This post is part of Art & Craft, my series that reviews books about writing books.
Replete with examples and exercises, the legendary Le Guin’s craft book might be the right resource to lead your classroom course or intensive writing workshop. Steering the Craft is a technical, tactical guide which encourages concentration on individual aspects of writing and storytelling. But that concentration does not need to be silent or solitary. In her book, Ursula encourages us to concentrate in community, as she offers her suggestions for how to share and receive one another's works in progress.
I like to think she would have fit in with the Archetypist crew.
Why I chose this book
This title was a reader suggestion (thanks, Kris)! I have been gratefully turned toward more titles written by accomplished authors. I think authors are more likely to linger on punctuation, diction, and the other wonderful minutiae of the craft. I’ve noticed they delve deeper into technique and execution, whereas industry professionals might focus more on character and concept in their craft books.
I was very enthused to pick up this book, because Le Guin is a master at stirring my sense of purpose and inspiration, particularly in her non-fiction and essays. Allow me to show instead of tell with this excerpt:
Once we’re keenly and clearly aware of these elements of our craft… they have become skills… Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art.
There’s luck in art. And there’s the gift. You can’t earn that. But you can learn skill, you can earn it. You can learn to deserve your gift…
To make something well is to give yourself to it, to seek wholeness, to follow spirit. To learn to make something well can take your whole life. It’s worth it.” [introduction]
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
The highlights
Each chapter of Steering the Craft covers an aspect of writing or storytelling, includes multiple examples from classic (literary) works, and offers one or two exercises for you to apply the ideas on your own or in a group, then suggestions for how to share results with your peers. To me, this is an excellent approach, because you can follow the book in its entirety, or, if you realize you need to hone a specific area, explore that particular chapter thoroughly.
I most appreciated her insights in the sections on person and tense, as well as choosing a point of view—which feel like related aspects of the story, creative decisions which will heavily influence each other. These are also the most robust chapters with clear examples, and Le Guin shares how to avoid shifting the perspective (or how to do so with intentionality).
For you worldbuilders
The chapter “Indirect Narration, Or What Tells” offers some interesting insight on exposition, which, as she mentions, is particularly relevant to SFF writers.
“This is a skill science fiction and fantasy writers are keenly aware of, because they often have a great deal of information to convey that the reader has no way of knowing unless told… The world of the story must be created and explained in the story. This is part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making.” [Pages 95-96]
There are several references like this throughout the book, which make Steering the Craft at least genre-friendly, if not genre-relevant.
But is your story… a story?
I was intrigued by Ursula’s commentary on the “template plot” approach to writing, especially since Steering the Craft came out in ‘98, about seven years before Blake Snyder saved all his cats: “There are a limited number of plots (some say seven, some say twelve, some say thirty). There is no limit to the number of stories.” [Page 95]
But she takes us a step further in the chapter “Crowding and Leaping,” giving us permission to explore themes and ideas outside what we might think we “ought to be” writing.
Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options… Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing. [Page 123]
The chapter goes on to explore theme, trajectory, and other aspects which define the story outside of a hooky plot. I love her observations and their implication that SFF is (or can be) literary. I’ve noticed a trend in feedback on new authors’ work, an assumption that SF should be quickly paced, with dramatic set pieces and a climactic ending to create mainstream appeal.
Which is cool. If that’s what you want to write. And the plot template approach can show you the way.
But it’s not the only way.
The cringe
I have a single, but significant, gripe.
Silence: Humility or Humiliating?
In the last section, Le Guin suggests how to review your work with a group of your peers, where she introduces The Rule of Silence.
“Before and during the entire session, the author of the story under discussion is silent… The Rule of Silence seems arbitrary. It isn’t. It is an essential, sometimes I think the essential, element of the process. It’s almost impossible for an author whose work is being criticized not to be on the defensive, eager to explain, answer, point out—“Oh, but see, what I meant was . . .”; “Oh, I was going to do that in the next draft.” [Page 134]
This principle is at the heart of what is known as the Milford model in critique groups, the approach taken by Clarion and other prestigious workshops. This is not just Ursula's opinion. To many people this is the industry standard. To use Milford is to conduct yourself professionally.
SL Huang has written a much more informed article as to how this critique model achieved this standard and its effect on the writing community. I’ve had a personal experience with this method, a small example of how it may be poorly serving our community and our art.
We used a similar model when I started a critique group in college, with some applied reason. The author could answer questions if asked, and was allowed to speak up to say things like, “I’m not looking for further feedback on this area… Hey, the last person already spoke extensively about that detail, can we move on?”
Years later, when I returned to writing as a real adult loose in the terrifying world, I joined a local SFF critique group. When it was my turn to be critiqued, multiple reviewers wasted their feedback time debating about whether my story referenced a real or invented cocktail.
I was frustrated that I wasn’t receiving much actual feedback on my story. Finally, one critic seemed to be asking me directly to settle the debate. When I started to respond the group organizer exploded at me, screaming that I was not allowed to speak.
No one intervened, perhaps because he had the power of The Industry Standard behind him. The rest of the review felt like public shaming as I sat, nearly tearful, while everyone finished their comments. Many were repetitive. Few were insightful. Most still mentioned the drink.
(It was a real cocktail. Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean I made it up.)
While I’m sure this model could be valuable to some groups of peers with established trust, it’s a potentially disastrous standard of operating in any other context. Even for my college group, many people never came back after their first critique. We wrote them off as egotistical, but if there was someone who felt unwelcome we'll never know. Meanwhile, Le Guin gives no space for authors who might need to say “This isn’t helpful,” or even, “This is hurtful.” Instead, she tells us, “If you truly can’t endure the Rule of Silence, probably you don’t really want to know how other people respond to your work. You choose to be the first and last judge of it. In this case, you won’t fit happily in a group.” [Page 135]
Perhaps she is right. I would hate to fit happily amid toxic assholes.
Star-ratings
How useful is this craft book?
3 out of 3 stars - ★★★
How humble is this craft book?
3 out of 3 stars - ★★★
How concise is this craft book?
3 out of 3 stars - ★★★
In closing, I’d like everyone to know that Ursula has been calling us out: “People who use [the adjective or qualifier fucking] constantly in speaking and electronic messaging may not realize that in writing fiction it’s about as useful as umm.” [Page 44]