Be the subject.
That's it. Sure, practice and good grammar make for smooth reading. But a good story is more than practice and good grammar.
A good story is empathy. And maybe empathy is not the right word. Becoming your focus; yes, becoming the very person or people or event about which you write.
That's where the transcendence emerges.
Here's a an example of empathetic writing. It's a rough example. It tells the story of my visit to a violin shop almost 10 years ago:
I called the post, "The Violin Maker."
“It’s sad when you begin to lose your sight and your hearing.”
He just got done telling me about the house he had in the mountains. The pictures were spread across the workbench. There were pictures of the blue sky in the mountains and of the rock and slate house. There were other pictures of a smoky sky, and still others of the charred rock and the missing roof. He lost thirty violins in the fire. He lost the only guitar he ever made. He made it for his son.
“You don’t have to see to make a violin though. Most of it is just feel.”
He pointed to the pale spruce leaned up against the wall. A corner of it had been smoothed. The feeling was unreal; it felt fake because it was so slick. It was natural though: no lacquer. “You can feel that; you don’t have to see what you’re doing.”
His loft was split in half. The front of it was filled with side lit violins and bows. I saw the violins from the street one evening. The back half was the workshop. Beautiful hand tools lined the walls. Their handles were made with all types of wood, some dark, some light. He gave me a hand plane.
“Once you see them you have to touch them.”
It was heavy because of the brass. Feeling the weight was like magic, like the feeling you get when you meet an old relative and their handshake is warm and soft and strong.
A 4x6 of sitka spruce leaned up against the wall.
“It’s fifty years old. They were going to use it for a mast or a boom.”
“Like on a ship?”
“Yes, they like to use it for the mast because it’s strong and light.”
I think I used the word fantastic half a dozen times while I was there.
“Its more aromatic than the Englelmann spruce.”
I smell wood by habit. The Engelmann used for the top of the violin was subtle.
“So does this wood get darker with age?”
He pointed up to an unfinished violin.
“Maple ages really well. It gets red.”
Red wood is an instant antiquity, especially if its used for something elegant like a violin.
“You have to let the wood age for at least five years before you use it. Once the violin is made, they usually hang it out in the sun for a week. The ultraviolet rays darken it.”
I wondered if anyone had the audacity to play a white violin. Audacity isn’t really the right word because there was nothing audacious about the soul of the wood that lay in the open ceiling of his workshop.
When I said things too quietly he would nod and say yes; the bad hearing was only a problem if I didn’t speak up.
“Sometimes I’m in the restaurant and I answer yes to things and then they bring me food I don’t want.”
He reminded me of Beethoven, who made my favorite composition when he was deaf and ridiculed.
Enchanting is a good word to use when the place you are in or the people you meet are disarming and honest like good violins. He was all three.
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