Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever youâre writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead -or, worse, they will stop reading you. The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.
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[thatâs from] a rather obscure 1985 essay, âHow to Write with Style,â by Kurt Vonnegut, published in the hard-to-find anthology How to Use the Power of the Printed Word.
Vonnegut is a literary master who brought us other treasures on the art of writing including, The Shapes of Stories and Eight Tips on How to Write a Good Short Story. BAD LINK: USE THE SOURCES BELOW FOR THE 8 TIPS. (*updated* If youâre interested, you can find his daily routine here.)...
I found that page in hunting for a still-good link for his rules âcos they died in another WO post. Then I also found it at the London Playwrightâs Blog. SO much tempted me off on itâs own tangents! I just barely managed to resist (but Iâm goinâ back first chance I get)!
HEREâs where I failed to resist! :D A site with his anna buncha other famous authorsâ too!
<big>Annie Proulx</big> ...writes literary fiction brilliant enough to win major accolades (Pulitzer, National Book Award, etc.) and accessible enough to win a wide audience. She specializes in short stories, including âBrokeback Mountain," though her masterpiece may be the novel The Shipping News. She didn't begin writing until in her 50s and ... doesn't believe in rushing things.
5 Techniques for Good Craftsmanship
- Proceed slowly and take care.
- To ensure that you proceed slowly, write by hand.
- Write slowly and by hand only about subjects that interest you.
- Develop craftsmanship through years of wide reading.
- Rewrite and edit until you achieve the most felicitous phrase/sentence/paragraph/page/story/chapter.
<big>Billy Wilder</big>... was one of the greatest writer/directors in film history, having co-written and directed such classics as Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, and Double IndemnityâŠ.
- The audience is fickle.
- Grab 'em by the throat and never let 'em go.
- Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
- Know where you're going.
- The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
- If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
- A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever.
- In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they're seeing.
- The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
- The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and thenâthat's it. Don't hang around...
Among the 17 more there with rules, advices, tips, techniques & ideas for writers/writing, Edgar Allen Poe isnât usually known for being hilarious, but <tt>damn</tt> I enjoyed his Five Essentials for Betterment of a Story!
P.D. James also lists 5, George Orwell has 6. Vonnegut & Neil Gaiman â 8 apiece. 11 from Strunk&White,
Jack Kerouc offers 30 and apparently said theyâre âcoolâ.
The others favored 10. Oddly clichĂ© from the likes of Henry Miller, Leonard Elmore, Andrew Motion, Corita Kent, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Michael Moorcock, Ronald Knox (detective fiction specifically), Tracy Kidder & Richard Todd, and Zadie Smith. But good stuff naeâ tha less.
And fun because, of course, not infrequently contradictory! :D
In the right column of this page at that site we also get 3 ways to cope with editorial/agent/publisher rejections, and a comforting list of multiple-y rejected famous authors.
<big>CHALLENGE:</big>
Which of any of these authorsâ rules, advices, tips, techniques, etc look the most promising to you? Share why! (Copypaste it from there, please, so we can follow yr thinking on that.)
<big>Over-achieverâs CHALLENGE:</big>
Write a fictional scene or moment that has something âreally, absolutely anythingâ to do with some idea or other from one of the authors, or to do with an author or two theirself!
One more authorâs: Sensible Shoesâ Seven.
Write On! will be a regular Thursday night diary (5pm leftkost, 8 pm Eastern) until it isnât.
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors (&/or critters.org/c/pubtips.ht), Absolute Write, and/or Writer Beware.
P.S. Write On Index & Tagging Project is HERE. And Write On dk index-tags HERE - click on TAG NAME at the top of the left-most column for alphabetical order if you like. The 3rd character in our tags is always zero, NOT oh, to keep ours from getting tangled up in the many DK tags that have âWro-â in them (case doesnât matter to the system, and sometimes not hyphens either) ⊠we had to plan ahead for that! :)