Time to Write

John Steinbeck's Six Tips On Writing: Three

The Fall 1975 issue of Paris Review featured an interview with novelist John Steinbeck. He won the Pulitzer Prize and was a Nobel laureate, and The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are still required reading in many English and literature classes. I'm sharing six tips from that interview (culled by the excellent Brain Pickings blog), with a few additional comments by me. This is number three of six:

"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. 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."

It's important NOT to think of specific persons, too, sometimes. Some authors think "My mother's going to read this!" and it creates a block. When the time comes, you can tell your mother not to read it. Anyway, she's probably read Fifty Shades of Grey, so just get on with it!

(Great advice from great writers, along with tips on how to apply it to your own writing is what you get in my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

 

 

 

 

 

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John Steinbeck's Six Tips On Writing: Two

The Fall 1975 issue of Paris Review featured an interview with novelist John Steinbeck. He won the Pulitzer Prize and was a Nobel laureate, and The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are still required reading in many English and literature classes. I'm sharing six tips from that interview (culled by the excellent Brain Pickings blog), with a few additional comments by me. This is number two of six:

"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."

Many writers have trouble resisting the temptation to rewrite rather than going on. Often this happens as you re-read the previous day's work in order to decide what comes next. One solution: print out the previous day's work and step away from the computer and read it--without a pen in your hand. Without the tools necessary to rewrite, the temptation is eliminated (and it should be easier to avoid doing it when you step back to the computer as well).

(Writing advice from the best classic and modern authors forms the core of Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

 

John Steinbeck's Six Tips On Writing: One

The Fall 1975 issue of Paris Review featured an interview with novelist John Steinbeck. He won the Pulitzer Prize and was a Nobel laureate, and The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are still required reading in many English and literature classes.

Here are six tips from that interview (culled by the excellent Brain Pickings blog), with a few additional comments by me. First:

"Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised."

The idea of filling 200 or 400 blank pages (or 120, for screenplay writers) is so daunting to many people that they never do write page one. In addition to focusing on one page at a time, as Steinbeck suggests, remember that you don't have to start at the beginning. If there's a scene somewhere else in the story you feel more ready to write, do it. Sometimes I'll write in a patchwork like that and in the rewrite make sure it all fits together. 

(Writing advice from the classic and modern great writers is what you'll find in my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number seven

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day; this is number seven of eight.

Pity the readers

They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don't really master it after having studied it all through grade school and high school--twelve long years.

So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists. Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify--whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales. 

That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique Consitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment. So the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.

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Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number five

 Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day; this is number five.

  Sound Like Yourself

The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was the novelist Joseph Conrad's third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin and employs a vocabulary as ornamental as a monkey wrench. 

In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.

All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens not to be standard English, and if it shows itself when you write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.

 I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.

 

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Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number four

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day; this is number four.

4: Have the guts to cut 

It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra. so to speak. [This refers to a metaphor in tip number three.] But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new or useful way, scratch it out.

Jurgen adds:

This is another version of "murder your darlings." If a sentence, paragraph, scene or chapter doesn't harmonize with the rest of the work, you have a choice: cut it out (or rewrite it), or keep it and rewrite everything else. 

 

 

 

 

 

Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number three

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day; this is number three.

3: Keep it simple

As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. 'To be or not to be?' asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Evaline' is this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. 

'To be or not to be?' asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long.

Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Evaline' is this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. 

Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Evaline' is this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. 

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'

Jurgen adds:

This advice is echoed by another of my favorite writers, Elmore Leonard, as well as many others. If people are noticing the writing, they're not paying attention to the story. 

 

 

Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number two

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day. This is number two.

2: Do not ramble, though

I won't ramble on about that.

Jurgen adds:

Neither will I. 

 

 

 

Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number one

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'll feature one per day for the next seven days.

1: Find a subject you care about

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way--although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.

***

Jurgen adds:

I saw this idea in action when I first went to Hollywood and worked as a script reader. The company for which I worked accepted scripts from all over the country, without requiring that the writer have an agent. I noticed that many of the scripts we received from writers outside of New York and Los Angeles were not formatted correctly but they had an energy missing from many of the "correct" scripts. I think that's because those authors were writing about things they cared about, instead of trying to guess what Hollywood wanted or trying to ape the previous years' successes.

Michael Morpurgo on writing: facts into fiction

This link is to an article in which Michael Morpurgo talks about how he combined elements of several true stories for his book, "An Elephant in the Garden":

- http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Michael-Morpurgo-man-feeds-imaginations/story-23668689-detail/story.html

I think it's interesting that although he could have written a version of the story set in England, he decided to challenge himself by setting it in Dresden. 

The book has been adapted as a one-woman play, which premiered recently in Exeter.

The article includes this advice: 

“It is important that you are passionate about the story. You have to really care. If you are doing it to get rich and famous – forget it. Writing will come to you, but the more research you do the better. There comes a moment when you must sit down and write. It’s in the writing that you find your voice. Once you start, your confidence and self-esteem build with it.”

Don't stop...but maybe change

"You fail only if you stop writing" -- Ray Bradbury

Bradbury never did stop writing, not until he stopped breathing. He gave you the feeling they were pretty much the same thing.

After the 99th rejection or a few particularly frustrating incidents it can be tempting to stop, but one thing I've found helpful is to switch to a different genre or even a totally different type of writing for a while.

I've spent a lot of my career writing scripts but when I got fed up with some of the more aggravating aspects of that, I switched to writing non-fiction books.

Since then I've tried something totally new for me, a young adult novel and a book for kids.

Yes, it's good to focus your efforts because breaking in to any type of writing is a challenge and you don't want to spread yourself too thin. However, as the saying goes, sometimes a change is as good as a rest.

(You'll find great writing advice from Ray Bradbury and many other classic and modern authors in my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass. It's published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

See this real-world example of how being specific makes a story more powerful

I'm sure you've come across the advice that making your characters specific makes your story more powerful, but here's a real-world example of how being specific changes how people behave. It's a preview clip from a new TV series coming to the National Geographic channel. It's called "Crowd Control" and this clip may inspire you:

 

The great escape (it's what writing is all about)

"Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with completely different people." - Roald Dahl

Being in a different place with completely different people is what made me love reading, and makes me love writing.

With a few exceptions, I've avoided writing (or reading, or seeing films) about serial killers, child molesters, and murderers, mostly because these are not people I want to spend time with.

If you do enjoy vicariously confronting horrible people, perhaps making sure they get their comeuppance more often than is the case with their real-life counterparts, that's great, too.

Either way, I hope you're taking advantage of our unique ability as writers to create worlds and people to live within and to share with thousands or even millions of our fellow escapees.

A word to leave out of your fiction (most of the time)

What's the word to leave out of your fiction most of the time?

Suddenly.

Almost everything happens suddenly. 

A shot rings out.

She realizes there's a man behind her.

The waiter arrives to take your order. OK, I guess he could amble over to your table...

You don't have to ban the word totally, but it is over-used, especially by newer writers.

Ryan DeJonghe did an analysis and found that in his early fiction, Stephen King used one "suddenly" every ten pages; in his later fiction, only half as often.

A good way to convey the impact of something is to use short sentences, each a new paragraph:

They were laughing and re-telling the story of how Jason got so drunk one night that he passed out on his front lawn. Even twenty years later that one made Jason blush. The sound of the passing car didn't catch their attention. They did hear what sounded like the car backfiring.

A blossom of red appeared on Jason's forehead. 

He blinked and fell over backward.

That's a case where "suddenly" wouldn't have helped; if anything, it would have detracted from the power of the sentence.

Suddenly the blog post ended.

Why you shouldn't write like (fill in name)

99U had a post today critical of the many articles that are headlined something like "How to Innovate the Steve Jobs Way" or "How to Think Like Warren Buffet."

It brought to mind how often writers see similar articles: "How to write like J. K. Rowling" (or another classic or currently popular writer). 

Sometimes they focus on the particular and quirky habits of the writer in question--that they can only write between the hours of six and nine in the morning, or only in hotel rooms, or that they drink only green tea while writing.

I do think we can learn from successful writers; that's why I wrote a book called Your Creative Writing Masterclass, in which I gathered the writing advice of more than 100 successful authors, classic and current.

However, using any one writer as your model is rather silly because the things that shape a writer include many that nobody else will ever duplicate. Certainly, go ahead and learn from Chekhov's lean but vivid descriptive style. But unless you can figure out a way to be born in 1860 in Russia, have a physically abusive father, become a doctor and match the thousand other events that shaped the man and his writing, you'll never master "How to Write Like Chekhov."

The most important thing we bring to what we write is our own perspective. My gripe with a lot of recent mainstream films is that whatever personality might have been reflected in the screenplay was eliminated by the time the movie reached the screen.

Fortunately, there are still independent films and off-network TV series that value that personality. One example is a series I missed when it was first on, but am currently enjoying, True Detective, written by Nic Pizzolatto. I can detect the influence of a number of crime writers in that series, but the result is Pizzolatto's.

First and foremost, write like yourself. 

 

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