I am always hunting for information on how to write better. Most of what I find I’ve found before. But occasionally I find new insights, as I did last week when I read a biography of the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy by A. N. Wilson.
Tolstoy is considered a literary genius based on his two most famous novels, War and Peace (published serially beginning in 1865), and Anna Karenina (1875). I learned three important ideas to improve my writing from reading Wilson’s biography.
First, Tolstoy’s stories contain “hardly an incident, conversation or character” that is not autobiographical, according to Wilson. War and Peace “evolved out of Tolstoy’s purely private preoccupations and fantasies with his own family.” “Almost every particle of War and Peace bears a relation to something in Tolstoy’s personal experience.”
His epic story of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia centers on the Rostovs, a family based on his wife’s real family, the Bers. The animated Natasha Rostov is based on the personality of Tolstoy’s young sister-in-law, Tatyana Bers. When Tolstoy’s wife, Sofya, was pregnant and unwell, Tolstoy took Tatyana to a ball. Their experience becomes the famous ball scene in which Natasha dances with Prince Andrey. Princess Marya’s isolated existence in the countryside is based on Tolstoy’s mother’s and wife’s lives, one imagined and one observed. His own life as a soldier in the Crimean War became the basis for the Nikolay Rostov’s fighting Napoleon.
Second, Tolstoy’s characters are so believable because he knew most of them intimately as real people. While writing, he infused himself into their souls as he brought them to life. He became each character as he wrote, finding aspects of each character that we, the readers, can sympathize with. Each character “is imagined with all the intensity of Tolstoy’s being. He is each character.”
Tolstoy took people born a generation or more after the events of 1812 and transposed their ages and relationships. The characters were so true to life that his family recognized themselves as they read the pages of the novel.
He also used his eye for telling details to make his characters believable. For example, Princes Marya practiced “a Dusek sonata, the difficult passages repeated twenty times.” The Rostov carriage “dove down the straw-laid street.” Jealous Sonya “turned pale, then red, and tried as hard as she cold to hear what Nikolai and Julie were saying to each other.”
Third, Tolstoy focuses on scenes, not on plot or historical accuracy. In Anna Karenina, the first part of the story moves from one scene to another: Stiva’s half-hearted regret for his affair with the French governess, Levin’s club dinner with Stiva, Levin’s meeting with Kitty at the ice skating rink, Anna’s arrival at the Moscow train station where she meets Vronsky, the home party where Kitty refuses Levin’s proposal, the dance where Kitty realizes Vronsky is in love with Anna, the snowy train scene where Anna is agitated by memories of Vronsky. Each scene contains one essential quality: the forward thrust of life. These scenes are like short stories strung loosely together by the actions of repeating characters.
Of course, analyzing a great writer, and understanding what makes his or her writing great, does not guarantee that a writer will write well. I have heard some people advise to hand write, word for word, a paragraph of a great writer, and then to substitute words to make your own writing great.
A much better idea, I think, is to look at these three qualities of Tolstoy’s writing and incorporate them into your own fiction. Base characters on people you know well. Describe them as completely as you can, warts and all. And show them off in scenes where they live fully.
English Writing Teacher 