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This is a letter the Nobel Prize winning American author John Steinbeck wrote for beginning writers: "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."
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I believe writing was the first truly verifiable and effective form of magic. Think of how it must have impressed people in ancient times! As author Tom Robbins aptly put it:"Science gives man what he needs, But magic gives him what he wants."
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The most pervasive and destructive illusion floating around the writing universe is that you can write something good without order and structure. Even if you just wing it, if you like to make it up as you go, you’ll end up rewriting and revising until an ordered structure emerges and becomes the skeleton of a finished piece. Advice from Larry Brooks.
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Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray.
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Writing is easy: All you have to do is start writing, finish writing, and make sure it's good. But here's some vastly more useful wisdom and advice from famous authors, from Hemingway to Orwell, Steinbeck to Stephen King, who write: "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
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A collection of links and articles from the Science Fiction Resource Guide, with advice for aspiring writers on technique and overcoming writer's block -- as well as a guide to choosing publishers, agents and editors.
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You may be thinking: "I want to write a novel," but how do you go about it? How do you navigate between good intentions and procrastination? "Many people write novels just because it takes their mind away to an alternate universe, where their novel lives." Advice on creating characters, setting, seeking feedback, rewriting...and maintaining the habit of writing.
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Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
--Benjamin Franklin....... There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
--Ernest Hemingway
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Author Vonda McIntyre weighs in with advice on ... The Expository Lump, The Department of Redundancy Department, Neologisms, Titles, Subjunctive Tension, and other helpful hints.
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Is there a book inside you, longing to be written? Discover how to write a book, using free step-by-step tips, tools, and secrets that turn your passion into a novel or nonfiction book.
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Advice to would-be writers: "Yog's Rule: Money flows toward the writer. Any business that wants the writer to put up money should be avoided. A business that takes a cut of money on its way to the writer, such as an agent taking a commission, is acceptable, but the direction of flow should always be toward you, never away."
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Beginnings have to suck you in, make you care, and make you believe. The good ones also make you remember. Here's a sampling of the opening lines from Young Adult novels. How do these openings draw you in, make you want to read more? Markus Zusak's The Book Thief begins: "First the colors. Then the humans. That’s usually how I see things. Or at least, how I try.
Here is a small fact. You are going to die." Powerful!
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Always beware free advice. It is worth what it costs! That said, I get a fair number of notes from well respected, intelligent people who are embarking on their first non-fiction book project. The return on equity and return on time for authors and for publishers is horrendous. If you're doing it for the money, you're going to be disappointed.On the other hand, a book gives you leverage to spread an idea and a brand far and wide. There's a worldview that's quite common that says that people who write books know what they are talking about and that a book confers some sort of authority.
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November brings thirty days and nights of literary abandon...NaNoWriMo offers encouragement, support and deadlines to help authors complete the challenge: Write a novel in thirty days! 50,000 words in one month: Give it a try.
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What if someone went through the biggest and best blogs on the internet, and pulled out the very best-of-the best tips for fiction writers? Keep reading for the first 25 of the best 101 fiction writing tips on the web, i.e. "Your novel shouldn’t be a thinly-disguised memoir."
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Novelist Toni Morrison on what it's like to face a blank page and what it feels like after you've finished writing a book: "Usually there is a "what if" that might resolve the narrative, but the narrative is less interesting to me than the architecture, the language, all the other things that I can bring into the so-called story."
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The question of what propels creators, especially great creators, is the subject of eternal fascination and cultural curiosity. In “Why I Write,” originally published in the New York Times Book Review on 5 December 1976 and found in The Writer on Her Work, Volume 1 (public library), Joan Didion explains what compels her to put pen to paper.
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Advice from Charlie Jane Anders: One technique to fix problems with your first draft of a novel: Rewrite it as a shor story: "To do this, you have to pare away everything but the essence of your novel's story and then find a way to convey it all over again, using the elegant and shapely form of the short story."
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How to world-build: filling in the background for customs, government, geography, language, food, religion, ethics, history, technology, etc....What does it take to create a believable world?
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Collected lists from plaingovernment.org -- Improving communication from the government to the public, including humorous writing advice: Avoid Alliteration. Always. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.) Be more or less specific.
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How to write a novel, a screenplay, a radio play, memoirs. Advice from Martin Amis and other successful writers. BBC World Service
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Guest blogs with advice on writing from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America...
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Vonnegut writes, "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."
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A directory of inspirational articles, stories and exercises to keep you motivated and help you beat the dreaded writer's block. Articles on basic plots, setting realistic goals, and advice on publishing.
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Writing advice from Science Fiction author John Scalzi, author of Redshirts and Old Man's War: "First, buy a Writer’s Market. This is your Bible, Koran and Torah from now on. This book features just about every single market for writing that exists."
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