a story doesn’t sound authentic, what are the chances of getting it out in the world? A paradox, for sure.
About a decade ago, a mentor said to me, Never force your story to be what it’s not. Another instructor wrote an article about how focusing too much on craft kills creativity, and the summarized conclusion reminded us to not to try to do everything we’ve been taught. I felt like I’d slipped a sixty-pound backpack off my shoulders. In an online interview, a writer said, Write what you want to…create your own genre if it doesn’t exist. Encouraging pieces of advice for a writer like me.
Yet…
Writing what I love and how I want to write is all wonderful — so long as my story is coherent. That’s when craft commands its presence, like it or not.
I need an arc, a shift in the character’s perspective, an epiphany, if not a resolution. Without these, my story wouldn’t be a story. This is not something I need to consciously work on with short stories. But I struggle with flash fiction, sometimes ending the story without a proper arc, or worse, taking it beyond the ending. If I haven’t realized this and fixed it, an editor’s note praising the writing but rejecting the story wakes me up.
Like me, if you find yourself resisting the craft rules you’ve learned, write what you want, and trust the way it comes to you. Then revise it. Depending on what you write (literary fiction or a specific genre), how much you lean into your creative instincts versus craft rules might differ. Regardless, you merge the two, both aspects fitting together, each serving as a fulcrum, making it all balanced and beautiful. In the final draft, make sure of two important things: your story is a story, with a shift of some kind, and that it’s narrated in your unique, authentic writing voice. That would be a work of art.
Shanti Chandrasekhar is a Maryland-based writer whose words have appeared in The Sunlight Press, Bright Flash Literary Review, Literary Mama, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She has studied writing at Iowa State University, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Masters Review Workshop, AWP Writer-to-Writer Mentorship Program, and continues to learn. She strives to strike a balance between her old-fashioned, language-focused writing and the contemporary demands of storytelling.
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