The morality of writing

Mark Krueger

When I was a young fiction writer, minimalist writers such as Hemingway, Camus, Duras, and Chekhov influenced me like many others. They had such an amazing ability to say in a few simple words something that drew me in and rang true with my experience. It was as if I moved effortlessly through their stories knowing that something profound was being said about very complex issues. Somehow they had found a way to focus on what was essential and in so doing painted a picture that felt very real and made the reader curious about the characters and what would happen to them. They were not trying to prove, only to show.

Raymond Carver also became a favorite of mine because he could write with a sense of truth that came from his experience. He showed life as it occurred for the downtrodden in our society and made the characters accessible to similar parts of myself, even though I didn’t consider myself downtrodden. In one of his books, Fires, he wrote about his influences as a writer and the note cards that he kept pinned next to his desk. One of these cards had the following quote from poet Ezra Pound: “Fundamental accuracy of statement is the sole morality of writing.”

Creative writers like this I think can help us express our experiences of Child and Youth Care. Finding the simplicity that evolves from complexity, portraying the work and kids in a way that rings true with our experience, and speaking with accuracy it seems are at the center of our ability to effectively express ourselves in way that informs the literature. For me, for example, there is something very powerful about a statement like, “He got up from his chair and joined the group,” if it comes in the context of understanding this is a child or youth who did not participate much and if you can get a sense of the tone and texture of the moment such as this:

The other boys were engaged in an art project, their fingers and hands full of paint. Unlike on other trips to the art room they were not teasing the boy in the chair. They were involved in their finger paintings. The art room was in the basement, but it was a cheery place with brightly painting walls. Sunlight shined through the street level window. I was working on my own finger painting next to one of the boys and had just invited the boy in the chair to join me.

“What’s that?” he asked, looking at my sheet of paper with several wisps of black and red like a Franz Klein expressionist painting. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to let my fingers do the talking.”

“But what are they talking about?”

“How I feel?”

“How's that?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure, part happy, part sad I guess. But I’m glad you joined us. Here, you try it.” I stepped aside.

“On your paper?” he asked.

“Sure. Let’s see what you can add.”

He took some blue paint on his fingers and made a swirling line across my work.

“I like that,” I said. “How do you feel?”

“Happy and sad” I guess. He smiled.

“I can see that.”

“Can I do my own?” He smiled, eager now to get to his own work.

“Of course.” I got him a sheet of paper and some paints and we made some room on the table for him to work.

“Can I make a mark on your painting?” One of the other boys asked.

I invited him over to help me with my composition.

“Come and see what I’m doing,” another boy said to me.

There is no attempt in this narrative to prove or explain. It is just a simple description of what is, and for me it shows something complex. I can see, hear, feel, and sense myself in that moment. I can also sense the boys around me. If you read it like I do, then there is plenty to see and learn from. We were together. I invited them into my experience, and was curious about theirs. We were involved in what we were doing. I was doing what I asked them to do, giving it a try and being open to letting them see me as I expressed me on paper. I was also curious about what they were saying in their paintings.

Too often these days we are presented with catchy slogans and acronyms that show little relationship to any thinking that has been done about the complexities of the issues, descriptions of the work and kids that don’t ring true with our experience, and contrived statements designed to please funders and politicians. Often these jargon-laden narratives say more about what the writers want us to hear as opposed to inviting us into the world of Child and Youth Care as it occurred in their experience. And we are left with a feeling of uneasiness that comes from writers who in their haste to prove something don’t tell it like it is.

We would be an even better profession I think if we insisted more on literature that portrayed the work like it is. Stories, articles and books that showed rather than told, like the stories, articles, and books that are being written by many contributors to this online magazine and the books and teaching in Child and Youth Care. These are the moral writers, and we can tell almost immediately because they draw us into their world and the world of the child by their insistence on speaking the truth of their experience. They show rather than tell us the simplicity that comes from a quest to understand the complexities, and their ability to express themselves in a way that rings true with their experience. And subsequently we feel welcome.