Writing tips from some of the greats

7 Feb 2015

Quote by authorised1960

Like the rest of you I HAVE AN OPINION, which I am free to express. Just because it does not chime with yours does NOT give you the right to slag me off as you see fit. By doing so you render your own comments pointless. There is a difference between disagreeing with what I say and making your comments personal. There are one or two who need to learn the difference.

Yeahhh, right. Okay. Maybe their counter arguement will be they have a right to put that opinion down, because it is completely irrelavent to the purpose of this forum. Or maybe just maybe because your facts behind those opinions are wrong.
sheepholy

Oh but I am guessing you will say, I may not like what you say but I will defend your right to say it?

Were was that when you slammed down my right to say my opinion by saying it was your right to slam it down.

You have an opinion that is yoir right, so to your logic. They have a right to slam it down as well.
=d>
Treat others the way you want to be treated, and this wouldn't happen.

7 Feb 2015

I have stayed out of this long enough. There is a very small book that was written a long time ago. Every potential serious writer should carry in his or her bag of tricks. I refer to what I lovingly know as "Strunk and White." Its real title is "Elements of Style. Anyone who has taken a serious writing cours should have it. I was trained as a computer enginer. My very first English class was a writing class. Believe me I was surprised that an engineer would need such a book. But it helped me in my 47 years as an engineer. I also have a very nice list of other books that I personally use and give to writers as reference material. Guess whay they are all *free*.

I just keep hopping from place to place.
I never stay too long.
I just keep moving singing a song.
So you better stop me if you want to chat.
Or you will never know where I am at.

14 Feb 2015

Quote by frogprince
I have stayed out of this long enough. There is a very small book that was written a long time ago. Every potential serious writer should carry in his or her bag of tricks. I refer to what I lovingly know as "Strunk and White." Its real title is "Elements of Style. Anyone who has taken a serious writing cours should have it. I was trained as a computer enginer. My very first English class was a writing class. Believe me I was surprised that an engineer would need such a book. But it helped me in my 47 years as an engineer. I also have a very nice list of other books that I personally use and give to writers as reference material. Guess whay they are all *free*.

***************

OMG! "Elements of Style" is a necessity. I still highly recommend it to my students and I cut my teeth on it in high school. Excellent reference Calvin. ❤️

Please Read My Latest Story (Click on the Banner):

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14 Feb 2015

I both hate and am obsessed with revising.

William C. Knott, in The Craft of Fiction, cogently observes that "anyone can write--and almost everyone you meet these days is writing. However, only the writers know how to rewrite. It is this ability alone that turns the amateur into a pro."

I constantly remind myself of that quote.
I don't want to be a person that just writes, I want to be a writer that happens to be human (imperfect). That helps me appreciate the value of the rewriting process and not ignore it.

Janet Burroway suggests asking yourself these questions to unearth your weaknesses, in her book Writing Fiction. She also suggests having someone you respect as a writer answer these questions for you as well. These are quite general pitfalls:

What is my story about?

Are there irrelevant scenes?

Why should the reader turn from the first page to the last?

Is it original? (I'll elaborate here. "Almost every writer thinks first, in some way or the other, of the familiar, the usual, the given...comb the work for clichés and labor to find the exact, the honest, and the fresh.")

Is it clear?

Is it self-conscious? [I call this self-indulgent] *see note

Where is it too long?

Where is it underdeveloped in character, imagery, theme?

Where is it too general?

*note: Probably the most famous piece of advice to the rewriter is William Faulkner's "kill all your darlings." When you are carried away with the purple of your prose, the music of your alliteration, the hilarity of your wit, the profundity of your insights, then the chances are that you are having a better time writing than the reader will have reading. No reader will forgive you, and no reader should. Just tell the story. The style will follow of itself if you just tell the story. (p. 338, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft)

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31 May 2019

Zadie Smith’s Rules for Writers

1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

3. Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.

5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.

6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.

7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.

8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

9. Don’t confuse honours with achievement.

10. Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.

https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/06/10/zadie-smiths-rules-for-writers/

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31 May 2019

Best advice on the list:
7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.

Worst advice on the list (unless you’ve perfected time travel):
1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

8 Jul 2019

How I Do It: Anne Rice on Writing Technique

1. Rely heavily on concrete nouns and action verbs. Nothing conveys immediacy and excitement like the concrete noun and the action verb.

2. Rely heavily on short sentences and even fragments. Long complex sentences, especially when filled with abstract nouns slow the reader and even confuse him or her. Break up these sentences. Or balance them with short ones.

3. Don’t hesitate to write one sentence paragraphs and short paragraphs in general. Never, never bury a key revelation or surprise or important physical gesture by a character at the end of an existing paragraph. Move this to a new paragraph.

4. Go easy on conjunctions such as “but,” “and,” “yet,” and “however.” The prose may feel fluid to you when you use these; but if you go back and simply remove them the prose may be even more fluid.

5. Repeat a character’s name often in dialogue and in straight narrative. Don’t slip into “he” or “she” for long stretches because if you do many fast readers will find themselves having to go back to determine who is speaking or feeling or viewing the action. Punch the proper names.

6. Be generous and loving with adjectives and adverbs. These words give specificity to the narrative; they make it vibrant.

7. When you repeat yourself in a novel, acknowledge it, as in “Again, he found himself thinking, as he had so often before . . .”

8. If the plot takes a highly improbable turn, acknowledge that through having the characters acknowledge it.

9. In writing intense action scenes, avoid slipping into “ing” words. It may feel “immediate” to use these words, say in a sword fight, a physical brawl, or an intense confrontation, but if you stick with simple past tense, you will actually heighten the action.

10. Remember that in writing a novel, you are crafting something that must be fully understood and experienced in one reading, yet stand up to innumerable readings in the future.

11. Never underestimate the power of the two line break. You may not want a new chapter but you want to cut away from the scene. Make the two line break.

12. Never get trapped into thinking that if you have a character open a door, he necessarily has to close it later on. You are creating a visual impression of a scene, and you don’t need to spotlight every gesture. And you can cut away from a scene in progress.

13. Paragraphs again: they are the way you engineer the page for the reader. That’s why I say never hesitate to make one line paragraphs and short paragraphs. You’re punching action or an emotional moment when you set it off in a paragraph. And you want to make things easy for the reader. Long paragraphs always impose something of a burden. The eye longs for a break.

14. Multiple point of view can be very energizing for a reader. The switch in point of view can be exciting. And multiple point of view gives you a chance to reveal the world in a way that single point of view cannot. Favorite multiple point of view novels for me are War and Peace and The Godfather.

15. A single point of view throughout is the best opportunity a writer has to get a reader to fall in love with a hero or heroine. The limitations are obvious; you can’t go to “another part of the forest” to find out what’s happening. But you have immense power in single point of view to get into the thoughts and feelings of your champion.

16. First Person single point of view can take the reader not only into deep love but deep antipathy. Great Expectations, David Copperfield and are shining examples.

17. If you find yourself becoming bored, then do what you must do to make the novel exciting again for you. Never keep building a scene because you feel you must. Think of some other way to solve the problem that is goading you to write what you don’t enjoy.

18. When you feel yourself getting tired, stop and read something that is energizing. The opening pages of Stephen King’s Firestarter always refresh me and send me back to the keyboard. So does reading any part of Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. So does reading The Godfather. So does reading a Hemingway short story.

19. Keep going. Remember that you must finish the novel for it to have a chance in this world. You absolutely must complete it. And of course, as soon as I do I think of new things. I go back, refining, adding a little. And when I stop feeling the urge to do that, well, I know it’s really finished.

20. If these “rules” or suggestions don’t work for you, by all means disregard them completely! You’re the boss when it comes to your writing.

https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2017/10/09/anne-rice-writing-technique/