George R. R. Martin on the two types of writers

I caught bits and pieces of BBC interview George R.R. Martin did about his work and the new show. I'm a fan of his books, so it was fun to sneak in a few minutes of the interview to see what he thought about the show and how he writes organically. Martin explained to the enthusiastic interviewer that there are two kinds of writers - architects and gardeners.

An architect, he explained, is a writer who crafts in excruciating detail the skeleton of his narrative and the identities of his character. An architect outlines and revises before even putting prose on page.

Contrarily, a gardener is a writer who begins with a seed, an idea planted from their swirling subconscious on to the page, and then tends that idea as it courses on to completion. Martin identified himself, smiling from behind that bushy beard of his, as a gardener. And, my observation of many writers who discuss such things or pen instructional texts on fiction, are these seed planters. They seem to generally regard architect writers as oddities.

Martin's dichotomy seems apt to me. I suspect there's a tendency for writers to identify as gardeners, but I certainly don't. When I try it, I suffer my greatest setbacks as a writer, meandering with decorative, but ultimately aimless prose. I paint myself into corners, and have no idea what I'm after. If I'm a gardener writer, I have a black thumb.

I think to myself, therefore, I must be an architect! A ha! Glorious! All I needed to do was prepare copiously, and then the writing will simply be laying the flesh on the bones I've so meticulously crafted. And, that may be so. But, there the tendency is to daydream, to outline or imagine elaborate settings that lack any actual narrative.

The dichotomy, like so many things, is easy to take too far, settling into prescriptive ideas about the process. Obviously, gardeners need to address plotting and planning at some point. And, architects have to inject some spontaneity along the way else they'll craft wooden tales.

At the very least, it was helpful for me to hear someone like Martin acknowledge that his organic approach wasn't the only path there is.