Greetings!
Today I would like to examine a quote by Mark Twain that has something to do with the novel we are reading on the blog. In the very least, the quote is about bending the rules whether you are a writer OR a yankee from Connecticut.
The quote goes: “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
Getting your facts straight
In recent posts, I have divulged the fact that Twain embellished somewhat in his writing, especially when it came to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which historical critics railed against for being cheaply historical; that is to say, it did not play by the rules of reality, favoring satire and whimsical narrative.
However, Twain’s quote makes a valid point when it comes to writing, or when it comes to any art for that matter.
“Get your facts first” means something in that writers should have a framework for writing first, whether that be an understanding of grammar or structure, or both. Likewise, writers should hold those things dear and be able to engage in the discipline in a practical way. It is at this point that they can begin to “distort” the facts as they please.
Bending the truth and the form
Many famous authors have distinctive voices, such as James Joyce, Harper Lee, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Joyce Carol Oates, Jane Austen, Kurt Vonnegut, and Banana Yoshimoto. Are they on point when it comes to grammar and conventions all the time? No. But that’s precisely the point. You have to learn the rules to break them, and I think that Twain speaks to that exact point in today’s quote.
You have to practice and learn the discipline before you can try to break away from the craft and create something new. Unfortunately (or fortunately) writers are bound by structure whether we acknowledge it our not. We learn it young and we see it perfected in text by those who have come before us; no matter, we can take what they have done and turn it into something new as long as we learn the basic structure.
Getting to the point where we can break the rules in our art takes time, but with enough practice and understanding of the fundamentals…we’ll get there.
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