Writing Is Like ...

Last Book Read: How To Write Science Fiction And Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Writing is not like a box of chocolates. Or maybe it is. But I'm not going to talk about that.

Writing is like programming/coding. I've spent a lot of time the past few weeks on the latter for a website (XHTML and CSS and PHP - oh my!) and there are similarities.

• Writing/Coding is a craft.

Crafts take time to learn, but can be learned and taught. Crafts require mastery of basic principles before more advanced skills can be learned and used. Day one will bring 'Once upon a time'/'Hello world', not 'Call me Ishmael'/recursive array calls.


• Genres are like computer languages

If one can handle the basics of fiction one can write Fantasy. If one knows the logic of loops, one can use them in any language. What matters are the subtleties, the rules within each genre/language that one has to learn or otherwise violate at one's peril.


• Great writers/programmers are lazy

Write once is a common motto. Neither wants to edit/debug what they have created. It is necessary, of course. The goal is to minimize the editing/debugging, learning from mistakes, reusing techniques/code one has used before.

Of course, this comparison won't bear up under intense scrutiny. You all are friends so I know you won't point out details like, oh, that the themes of paranoia and questions about the nature of reality by PKD have nothing to do with the deficiencies of garbage management within C++ code.