3 Things about Writing That I Learned From “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins”

On a Girls’ Day outing with my hubby’s sisters, I found one of the books I loved and cherished as a bookwormish 5-year-old: “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” by Dr. Seuss in the Clearance aisle. Sentimental mush that I am, not to mention an absolute cheapskate, I bought it and as soon as I had the time, read the story again.

While I was revisiting with Bartholomew Cubbins I realized I’ve been learning from a master on the art of writing.

As early as kindergarten, Dr. Seuss has been giving me lessons on the finer points of the writing craft. Disguised, of course, as the baffling tale of Bartholomew Cubbins and his 500 hats. :)

Here are the three lessons I learned from Dr. Seuss on writing well:

Lesson #1: While you’re starting out, your stories or articles would be ordinary and plain, but it will always contain your particular kind of writing genius.

Bartholomew Cubbins had a hat that came to him through his father—a legacy that was handed down for generations of fathers and sons. Plain. Very old. Probably tattered. It wouldn’t stand out amidst a sea of similar hats in the Kingdom of Didd where Bartholomew lived.

That’s how your writing is just as you’re starting out. Trite, clichéd, and almost identical to the stories that you’ve read and cherished. Mere variations of popular plots.

It’s not something unique to you. The great writers also went through those ho-hum newbie years. (Although I’m not a great writer—yet—I still cringe whenever I read my old stories.)

But every writer has a unique writing genius just like how the feather in Bartholomew Cubbins’ hat remained standing straight and proud through generations of masters.

A green lens rather than a rose one that looks at at the world. A sudden yell every now and then amongst dull and boring prose.  A tendency to squawk maverick thought amidst the conventional and the likely. Whatever it is, there’s something unique in your writing that’s yours alone.

Lesson #2: You have to keep pushing, keep practicing, to get to the real gem.

Dr. Seuss brought an innocent, naive Bartholomew Cubbins from what appeared to be a routine, ordinary day at the market selling cranberries to a bag of anxiety and misery in the palace of an outraged King of Didd. All because Bartholomew Cubbins couldn’t take off his hat to honor the King.

The hat got pushed, flicked, shot at with arrows, subjected to magical chants, and even threatened with an executioner’s axe just to detach it from Bartholomew Cubbins’ head. But every time Bartholomew, an arrow, or somebody else tipped off the hat from his head, another one appeared to replace it. Until the 500th hat, that is.

Hat Number 500 was the epitome of what’s chic, stunning, and very expensive in their kingdom. It had the plumes of all the most exotic, most colorful birds ever, and the ruby in its center easily surpassed all the jewels in the King’s Crown combined. The transformation began at Hat #451, when the one feather became two, and by Hat #453, a small jewel had begun appearing.

And so it is with writing. I’m of the persuasion that a writer is not born, but created. Practice—the gritty determination to train and exercise your writing mind with your writing muscle and a pen and a paper (or tapping keys on a keyboard)—is what makes a writer a writer. You may have been born with that spark of talent but only with continuously writing your stories down—physically jotting and not just letting them run in your head!—will you get that spectacular, flammable writing genius that makes agents and editors weep in thanksgiving.

To use an old cliché, it’s the polishing-the-diamond bit of becoming a great writer. It’s hard work. It’s tedious. It’s boring. But you have to write. And you write and you write and as you write, you stumble onto unique turns of thought, fresh tales out of old twists, and sharp verbiage that zings. The extraordinary—stock in trade of all great writers—becomes the norm in your writing.

Lesson #3: It will take somebody else to recognize the brilliance of your “real gem”.

Bartholomew Cubbins never knew that his hat had started transforming at Hat #451. He never even knew that his hat’s exquisite beauty surpassed that of the King’s Crown. The King had to buy it from him with 500 gold coins for Bartholomew Cubbins to see his hat had metamorphosed.

So it is with your own craft: because you’re too close to what you’re creating, you won’t have an unbiased test of how good it is.

But there are outward signs to confirm your brilliance. An agent itching to sign you. An editor paying on spec, manuscript unread. Readers camping at bookstores on Release Day (think J.K. Rowling). Thousands of returning blog readers.

The list is long but one thing is true: your writing “gem” has become valuable. Bartholomew Cubbins went home with 500 gold coins. Writers have different takes on what that “500 gold coins” is—money, fame, immortality—whatever it is, you’ve become a writer of the level that you used to look up to when you were starting out. Ain’t that simply grand?

Want to dive into practice now? Start a one-year writing journal using creative writing prompts. Or, if you want an electric jolt to refresh your imagination, read the adventure of Bartholomew Cubbins today.