Tag Archive for ‘Thoughts’
Great Writing
Justin Kramon didn’t think he was qualified to call himself a writer. And then he thought about his favorite books, and had a change of heart: For some reason, I used to have the perception that writers should be interesting, well-rounded, generally knowledgeable people. I got this idea before I’d met any writers, and certainly before I started trying to become one. In fact, my perception of writers was a big obstacle to writing, because – and I have to [...]
Samuel Beckett on the Obligation to Express
“Someone once said, ‘If you go for the universal, you get nothing; if you go for the specific, you get the universal.’ “There is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”
Revising Nonfiction
Sometimes when you’re revising it helps to have a specific assignment. Last week in this space I listed some exercises that my fiction-writing students find useful. Here are some revision ideas that my memoir and journalism students particularly like: 1) Write down three adjectives (beautiful, aggressive, haughty) that describe a character in your narrative/memoir. (Be sure the adjectives describe different qualities, not the same ones. For instance, handsome, well-groomed, muscular are too similar, as opposed to handsome, talkative, and mechanically [...]
Tap Dancing on the Beach
Hooray and congratulations! It’s pub day for Debra Galant, whose new novel, Cars from a Marriage, “delivers wit, charm and characters who feel like next-door neighbors,” according to Booklist. So why does Debra feel like she’s tap dancing on the beach? Politicians kiss babies. I take pictures of them chewing on postcards advertising my new novel, Cars from a Marriage. I know this is neither dignified nor author-like. Nor are a lot of things I’ve been doing in the six weeks [...]
Writing Tip #11: Don't Listen to Hackneyed Advice
Write what you know? On second thought … “Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words ‘Write what you know’ is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don’t. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?” – P. J. O’Rourke “It still comes as a shock to realize that I don’t write about what I know; I write [...]
If Two Books Don't Sell, Write a Third
The novelist and creative-writing teacher Susan Breen offers consolation, hope, and advice for anyone trying to get published: I’ve come to think that publishing stories are like birth stories. There’s usually a lot of pain, but once you hold that bundle in your hands you forget all about it. Then you say, Let’s do it again! My own story, if I can hang on to this image a little longer, was like a very delayed labor. In fact, I’d come [...]
“You Have to Make It Excruciating Somehow”: More on James Cameron
Last week I posted James Cameron’s answer to the question “What’s the most important thing you know about storytelling?” Discussing Cameron’s ideas with the writer Bonnie Friedman – with whom I have an ongoing, percolating conversation about craft and creativity (as regular readers of this blog well know) –, I mentioned that I particularly liked his idea that “you have to take [your characters] on a journey – and then you have to make it excruciating somehow.” Excruciating – such an [...]
Writer, Interrupted
Jill Smolowe hasn’t been writing much lately. She has a pretty good excuse: Lately I’ve been thinking about writing. And therein lies the problem. Thinking about writing is one thing; writing is another matter entirely. Though my professional writing life continues to produce a steady stream of words (and a steady paycheck), my personal writing life—the one that produces memoirs, essays and novels without guarantee of income or publication—has been largely in hibernation for three years now. I know that [...]
The Essential Elements of Storytelling … according to James Cameron
The other night, flipping through channels, I came across a Charlie Rose interview with James Cameron. Say what you will about the director of Avatar and Titanic (and Aliens) — he knows how to tell a story. I was so intrigued by his answer to the question “What’s the most important thing you know about storytelling?” that I went to the pbs.com podcast and painstakingly transcribed it. Here’s what he had to say (minus Charlie Rose’s approving grunts and overtalk): [...]
Letting Go
Katharine Davis just finished writing a novel. Now comes the hard part: Writing a novel is a long journey. From the simple physical endurance of turning out all those pages to the emotional ups and downs of the creative act—it’s an enormous endeavor, consuming one’s life for years at a time. Writers often talk about the difficulty of getting started. How do you find the voice, where to begin, which point of view, the time frame, the setting? There are [...]
