Writing Beyond the Rules-Thornton Burgess

I hope you’ve already read some of this author’s work.  If not, let me introduce you to a new friend who will bring nature into your home through stories.  Thornton Burgess is known in a lot of homeschool circles, most often for his books The Burgess Book of Birds, The Burgess Book of Animals, and the Burgess Book of the Seashore.  Though my eight year old most enjoys his thin chapter books such The Adventures of Reddy Fox.

For my own enjoyment I’ve been reading his autobiography, Now I Remember. I plan on marking some passages to read aloud to the kids this year, a bit of an author study as we read the Burgess Book of Animals to compliment our animal study this year.

The passage I want to share with you is less about nature, and more about his writing process.

“Do I make an outline? As I’ve already stated, I do not…

In school I was taught that in writing a story I should first make an outline, a plan or a plot, developing this as I went along.  A good story must have a good plot preceding the writing of it.  I agree with this all but the “preceding”.  When I write a story it has a plot, afterward, not before.  Of course I am wrong, but I am right-for me…

I gather that to the average writer a good preliminary plot is what a blueprint is to a builder or engineer.  To me it is but a stumbling block.  It gets in my way….

One of my greatest disappointments in life was to forego a college education.  With my mother depending on me I had to go to work instead of college.  Now, looking back, I can see that had a gone to college I might have fallen under the influence of professors who would have changed my whole train of thought, leading me to conform to their accepted and unquestionably correct rules governing self-expresssion and good writing.  Thus might have been destroyed, or been sidetracked, such originality as I possess.  As it was I was forced to work out my own salvation in a way.  In doing so I developed a style peculiarly my own.”

(chapter 24, Now I Remember)

His thoughts spur on my efforts to release the voice of my children through the written word.  I don’t have the way fully realized, but I don’t think I’m going to find it in a packaged Language Arts or Writing Curriculum-even though those clear steps seem so satisfying.  If I hold off on workbooks and mechanics, and instead I remain in this place of discovery, a little bit of uncertainty (Burgess didn’t know how his story would end), I’m hoping they’ll end up as writers who write to communicate, rules optional.

So my plan?  We’ll write.  Often.  It’s the same idea if you want to learn to draw-sketch everyday.  Most people can learn to follow five steps to draw a proper bird, but not everyone will discover his or her own style: