Often, due to the peculiar interpretation of the features of their professional activities by writers, a lot of ridiculous, erroneous ideas about the essence of this type of creativity arise. In particular, one can easily hear from some representatives of the literary craft that writing books, they say, is a simple matter. It is enough, as they assure, to start writing and have only an idea of which direction the plot should develop in, and the rest is a matter of muses and inspiration. But is it really that simple?
Fortunately, in addition to the great number of selfish authors who seek not only to take the secrets of success that they managed to take to the grave, but also to lead astray the followers, there are those who share willingly the most important, basic principles of creating a complex art system, which is usually accepted distinguish as a work of art. Textbooks, books for their authorship, numerous articles and lessons can be easily found on the vast expanses of the Internet. However, those who dishonestly make money by deceiving novice authors by giving completely useless and often even harmful tips from the series "How to Write a Bestseller" still enjoy much greater popularity and respect. Everything from the fact that a person likes to be deceived, always seeks to circumvent difficulties and to find an easy and simple answer to a difficult question. So, for example, sometimes successful authors advise not to use specific rules when writing a book, but their feelings. It sometimes comes to the point that from the lips of a completely sane person who has sold more than one book, you can hear advice not to come up with a plan, not to write an annotation, not to try to formulate a backstory for each character, but just sit down to write, relying only on the power of your own imagination. Such an approach to creativity can be useful only to the counselor, but not to anyone who decides to use this advice, since this is the best way to kill the author in yourself and permanently block the road to the literary world.
The author’s work, as can be judged from the words, sayings and fragments of biographies of eminent writers, requires no less investment than any other activity, or rather even much more. For example, the notorious Stephen King wrote so many works before his creations began to be published, that there was no more space left for the leaflets with refusals that he hung on a nail. Naturally, for this it would not be enough to write several works and be upset, forever dropping his hands. The author himself indicates this case in his biography. But any novice writer should learn from this experience a lesson for himself. After all, even before Stephen King became famous for his creations, he managed to write as much as unscrupulous authors, sometimes blinded by the brilliance of random success, do not try. Of course, one can imagine that such a talented person is constantly in a state of inspiration. But such an assumption can only be made by someone who is not familiar with the conditions under which the mentioned author had to work at the very beginning of his career.
Therefore, it is necessary to know and understand how any work is arranged and what can be learned from this knowledge. And it’s not as difficult as it might seem.
The backbone of a work, as a rule, is always an idea. The idea, or message, which the author wants to convey to the reader, forms the plot, and the plot affects what the characters, characters should be. But for now let us dwell on the plot and leave the rest unattended, since from the explanation of all the subtleties of these concepts - ideas, plot and heroes - you can assemble a whole book. This is the complexity of the literary work, learning more and more, you immerse yourself in it, as if in a bottomless hollow, but still no one has been found who would get to the bottom.
And the plot characterizes - logic. As stated, everything is simple. But here is a question that will clarify the situation a bit: why is the linear plot so popular? Why do authors so often resort to this particular method of narration, despite the fact that there are good works that are remembered and highlighted precisely because of the extraordinary style expressed through the inconsistent opening of the work in an arbitrary, it seems, order? And all because the human consciousness is unable to perceive the world otherwise than through the establishment of cause and effect relationships. In fact, logic is preserved even in works with a non-linear plot, but it is not revealed immediately, and not in the usual way, but using a non-standard narrative. If we go further in our discussions, we can safely say that in any work, in any book, in any film, story, poem, there is its own logic, framework, on which the rest of the art project is built, no matter what sphere of creativity it belongs to.
Actually, this helps to determine the priorities for the novice author. Fortunately, logic is not that amorphous, formless inspirational pseudo-creative definition of talent that some writers hide behind when sincere followers try to find out their creative secrets. Logic is a well-defined, formulated subject, which makes it possible to study it and use it in work. This makes it possible to determine the most important component of a literary work from the standpoint of the author, namely, the idea. In other words, the promise. What the author is trying to convey to the reader. It is necessary to think carefully and formulate as accurately as possible what idea will be traced in each chapter from the beginning to the end of the work. Then you should choose the right plot, which will be most complete, accurate and, importantly, it is clear to reveal the author’s thought to the reader. This sounds like a selection of details, but if in this view the creative principle is also lost, then this is actually not the case, because everything is exactly the opposite. Indeed, before the author the task is to connect the details of the mechanism, only, but he has at his disposal an infinite number of both the parts themselves and the ways of their connection. It is only important to remember that in no case should the logical component be neglected.
From the first word to the very last sentence, the work must certainly be permeated with a specific meaning defined by the author, and must obey the goal set by him. And all the rest is creativity, because so much is left to the discretion of the author that you won’t go far on logic alone.
In the literature there are many rules that can, and sometimes must be broken, but you can never go against logic. After all, one can argue about whether a house should be made of brick, wood, stone, round, square, one-story or several floors, but it is impossible to agree with the statement that it is enough to randomly throw off the material in one place on which the building will be built by myself. Therefore, logic is the writer’s best friend.
