How to Become a Writer

“Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age—say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire.”

These lines further the hyperbole of the first line. As the first paragraph continues, the intellectual suffering described plays with the stereotype of the teenage writer drawn to haikus, writing about desire. There is also a mix of high and low diction creating texture in the prose with the juxtaposition of the informal, “say, fourteen,” with the more academic, “critical disillusionment. This creates humor and points to the difference between the teenager and their aspirations.”

“Write a short story about an elderly man and woman who accidentally shoot each other in the head, the result of an inexplicable malfunction of a shotgun which appears mysteriously in their living room one night.”

Francie’s notoriously bad plot devices serve a dual purpose in this story. “How to Become a Writer” is void of plot beyond Francie’s (and the inferred reader’s) desire to become a writer, so it is implied that Francie—as the older seasoned narrator—now understands that intricate bombastic plots are unnecessary. The violent demise of couples in Francie’s stories can also be seen as symbols representing the doomed fate of the romantic relationship.

“In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life.”

Francie’s perspective of intelligence and intellectual vigor is touched upon throughout the story. This character is curious, enjoys learning, and is interested in academic and intellectual pursuits but she is also not an intellectual outlier; she is neither the smartest nor the dumbest. Categorizing people in this way shows how she interacts with and experiences others primarily on an intellectual level, rather than an emotional one and the ironic use of “unfortunately” demonstrates that this does make her feel rather unusual.

“Switch majors. The kids in your nursery project will be disappointed, but you have a calling, an urge, a delusion, an unfortunate habit. You have, as your mother would say, fallen in with a bad crowd.”

This series of metaphors describing the act of writing fiction directly relates to the story themes of Identity Through Purpose and Pain and Suffering for Art. Using repetition, evolving each metaphor enough to add new meaning to the idea of writing as a sickness and failing, as if it were a drug or—as described by the analogy of the “bad crowd”—possibly even a criminal entity. The humor lies in the hyperbolic association of writing with a substance addiction.

“Why write? Where does writing come from? These are the questions to ask yourself. They are like: Where does dust come from? Or: Why is there war? Or: If there’s a God, then why is my brother now a cripple?”

These rhetorical questions that Francie, and all writers, ask themselves, give further strength to the implication throughout the story that there is no point in asking why one writes. Like these other complex topics of dust, war, and Francie’s brother’s Vietnam injury, there are no real answers. It is also another example of the author using hyperbole to explain the writing process in comparing it to something as small and insignificant as a grain of dust, while at the same time comparing it to the extremities of war.

“The seminar doesn’t like this one either. You suspect they are beginning to feel sorry for you. They say: ‘You have to think about what is happening. Where is the story here?’”

Undergraduate and graduate writing programs and workshops are notorious for comments like these. Throughout “How to Become a Writer,” there are numerous examples presenting stereotypes of academic writers’ workshops and their participants’ comments. When Francie is given this writing advice, she does not listen, instead she writes increasingly ridiculous plots.

“About the last you write nothing. There are no words for this. Your typewriter hums. You can find no words.”

Francie cannot explain or speak about her brother’s injury, and the hum of the typewriter speaks for her, acting as both a symbol for her lack of words as well as sound imagery, as the typewriter’s sound fills the room rather than the clicking of keys when she is able to write.

“Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them.”

This flash forward in metaphor gives further evidence that most writers—from the narrator’s perspective at least—are not the deeply wise people many think they are, but like Francie stumbling upon that creative writing class, they lack self-understanding. This exposes the paradox that a writer is both an authority on themselves and relies on their audience to give their writing purpose and life. As a result, they must partly defer to (“half-belief”) others’ opinions.

“Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or if there even is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, they can make you thin.”

Using humor and continuing to use the language style of the self-help genre, Moore plays with the stereotype of writers not actually writing, but pondering what it is to write. The mention of sit-ups alludes to a different form of self-doubt experienced by young women. This comparison breaks expectations: it could be expected to read “unlike sit-ups, they can’t make you thin.” This reversal creates a metaphor comparing physical thinness and emotional thinness, or anxiety.

“Perhaps you are losing your pals, your acquaintances, your balance.”

As Francie continues to devote herself to her writing, her relationships suffer, referring back to the theme of the Pain and Suffering of the Artist. The repetition of “your” in the last sentence, followed by words of different syllables, pals (1), acquaintances (4) and balance (2), provides a rhetorical rule-of three rhythm characteristic of humorous writing. This is also an example of syllepsis, where humor is created by combining words which are conceptually different within the same grammatical structure; the odd-one-one-out is placed at the end in order to create a surprise.

“You now go out with men who, instead of whispering, ‘I love you,’ shout: ‘Do it to me, baby.’ This is good for your writing.”

The text relies on the conceit that Francie’s writing makes her bad at relationships. The text suggests that as long as she is writing, she will never be able to obtain the type of man who will truly love her, only ones who want her for sex. Men, in Francie’s eyes, are separated into two groups, the good boyfriend trope, the one who whispers lovingly, and the bad boyfriend trope, who shouts at her during sex. The “bad” type, in this stereotype, will provide material for her writing by creating emotional complication and pain.

“Quit classes. Quit jobs. Cash in old savings bonds. Now you have time like warts on your hands. Slowly copy all of your friends’ addresses into a new address book.”

The narrator tells Francie to devote herself wholly to writing, and then, once she has done that, there is too much time, so much that it becomes a negative thing. The expanse of time leads to procrastination. The simile comparing time to warts on one’s hand again plays with the misconception of the exciting writer’s life. Instead, it is seen here as a burden: ugly and hard to escape.

“Occasionally a date with a face blank as a sheet of paper asks you whether writers often become discouraged. Say that sometimes they do and sometimes they do. Say it’s a lot like having polio.”

The narrator uses this simile structure with the word “blank” to describe the faces of different characters throughout the story, starting in the very first paragraph. This is the last instance, when the image coalesces with its referent, the bank page (see Images).