“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it” ~ Roald Dahl
Tag: fiction writers
Writer’s Wisdom: Neil Gaiman 2nd of 8 Writing Tips
Tip #2: Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
Writer’s Wisdom ~ Write About What You Know
Write about what you know personally, limited though it may be. Get your facts right. Try to write a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. ~ Frederich Forsyth
Author Ursula K. LeGuin Daily Routine
Source: Open Culture
Ray Bradbury’s Writing Wisdom #25
The writer must let his fingers run out the story of his characters, who, being only human and full of strange dreams and obsessions, are only too glad to run. ~ Ray Bradbury
Tip 6 of 6 Writing Tips by George Orwell
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous ~ George Orwell
Tip 2 of 7 Fiction Writing Tips by William Faulkner
Don’t worry about style.
I think the story compels its own style to a great extent, that the writer don’t need to bother too much about style. If he’s bothering about style, then he’s going to write precious emptiness–not necessarily nonsense…it’ll be quite beautiful and quite pleasing to the ear, but there won’t be much content in it.
Source: Open Culture
Hemingway’s Advice on Writing: Let Your Subconscious Work On It
Never think about the story when you’re not working.
“Hemingway says never to think about a story you are working on before you begin again the next day. “That way your subconscious will work on it all the time,” he writes in the Esquire piece. “But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.” He goes into more detail in A Moveable Feast:
When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again. I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”
Source: Open Culture
