Grit

Sometimes while writing, I'll come to the end of a piece and there will be this one little thing I'm tempted to delete.  Quite often, it's that very same word, phrase, or sentence that gives the piece it's punch. I call that little thing the "grit".

It's frequently an admission of imperfection or a downright flaw. It might be the use of an expletive. It might be the relaying of an experience that includes feelings of deep sadness, fear, or loss. It's often the tiny nugget that links me, the writer, to the reader, and also to the rest of humanity.

Later, when I check it out, people say the grit was the best part. It's often the part that most resonates. It takes courage to leave in the grit. Keeping the grit in is the line between safety and risk for the writer. I'm reminded of a quote from a John Updike interview with Terry Gross on NPR.

“A writer is somebody who tries to tell the truth, right? And your value to your society is a certain willingness to risk being honest..."

In the 1946 book “Confessions of a Story Writer” Paul Gallico wrote:

"It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader. If you do not believe in the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your mind, strength, and will, if you don’t feel joy and excitement while writing it, then you’re wasting good white paper, even if it sells, because there are other ways in which a writer can bring in the rent money besides writing bad or phony stories."

Whether you call it honesty, bleeding onto the page, or grit, it's all the same thing. It's how you really connect with the reader, and if you're not trying to do that, what are you doing.

More later.