We recently connected with Darrell Brown and have shared our conversation below.
Darrell, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
At about the time as a writer that I had gathered a small but loyal audience and was receiving encouraging feedback and building toward a larger market, I had always written what I liked to read. I had moved past emulating other styles and had one that was my own that owed a lot to all that came before. People were noticing trends and tendencies, good and bad, that were signatures of my work, and I was trying hard to make the trademarks more distinctive and the negatives an aberration rather than a predictable byproduct. It was at this point that I began to think of the mass market and marketability by asking myself, “What do others like to read?”
Thus began the eternal struggle: maintaining a unique vision versus putting food on the table. And in retrospect, for a while, I began to cater more to external suggestions and the lure of pleasing the masses rather than staying the course and carving my own niche. If I had any advice for burgeoning writers with a goal of staying true to their vision, there will come a time when you may doubt your approach and become timid or weak as those around you offer what seems to be an easier and more lucrative pathway. If you are burning with the passion of writing your way, maintain that energy. Write what you want to write! It will be more sincere, internally rewarding and more powerful than writing to please others at 75% of your creative maximum.
There is a balance. You can’t go solo until you starve, but don’t sell out, either. Our creative, trailblazing approach is the biggest thing that separates us from the AI nightmare future. Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters may eventually reproduce Shakespeare, but don’t think you have to join the troop to contribute. Stick to your dream, even if it seems like the wild result of an alien abduction.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
It does not seem that long ago when I was kneeling in my backyard, observing one of nature’s critters and gathering information for my story, Rodney, the Ant, which I was confident would wow my elementary school peers. Three score books and many wrinkles later, I still have the same excitement when formulating a story.
I was always a verbal person, and thanks to my parents, siblings, and a phonetics-specialist grandmother, I read and wrote quite a bit early on. A guest came to my elementary school with the job description of storyteller, and he was so dreadfully mediocre that I said to myself, “Anybody could do better than that!” That sentiment also contained a corollary… “I can do better than that!” My oral skills were up to the task, but the writing still lagged. It took too much effort to put down on paper all of the nuances of oral storytelling on-the-fly. But all it took to turn proclamations into action was a positive comment by a grade-school teacher to an early story of mine. Teachers can make or break someone, and I hope they are collectively aware of the power of their criticism.
From there, everything became natural. Read what you like, practice through emulating, and discover what you excel at. Then, branch out and find a voice that is truly you. For me, I concentrated on a medium that most closely resembled storytelling in front of the campfire, the short story. Its compact form and the necessity of selecting the best words to illustrate the fast-moving narrative was both extremely appealing and daunting. Challenge accepted.
Gradually, I began entering contests with my output. Types varied from local, to themed, to regional, to restrictive, to national, and to uber-competitive… with many losses and a few wins, but all the while I was honing and refining. Above all, it was important to deliver some of the stories orally—a way to test their effect on the inner voice of the reader. I recently was embarrassed when I tried out a few on friends and found that I had fallen out of practice since the pandemic and it showed in the oral delivery and the story quality, as well.
I have produced many works that am proud of, and they greatly outnumber the swings for the fences that unceremoniously went foul. None are perfect, but in my head, I foolishly think that the next one may be. And after each one is done, I still push on to the mantra, “I can do better than that!”
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
The number one resource that I should have availed myself of early on is writers’ groups. The opportunity to bounce ideas and narrative off of likeminded individuals is invaluable. The ability to share with an audience a difficult passage or a new direction or just something that made you chuckle (and you are curious if others find it as such) is so wonderful. Your fellow writers, despite the different genres they are dabbling in or the varying motivations behind their efforts, provide moral support and lighten the solitary burdens of writing. Immediate feedback is satisfying and productive.
You have to remember that I hail from the pre-social media era. Nowadays there are many more places you can submit your story for criticism. However, some of these forums allow any sort of commentary from any and all takers, which can be brutal and pure self-flagellation. Writers’ groups, set up with proper and safe guidelines, are like a warm fuzzy in an otherwise cold winter. In a profession where you are judged by, “What have you done for me lately?” and you are often urged to “Write something exactly like your last book!” a circle of acquaintances with the goal of improving everyone’s writing and feel good while doing it, is a welcome resource.
Some of my best work ran though the polite grinder of group processing and emerged better for it. I am grateful for the experiences the groups have provided over the years and wish I had joined one when I was just starting out.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
If, as a writer, the role models include the classics, then when you emulate them, you are trying to shine with verbiage—dazzle the reader with intricate description and colorful metaphors. But not all of us can be Dickens starting out. Early on, I was burdened with feeling like every part of my story or novel had to be so detailed that there was no room for confusion for the reader. This sapped my energy because I would get excited to write the meat of the story or some sizzling banter between the characters, but by the time I set that up, I had wasted a lot of energy being meticulous with unnecessary information. It seems obvious to leave some things to the reader’s imagination, but whether through fear or the desire to cover all the bases, I never applied the obvious. It led me to begin focusing on plays and poetry, which eliminate a lot of extra baggage in favor of dialogue / imagery. After my second long work read like a Victorian novel that had been justifiably abandoned long ago, I was sorely tempted to revamp it and begin in medias res like a Greek epic. But instead of beginning in the middle of the action and then going back to the beginning, I would skip the flashback and hustle on to the end.
The shackles of the early lesson that detail matters in all things was almost unshakable until I read a Fletch novel by Gregory McDonald. Then another. Then another. And my literary background whispered to me what I should have innately known since reading The Old Man and the Sea many moons ago. Simple is better, and some things do not need to be written. McDonald’s dialogue is crackling with wit and delight, unencumbered with unnecessary padding. From that moment on, I became less serious in my insistence on forcing a reader to see every scene in a work exactly as I do. I did not go hog wild with the freedom, but I was very energized by knowing that description is very important if you are describing the unfamiliar, and that it is annoying and boring if you are describing the overly familiar.
I wish I had unlearned that lesson much earlier.
