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Advice to writers
Introduction
The following is based on information collected from Ann Petry’s journals and letters. I’ve supplemented this material with ideas gained from my experience as a journalist.
Read read read
- Read anything, read everything.
- Read the best in your field of interest. For example, if you want to write mysteries or detective fiction, start with the master, Edgar Allen Poe.
- Read the biographies and autobiographies of writers.
- Read poetry, and read it out loud. Every writer has a love of the language. Poetry develops an appreciation for words and for the compressed expression of ideas and emotions.
- Learn to read as a writer. Read through the material once quickly and write a short synopsis explaining why you liked or disliked the piece, whether you found the people believable. Describe scenes that you found outstanding or passages that caught your attention. What was the point of view? Was the dialogue believable?
- Re-read the material more slowly. Mark well-written passages. Also note places where the author mastered techniques or material that you would find difficult. Examine how the author makes transitions from one idea or one scene to the next. Observe how the author handles clues to the ending. Even with nonfiction, the denouement may seem inevitable or it may strike you as abrupt or implausible because the writer has deposited are false clues along the way. Note the rhythm of the work. Does the style suit the material?
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Listen actively
- Listen not only to the actual words but also to the inflection of the speaker’s voice.
- Observe body language.
- Listen for the message behind the words.
- It may be easier to learn active listening with new acquaintances. We tend to look through our families and close associates.
- Terry Gross, host of “Fresh Air” (www.npr.org) on National Public Radio, has much to teach would-be writers in the way she interviews her guests. Of course she asks the questions that her listeners want answered, but she also asks the unexpected, the questions that the subjects haven’t yet encountered. Observe how often the guest says, “That’s a good question.” That response is almost always filler to allow the subject to formulate an answer. Another clue to her expertise is the response: “Gee, I never thought about that before.”
Write write write
- Accept the idea that writing is a craft as well as an art.
- Understand that discipline and labor go into the mastery of any creation. After all, John Coltrane didn’t begin his career with the famous adaptation of “My Favorite Things” any more than Ann produced The Street as her first literary effort. Bear in mind that professional athletes work out every day. The best ones start training for the next season the day after the previous one has ended.
- Follow the example of Anthony Trollope and treat writing as a business. He wrote fifty novels over the space of about twenty years, and during much of that time he also served as a postal inspector. Ann called this a commitment to the effort.
- Trollope was also an example of a writer who needed to supplement his income because writing didn’t pay the bills. In this regard, Ann suggested choosing jobs as unrelated to the business of writing as possible. Another example: William Faulkner worked in a boiler room.
- Ann recommended against teaching as a job because it uses too many of the same parts of the brain as writing and drains energy that should otherwise go toward writing. Of course there are any number of writers who teach and love it, but be aware of the potential for conflict.
- “One of the most important qualities a writer can have is persistence,” Ann wrote. “There would be many more novelists and poets and essayists and playwrights if it weren’t for the fact that most people who seek publication give up after the first rejection – very few continue.” To that end, a writer must have a fairly good self-image and a belief in what she is doing. These qualities permit the writer to continue with the daily effort and overcome the almost inevitable rejections.
- Keep a journal as part of your daily discipline. Use it to record your feelings, your thoughts, interesting conversations. In this age of technology, if you are serious about being recognized, transform it into a blog and post it online.
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Books
- A thesaurus, unabridged
Roget’s International Thesaurus, HarperCollins, 2001, 6th edition is the most popular
There are others that use a dictionary format, but you should learn to use the original. It will help you learn the nuances of language and word meanings
- “The Elements of Style,” William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, 4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1999
- A book of English usage such as
- “Garner's Modern American Usage,” Bryan A. Garner, Oxford University Press, 2003
- “Columbia Guide to Standard American English,” Columbia University Press, 1993
- “Fowler's Modern English Usage,” 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2004 or
- “Modern American Usage,” Follett, Barzun (ed.), Hill & Wang, 1979
Books to read
- “Becoming a Writer,” Dorothea Brande, [paperback], Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1981
- “On Becoming a Novelist,” John Gardner, Harper & Row, 1983.
(Read this for the quality of the writing even if you don’t want to write novels.)
- “Painted Paragraphs,” Donald Newlove, Henry Holt, 1993
- Writer’s Digest – monthly magazine
- Writer’s Market (annual), published by Writer’s Digest, contains information on publishing
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