Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 102

Art is Artifice, Part Two

Continuing our discussion about the difference between publishable and unpublishable:
I said last week that real = unpublishable, and artifical = publishable. Let me qualify that a bit.
“Artificial,” in the sense I intend it, does not mean fake, phony, made up. It means crafted with deliberate artistic intent.
“Artificial” means employing artifice to achieve the expression of
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The Editor’s Editor

When I was a futzing wannabe actor back in the…gulp…late 1980s, I spent a summer at Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts.
Not only did I meet my wife there, I was smitten by the presence of another figure. One of the actresses on the main stage (I was strictly apprentice showcase material and free “strike the
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Art is Artifice

We’ve been talking for the past couple of weeks about making the leap from unpublishable to publishable. [More on "the Foolscap Method" in another week or so.] Some factors we’ve cited are artistic distance, thematic organization, the process of evolution from amateur to professional. Today let’s address the difference between real and artificial.
In a nutshell:
Real
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Avoiding the Black Knight

Was it one if by land, two if by sea, or two if by land and one if by sea?
The sexton of Boston’s North Church paces the 1775-era floor, trying to remember Paul Revere’s instructions, to alert the colonists of British movements.
Now which one was it?
A few days before, Paul Revere sent advance word, letting
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The Foolscap Method

On the theme of progressing from unpublishable to publishable (and taking off from Shawn’s Friday post, The Itch), I offer herewith a few words on a technique I call “the Foolscap Method.”
The Foolscap Method is a way to get a big project started—a novel, a Ph.D. dissertation, a new business. It’s a trick, but a
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The Itch

You’ve been thinking about writing a long form Story (novel, narrative nonfiction, essay) for as long as you can remember. You have this very specific and fascinating lead character in mind and you’ve been spinning ideas about his story driving in your car, riding the subway, even while having your teeth cleaned.  One day (for
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How Hard is it to Turn Pro?

How hard is it to stop drinking? How hard is it to overcome an addiction? How hard is it to break free of a toxic relationship, a twisted family dynamic, a destructive marriage?
How hard is it to make those changes permanent?
When we talk about the switch from the mindset of the amateur to the mindset
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Sounding It Out

Mickey listens to her father’s comments about the high school ball player, then goes to the fence for a closer look. She returns to tell Gus, her father, that he was right. The young player’s “hand’s drift.”
“How did you know that if you can’t see him?” she asks Gus, whose failing vision is as clear
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Artistic Distance

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a book publishable. A friend once described me, during my years in the wilderness, as “the man who has written more words for less money” than anybody he knew. I know I’m not the only one about whom such an observation has been made.
Why was that
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Narrative Drive

Above all else, writers want to be read.
Editors and publishers, and especially readers, require just one quality in a writer’s work to make this dream come true. When a work has Narrative Drive, clichés like “I couldn’t stop turning the pages” and “it reads like a bat out of Hell” come out of the mouths
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