The Marriage of Art and Craft

I come from a traditional art formation. From ages fourteen to eighteen, I studied in the afternoons under a renowned painter in my country. We focused on watercolors and pastels, and did collective exhibits at the end of every school year. My earliest mentor was ruthless about color and proportion. Any mistake in our rosa cromática meant we had to repeat the entire project and no matter how much my girlfriend and I begged, we couldn’t advance to color pastels or watercolors (much less the human body) until our still-life charcoal drawings and color combinations were flawless. The word “repita” (repeat) became his trademark.

An early painting by Cesar Tacco. With the years, he became more impatient and would take painting “field trips,” where he would do a series of quick landscapes in watercolors (without preliminary drawings).
“Watercolors are demonic,” he used to say.

From my maestro I learned that mastering technique is fundamental for every artist. He believed that without drawing or color foundations, a painter could not excel in his craft, even if he would end up becoming an expressionist or abstract artist—the case of my late uncle, Ramiro Jácome, who studied classic art and slowly developed his style, known as “feismo.”

My uncle once told me that an artist never stops learning. (Photograph by Carsten Behler)

When I moved to the US to go to college, I entered the School of Fine Arts, but things were quite different here. The focus of most art classes was self-expression—even in the lower level courses. One of my instructors told me that the only way to produce art was if you had something to say. Otherwise, it was an illustration—a profane word that silenced the entire classroom and left the student-in-question red with shame. There was not a lot my eighteen-year-old self had to say about the world other than shyly pointing out to a couple of my peers that their drawings were disproportionate or too much water was making their acrylic paintings look muddy. 

Part of the evolution of an artist is to find his own style. In editorial illustration, the goal is to make quick and simple drawings to catch the reader’s eye (people don’t spend a lot of time looking at newspapers illustrations.) To me, this has been one of the hardest challenges as an artist. During the brief period I worked at the Illustration Department of this newspaper, my boss used to say that in order to reduce a drawing to its simplest form or “deconstruct” it, you had to be a proficient draftsman. (In Spanish the abstraction/simplification of a figurative drawing is called “desdibujo.” It is the aim of many editorial illustrators to achieve this.)

An editorial illustration by Pancho Cajas.

I believe that novel writing is not that different from painting, except that in the visual arts, an (accidental) mistake is a lot more obvious than in the written word. I didn’t always believe this. When I turned to writing fiction, I thought that because I was literate and had good ideas, I could publish a novel. With time and many bumps along the road, I came to realize that craft is just as important as ideas, enthusiasm and dare I say, talent. But like with painters, there seems to be a prejudice among writers that too much technique equals less art. They don’t realize that technique is just a tool to help them express their ideas better.

Let’s take a look at what Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa says on this issue:

“The mysterious thing we call talent, or genius, does not spring to life full-fledged—at least not in novelists, although it may sometimes in poets and musicians (the classic examples being Rimbaud and Mozart, of course). Instead it becomes apparent at the end of many long years of discipline and perseverance. There are no novel-writing prodigies. All the greatest, most revered novelists were first apprentice writers whose budding talent required early application and conviction.”

(Letters to a Young Novelist, p.13)

Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa poses in front of a "desdibujo" of him.

Part of the problem is impatience. We don’t want to waste time reading books about the seven basic plots, the hero’s journey, or a long list of rules (~shivers!~). We just want to write! After all, literature is not math, right? It’s not a matter of equations and formulas.

True, writing is not a science, but there is a method to storytelling nonetheless, a plot structure and archetypes which have worked for centuries. Wouldn’t the aspiring writer benefit by knowing why this is? (This is not to say that more experimental works of fiction won’t work, but like in painting, a strong foundation will give the writer the training and experience to be able to evolve in whichever way he chooses and find that coveted “voice.”)

If we want to be published we must come to terms with the fact that literature is not just an art form, it’s also a business (which equals appealing to a large group of people and yes, turning our thoughts and words into a commercial product). Like many art students I encountered during my college years, many writers seem to believe that novel writing should be unrestricted and inspired by an intangible source. One of my dearest friends and colleagues equates writing with having sex. She says too much explanation and instruction can “kill the mood.” I agree that spontaneity plays an important role in writing (there’s an undeniable magic to storytelling that is what makes it so enthralling—and addictive—to both writer and audience.) But I also think that, like in any other art form, we must learn how to use our tools and look at the masters (and our peers) to better understand what resonates and what doesn’t. This may mean having to put up with “how-to-manuals” and “rules” (all blasphemous words in the writer’s lexicon). Even if you think you’ve learned everything there is to know, there may still be something new, a bit of undiscovered information that may come to you in your hour of need (or insomnia) and spark an Aha moment that may just bring a solution to your story’s dilemma.

Yes, writers of the world, art and craft can work together! The left and right sides of your brain are not sworn enemies, and information (even if it’s not applicable to every case, or even if you disagree) won’t necessarily block you or take away from your creativity—but it will make your writing decisions informed ones so you can create your own desdibujo. It’s not about NOT breaking the rules, it’s about knowing them before you break them and doing so with a purpose. Like my husband says: "You can't think outside the box if you don't know where the box is."

For more about my art mentors:

Articles about Cesar Tacco (in Spanish):

La acuarela es demoníaca 

La muerte visitó al pintor ecuatoriano Cesar Tacco a los 86 años

Cesar Tacco dejó un legado de amor

On both Cesar Tacco and Ramiro Jácome:
Pequeña Antología de Quito en el Siglo XX

Articles about Ramiro Jácome (in English):
Short Biography
Ecuador Cultural Essentials The Arts

Samples of Ramiro’s artwork

Comprehensive analysis of Ramiro's art (in Spanish):

Ramiro Jácome o la honestidad creadora

Pancho Cajas caricatures:

http://panchocajascaricaturas.blogspot.com

Coming soon...to a blog near you

The Divine Secrets of the Writing Sisterhood Blog is happy to announce a double incoming surprise to take place very soon. Always looking forward to assist our faithful fandom (and to hook fresh followers as well!) we have prepared new and thrilling changes. What are those? You can’t even imagine! Stay tuned and in a little while your patience shall be rewarded.

To be continued…

The Sisterhood

Nothing New under the Sun: Plagiarism, Literary Cloning or Inmortal Formulas?

Whether it deals with vampires, conspiracy tales, or the old-as-ages Macguffin, formula plots sell and are here to stay. Most bestselling books, films and even television series will elicit replicas in the never-ending search for sales and ratings. But do literary formulas grow old? When do they become immortal archetypes, and why some bestselling ideas never bring forth clonification?

There is nothing wrong about formula. Just call it “genre” and make it respectable. Without formula we wouldn´t have great detective mysteries, great love stories or complex genres like science fiction or fantasy. Details vary, but you always have the same ingredients. The art consist in combining the basics, and reaching out to an audience hungry for a story similar to the one that just captured its imagination.

Recently, I read that part of Boardwalk Empire´s appeal lies in that it attracts The Sopranos’ large fandom. All the producers had to do was take elements that had turned The Sopranos into a hot series and reset them into another milieu: Atlantic City in the Twenties. But not all winning formulas are ripe for imitation.

                  Boardwalk Empire o What if Tony Soprano had lived through The Prohibition?                          

Few television series have merited the accolades that befall on Mad Men, and yet one would expect a thread of series cloning that bitter view of Madison Avenue in the 60’s. Recently there were two attempts (PanAm and The Playboy Club) to recycle that nostalgic fad. Both have poor ratings, showing that mediocre reproduction does little honor to the real McCoy.

                                          The Real Mad Men: Beware of cheap imitations

But the search for novelty is becoming exhausting and futile. The Biblical proverb “there is nothing new under the sun” applies even to literature. Most fiction is, to some extent, formulaic. It’s why many of us have turned to fantasy, the last refuge of originality. However, even in Fantasyland you will run into the “copycat syndrome.”

We live in the Era of Fangs. A plethora of vampires lurks on our TV screen, in Hollywood blockbusters and hide between the pages of bestselling novels. All over the world, writing about vampires has become a lucrative business. As long as readers remain mystified by bloodsucking protagonists, the vampire formula will live on.  Universal folklore has plenty to offer in vampire habits and etiquette, so variations on the subject are inexhaustible. It´s why Count Dracula, The Cullen Family and Sookie Stackhouse’s paramours are so different, sharing only a thirst for human plasma.

   
                                    Eric and Sookie, a far cry from Dracula and Minna Harker.

The problem is that several of the current vampire yarns are too similar for comfort. Sometimes they are nothing but duplications of a successful novel, and publishers aid in the plagiarism scheme by even using the same marketing techniques. A good example is Claudia Gray’s Evernight. Its cover is a blatant New Moon's take off.

Some of us who do not care to read or write about vampires (werewolves are my game) just hope and wait for the craze to go away, because formula is not forever. The best plots have their day of reckoning.  There is an unwritten law that popular books (as well as film and miniseries) will spawn clones, but the formula can be done to death.

After J.K. Rowlings struck gold with Harry Potter, cutesy teen witches and wizards flooded the literary market. A plot centering on a brooding maladjusted adolescent that found her/his secret powers at boarding school was tried and tried all over again, until it ran its living time. Now, no respectable agent would touch a manuscript that deals with such a tedious, predictable and overly-tried subject.

Not all fantastic elements have expiration dates. The quest for a particular object, otherwise known as Macguffin (according to the late Alfred Hitchcock), has been around since the Holy Grail, and you may find it in all genres not only fantasy. Historical fiction, thrillers, adventure and detective stories twirl around various documents, parchments, utensils, gems and even statues, think of The Maltese Falcon. Although agents may clench their teeth at reading another tale of a magical object that needs to be found in order to save the world, the Macguffin has become an immortal archetype.

We tend to associate the fad of conspiracy tales with the publication of The Da Vinci Code. But secret societies, mysterious agendas and Templar mysteries have been around since Sir Walter Scott. A serious writer like Umberto Eco made a name for himself mixing all those elements that have made Dan Brown rich and infamous. But since Eco was considered a “high literature” master, nobody would dare accuse him of being formulaic or using worn out literary premises.

In truth, those premises are not really worn out; you may still refresh and refine them. Sadly not all writers do it. It´s much more comfortable to rewrite the same formula with just the necessary variations to prevent plagiarism. The main problem of this semi-plagiaristic craze is that it encourages sloppy style, mediocre storylines and cardboard characters.  That is why “formula” has become a bad word in the writing community.

The industry’s lame excuse is to cry out “the public demands it!” But we readers are the first to notice when our favorite themes are cloned mercilessly. For fifteen years, I was a bodice-ripper addict. I read and collected the best of the genre, eschewing dull imitations. Eventually it came to my attention that even some of my favorite authors were displaying signs of writing fatigue.

By the time I grew out of my obsession with the genre I was conscious that Rosemary Rogers’ heroes were all mean, chauvinistic pigs and her heroines were a bunch of promiscuous losers. With Beatrice Small, the boredom arrived when I found myself reading the same bedroom scene sequel after sequel.

Have you gone through a similar experience? As a reader,  how can you tell when even your favorite formula is growing stale? And as a writer, how do you battle the need to be innovative while trying to pay homage to that novel you so much love? After all, imitation is a form of love.