The Empty Page

An encouragement to write

It's no secret that most writers who wish to get into the field find themselves stymied by the initial "blank page," that daunting, seemingly impossible hurdle to overcome. So difficult is it that even writing coaches fail to properly address the subject, urging writers to investigate adjacent precepts like inventing a plot first, or looking over characterisations in deconstructed point form... and as ever the mainstay, "worldbuilding." These have their uses, and there will always be those who carry banners that reproach others for not taking these tactics, but in all truth, these things do not address those first unimagined words that must be applied to the intimidating, empty void.

The intent is to write a story — yet the word is so lacking in specificity that it leads us down a rabbit hole of "what kind of story" and "what is the story trying to say." This puts stress on form, and soon enough in the hopes that we'll invent something, we drift into separating stories into classes and categories like a biologist, imagining that once we can fix in our head the genus and species of the story we want to write, we can pin it like a beetle to a wax board. Then, perhaps, we might pull up a microscope and parse out the thing in perfect detail, with this, presumably, telling us what the first sentence ought to be, as something that miraculously becomes self-evident.

Yet we tell stories every day and never pause to think what the first sentence ought to be. "My boss asked me to come in on Saturday and I didn't want to, but then he explained that they were letting five people go this month, and that those names haven't been decided yet. I didn't like it but I had to say yes, didn't I? What a bastard. I'm not looking forward to going in, but I guess at least..." and so on.

This demonstrates that it isn't the first sentence we care about, but the importance of the sentence — it's perceived value to the reader. Yet we tell the story about our boss because we care what we're saying; and we perceive our friend cares about our experience; and it becomes quickly evident that we'd like to know, "at least what?" And that we're immediately filling in possibilities there that might fit the circumstances.

Long before we tell the story to our friend about our boss, or any story we tell, we dwell upon the story first. Our intent to tell our friend occurs ages before the telling... and admittedly, after the telling, we never feel it's landed as well as it ought. Our friend inevitably shows interest, but such tales are plainly not the scale that we're attempt to achieve when facing a blank page. Therefore, amidst the general ennui we receive from talking about ourselves, and the self-evident immateriality of these kind of stories, we assume this is not our path to "great writing." This latter must, therefore, have nothing to do with the stories we tell day-to-day. It must be some entirely other kind of beetle.

This is a trap. Stories are not made more relevant because they are, in themselves, more important. Nor are they more important because they're about something real, momentous or profound. Stories are important because of how we craft them. The above story about the boss may be insipid when it is between us and our friend, but it does not need to be when it arises between two completely fictional beings, whose existence we direct with omnipotence. We can do whatever we want with these two beings... and yet this, more than anything said so far, is the arresting, calcifying terror the white page represents. We do not feel like gods, and being told that this is what we are, terrifies the bejeezus out of us.

The page frightens not because of what it demands of us — the need to fill it with a worthy story — but of what it says about us. "You're a god, and you wrote this? Of all the things you could have written?" We cannot bear that judgment. Thus we turn to paths that others have already set in stone because it gives an answer to that question. "I wrote this because others did it, so it must have been worthy." It is a sad commentary upon us that we think this answer ought to satisfy anyone.

We get up in the morning and what we feel no need to defend what we have for breakfast, or if we have anything at all. It is our body, we'll fill it with what we will. We marry and we stand up before others and say, "I choose this person," presumably with the understanding that it is our choice, our judgment that matters. We perform a hundred actions a day that speak about who we are and what we like, and not only do we not take into account other people in this, we would be infuriated if others chose to weigh in. So why it is that this action, this process of writing, is treated so differently from anything else we might do, including decisions we make that won't just affect the rest of our lives, but the lives of our offspring for uncounted generations after us. Why, of all the god-like things we can do, does this god-like thing bring a fear of judgment?

There is an oft-expressed sentiment that intends to get us past this block: "Just Write." It is spoken like a mantra, like a religious doctrine that those in the know eventually achieve, like being permitted to step behind the sacred curtain. But writing is not a matter of belief. It is a structured, expertise-driven field. We cannot say to a nervous apprentice whose here to help us build a house, "Just Frame." That would be ridiculous. The newcomer must be shown, must be set to a specific task, must be watched and observed and trained upon task after task, until it can be done competently and with repose — and especially to the point where the now-expert can teach the next worker to frame. We can't bypass this practice in writing by waving a hand and spewing jargon, supposing that we have nothing concrete to say about managing the most basically simple task imaginable: write a first sentence.

We must read because writing it a task that's done alone. Every word we put before our eyes is a clue to how we put words together. Stand in a library and open book after book to see the first sentence in each, without reading farther, and we experience a strange transformation. At first, we perceive some capture our attention; but close the book, do not pursue that. We're learning to frame here. Most of the books we open, the first sentence really means nothing. After twenty books, we're bored of this task — but it takes a lot of nails to frame a house, so keep at it. At a hundred books, we've fallen into a habit; none of the first sentences intrigue us. But keep going. At a thousand books, we begin to grasp: it's just a sentence. We look at the title, we see its some famous book, some book that's supposed to enlighten us to some magnificent degree... yet the first sentence is really nothing at all. Slowly, we begin to conceive... a story is not built of one sentence, one paragraph or one chapter. It is built of something entirely different.

We eat a sausage for breakfast because we care for sausage. We marry because we care about this other person. All the other things we do throughout our day, we do according to how much we care about those things, versus what's expected of us. But we write alone. We don't need to care about another soul other than ourselves. When we eat sausages, we don't need everyone else to. When we marry, we don't expect others to marry alike people. We're perfectly comfortable with being alone in what we care about. So let's be comfortable when, alone, we write. Let's not worry about the reader's perception of value. We don't expect to eat sausages or marry as a career. Let's not write as a career. If that happens, so be it... but it will happen because, first, we didn't fear this nonsensical bugbear that we and others have nonsensically created together. It's a sentence. Write it because you care about what this sentence says, for your reasons, to satisfy your needs, to make the story you want to see. Then enjoy making that story happen as a god would enjoy it. To hell with everyone else.