“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”
—Annie Proulx
Posts Tagged ‘writing fiction’
Fiction Writing Tip: Read, Little F*ckers.
In Loose Change on April 19, 2017 at 9:07 amRead. Write. Talk pretty.
In Murmurings on September 20, 2016 at 11:43 amI’ll be reading an excerpt of my novel-in-progress at Litquake, Oct. 9 2016. http://sched.co/7juH
It’ll be in a bar. What could go wrong?
The Writing Life: Mediating the Social
In Loose Change on November 6, 2015 at 10:39 am
For What It’s Worth: Writing Tips from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 7
In Loose Change on July 24, 2015 at 6:02 am
For What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 6
In Loose Change on June 19, 2015 at 5:50 am6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
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The Writing Life: Antisocial (Media) #2 — Behold the Internet Scorned
In Loose Change on June 15, 2015 at 6:00 am
For What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 5
In Loose Change on June 8, 2015 at 6:38 am5. Start as close to the end as possible.
Novel Writing: Is There an App For That?
In Loose Change on November 19, 2014 at 6:02 am
The Writing Life: Antisocial (Media) #1 — Like Me
In Loose Change on October 9, 2014 at 5:59 am
Writing Tip # 224: Magic Recipes
In Loose Change on September 25, 2014 at 6:05 am
“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”
— John Steinbeck
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Say… Writing Tip from John Steinbeck, No. 5
In Loose Change on September 22, 2014 at 1:18 pmFor What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 8
In Loose Change on September 16, 2014 at 7:01 amSay… Writing Tip from John Steinbeck, No. 4
In Loose Change on July 15, 2014 at 6:30 amFor What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 4
In Loose Change on July 11, 2014 at 12:50 pmSay… Writing Tip from John Steinbeck, No. 3
In Loose Change on July 7, 2014 at 9:11 am
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
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For What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 3
In Loose Change on June 30, 2014 at 9:43 amSay… Writing Tip from John Steinbeck, No. 2
In Loose Change on June 26, 2014 at 9:38 pm
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
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For What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 2
In Loose Change on June 24, 2014 at 7:07 pmSay… Writing Tip from John Steinbeck, No. 1
In Loose Change on June 19, 2014 at 7:46 amFor What It’s Worth: Writing Tip from Kurt Vonnegut, No. 1
In Loose Change on June 18, 2014 at 2:46 pm1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
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Fiction Writing Tip # 64: Healthy Workhabits
In Loose Change on June 10, 2014 at 12:07 pm
Fiction Writing: Dear Contributor…
In Uncauterized on June 6, 2014 at 5:39 pm
Writers, what would you grab first in case of fire? Your answer will reveal a lot about you.
In Loose Change on May 27, 2014 at 4:39 pmMaike Wetzel of Germany, the Goethe-Institut inaugural writer-in-residence on a cultural exchange in Wellington, New Zealand, has lost chapters from her new novel after thieves stole her laptop from her inner-city cottage.
Writers of all stripes: Excluding loved ones, of course, what would you grab first in case of fire? Your answer will reveal a lot about you.
If you said, “the fire extinguisher,” you are a technical writer.
If you said, “the Policy,” you are an underwriter.
If you said, “the Webster’s,” you are a proofreader.
If you said, “the Writer’s Digest Guide to (whatever),” you are definitely unpublished.
If you said, “my mint-con collectables,” you are an unpublished “speculative fiction” writer.
If you said, “my tender childhood things,” you are in your twenties and in an MFA program.
If you said, “my skateboard,” or, “the keys to my parents’ car,” you are a professional blogger for Huff-Po.
If you said the cat, you are single.
If you said the dog but your spouse said the cat, you will soon be single.
If you said your laptop, you were born before the original Apple Macintosh.
If you said your phone/pad/glass, you were born after Microsoft Windows 1.0.
If you said the emails or the internets, you were born before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If you said the Royal, the Remington Rand or the Olivetti, you are either a literature professor with tenure and a sclerotic liver, or a hipster with a student loan and a nose stud.
If you said, “The original story was about a theft, not a fire,” you are an editor.
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